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Bishop Brian Tamaki's high-profile Destiny Church, which arrived in Dunedin with a bang in 2004, is pulling out again three years later.
The non-denominational Pentecostal church has caused controversy with its radical views on issues such as homosexuality.
Destiny Church spokeswoman Janine Cardno said yesterday the last Destiny Church service in the city would be on January 21.
She did not know how many people attended the church in Dunedin.
The church's website claims 7000 members nationally, and the Otago Daily Times said Destiny had about 60 members in Dunedin in 2004.
Ms Cardno said a church conference in Auckland in October, attended by about 4000 people, decided to focus on building the church in larger centres.
The two South Island centres would be Christchurch and Nelson.
Dunedin's population in last year's census was 118,683. It is the South Island's second biggest city, behind Christchurch, which had 348,345 people on census night. Nelson had a population of 42,888 and was the south's fourth-largest city, behind Invercargill (50,325).
Ms Cardno said Pastor Gary and Karen Davis, who moved from Rotorua to lead the church in Dunedin, had their house on the market and would join the church in Christchurch.
Several Dunedin parishioners would also move to Christchurch.
"It doesn't mean that in future there won't be something in Dunedin," Ms Cardno said.
Bishop Tamaki has said he is ready to wage a war on "secular humanism, liberalism, relativism, pluralism" and on a "Government gone evil" and the "radical homosexual agenda".
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
