The claims Friends and family
Does Go Church cut young people off from their friends and family?
No: Go Church told VRT in writing that members are not expected to give up hobbies or reduce contact with friends or family outside the church. Bishop Dag Heward-Mills has spent twenty years, on four continents, telling people to honour and look after their parents.
What the documentary said
They say everything that has nothing to do with faith is bad. Too much time out with friends who aren’t in the church, or aren’t believers. Or hobbies, for example. A lot of people had to give them up. Football, basketball, all sorts. Life outside the church is demonic, of the devil.
Er wordt verteld dat alles wat niet te maken heeft met geloof, slecht is. Te veel met vrienden buiten zijn die niet in de kerk zitten, of toch niet gelovig zijn. Of bijvoorbeeld hobby’s. Heel veel mensen moesten er afscheid van nemen. Voetbal, basketbal, van alles. Het leven buiten de kerk is demonisch, des duivels.
Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. Your friends can literally lead you to hell.
Laat je niet in met ongelovigen. Jouw vrienden kunnen je letterlijk naar de hel leiden.
You can’t have unbelievers as friends.
Je kan ongelovigen niet als vrienden hebben. God zegt: Ga weg bij hen en zonder je van hen af.
Watch VRT at this point · VRT NWS Pano9:35 (opens the recording on YouTube at 9:35)
Go Church’s written answer
Van leden wordt niet verwacht dat ze hun hobby’s opgeven of het contact met vrienden of familie buiten de kerk verminderen. Dit geldt zowel voor volwassenen als voor minderjarigen.
Go Church written reply to VRT (published on vrtnws.be, 21 Oct 2026). VRT broadcast one sentence of the reply. Read the full reply in Dutch and English.
What the film left out
In English, Go Church’s answer reads: members are not expected to give up their hobbies or reduce contact with friends or family outside the church, and this applies to adults and minors alike. VRT had that answer before the broadcast. It was not in the film.
The line VRT plays in Bishop Dag’s own voice is a Bible verse. VRT’s own frame shows 2 Corinthians 6:17 on the phone screen under it. Paul wrote it, and Paul also wrote that he did not mean the people of the world, “for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:10). Bishop Dag writes that he has people of other religions on his staff, and that one of his oldest workers is not a Christian.
On family, the record contradicts the charge. In Durban in 2006, in Cardiff in 2003, in the Solomon Islands in 2025 and in California in 2026, he tells people to honour their father and mother, to visit a father even in prison, and never to use the church as an excuse to neglect their children.
The record: his own words, across the years
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2006
Durban, South Africa, Interfellowship Global conference
At an inter-church conference in South Africa, he tells the audience what a child owes even a father who has failed.
…even if your father is a thief, visit him in the prison and honour him, and say, ‘Daddy, God bless you. I came to see you in prison. Can I get something for you, Daddy? Can I do anything to help you? Daddy, I want you to know I love you. Daddy, I want you to know we are always praying for you, even though you are in prison.’ Why? Because you are my father. That’s the only reason on this earth: because you are my father and you brought me into this world. Even if you didn’t look after me, you are still my father. Even if you didn’t care for me, you’re still my father. Even if my mother tells me bad things about my daddy, my daddy is still my daddy.
Watch · Durban, South Africa, 200617:21 to 18:07 (opens the recording on YouTube at 17:21)
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2025
Honiara, Solomon Islands, Conference sermon
Nineteen years later and on the other side of the world, he tells the whole story of a young pastor whose father kept being arrested for fraud.
…in the natural, who is going to tell his mother or his father, ‘From today you are not my mother’? It’s not normal. One day one of my young pastors, his father was a thief. So his father had been arrested. He told me, ‘My father’s been arrested many times, because my father is always involved in fraud, so he keeps on being arrested, in, out, in, out.’ So he said, ‘What shall I do?’ I said, ‘My brother, go and visit your father in prison. Take him food, care for him, honour him, do everything for him in the prison, out of the prison, in the prison. When he comes out, never mention that word “prison”.’
Watch · Honiara, Solomon Islands, 20251:06:28 to 1:07:19 (opens the recording on YouTube at 1:06:28)
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2003
Cardiff, UK, Teaching to church workers
To church workers in Wales, on putting church before your own children:
There are two extremes. You see, where you don’t look after your children, and you use the church as an excuse not to look after your children and not to talk to them. It is not the correct thing.
Watch · Cardiff, UK, 200325:28 to 25:41 (opens the recording on YouTube at 25:28)
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2026
Silicon Valley, USA, Camp meeting
In California this year, the same advice:
There is an art of honouring your father. One day a brother came and told me, ‘My father is in prison. He’s been arrested’… ‘My father is a thief’… I told him, ‘My brother, go to the prison, take food… do everything for him… it doesn’t concern you whether he’s a thief, whatever: he’s your father.’ So that is it. Just look after him.
Watch · Silicon Valley, USA, 20269:33 to 10:08 (opens the recording on YouTube at 9:33)
In his books
Jesus taught us that we will never be free from the need to honour our fathers and mothers with substance.
I have several people from other religions who work for me. In fact, one of my oldest workers is not a Christian at all.
As I grew up, my hobbies were table tennis, squash, horse riding and swimming.
The scripture
When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
Dying on the cross, Jesus made sure His mother would be cared for. Bishop Dag’s teaching that a child keeps caring for a parent, whatever that parent has done, follows the same pattern.
For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother… But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift…
Jesus rebuked religious leaders who let people dodge supporting their parents by calling the money a gift to God. Bishop Dag builds a chapter of Those Who Honour You on this passage.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Jesus prayed that His followers would stay in the world and be kept from evil. That is the line Bishop Dag draws: choose close friends with care and keep living and working among everyone.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
This is the verse on screen under the clip VRT plays. It is in every Christian Bible, Catholic and Protestant.
The verdict
The documentary says Go Church cuts young people off from the world. His record says choose close friends with care, live among everyone, and honour your father and mother.
Questions people ask
Does Bishop Dag Heward-Mills tell Christians to have no unbelieving friends?
He teaches 2 Corinthians 6, that a Christian’s closest companions should share the faith. In the same breath he says you will work and live among unbelievers every day, and he writes that one of his oldest workers is not a Christian.
Does Go Church tell members to give up sport and hobbies?
Go Church told VRT in writing that members are not expected to give up their hobbies, adults and minors alike. Bishop Dag lists his own hobbies in his book The Art of Leadership: table tennis, squash, horse riding and swimming.