Arise Auckland pastors have announced they are closing its Auckland services and are planning to begin a new church next year.
In an email sent on Thursday and seen by Newshub, pastors Ben and Anna Carroll said they will stop the Arise Auckland church services.
"We are now in the process of closing down our Arise services here in Auckland in October and planning to begin a new church - Passion AKL in 2023," they said.
The pair said in their email it was "really encouraging to hear and see the excitement" of people on Sunday as they announced where they were headed.
"We are keen to keep everyone informed about what is happening for gatherings and the prayer points for this next season."
This comes after Arise Church was investigated after allegations of sexual assault, homophobia, bullying and actively discouraging victims from going to the police.
RNZ reported it had obtained a leaked copy of the independent report into the Pentecostal church by Pathfinding on August 12.
Pathfinding received 545 submissions and included reports of the church leadership sexually harassing members, interns being overworked to the point of exhaustion, pastors pushing their own politics, making racist remarks from stage, members being forced to leave their culture at the door, a lack of financial transparency, cult-like behaviours and actively discouraging taking complaints to police, RNZ reported.
Earlier this year, US-based Kiwi journalist David Farrier broke the allegations of severe mistreatment of Arise interns and employees.
