Women’s Labor, Church Profits: Inside MCGI’s Mothers’ Club Operations

Women belonging to the Mothers’ Club inside Members Church of God International (MCGI) are being mobilized as an unpaid labor force for revenue-generating activities, according to accounts from current and former members and an analysis of the organization’s internal practices.

The arrangement, described internally as “voluntary service,” involves mothers regularly cooking, packaging, and preparing food products that are later sold through MCGI-linked local stores.

Despite the commercial nature of these activities, no wages are paid to the women performing the work.

Labor Framed as Devotion

MCGI has long promoted the Mothers’ Club as a space for spiritual service and discipline. Participation is framed as a religious duty rather than employment. Tasks assigned to members often include large-scale food preparation for items sold to congregants and the public.

Former members say the labor is presented as “for God,” shielding it from questions about compensation.

“If the cooking stops, the sales stop,” one former participant said. “But we were never treated as workers.”

MCGI Mothers Club at work

Essential Work Without Pay

Labor analysts note that when an activity is essential to the operation of a revenue stream, it meets the definition of productive labor, regardless of how it is labeled.

“If the organization cannot function without the work, and the output is sold, that labor has economic value,” said one observer familiar with feminist labor theory. “Calling it volunteerism does not change its function.”

The products prepared by Mothers’ Club members are sold at marked-up prices. The proceeds do not circulate back to the women who produced them.

Time Taken From Families

The impact extends beyond finances. Mothers interviewed described long hours spent in kitchens after regular work or household duties, often at the expense of time with children or elderly parents.

Economists describe this loss as opportunity cost—the value of what is sacrificed when time and labor are redirected elsewhere. For mothers, this cost is compounded, as their unpaid care work already sustains dependents who cannot work themselves.

Moral Pressure to Comply

Several women reported that refusal or hesitation is met with moral pressure. Fatigue is framed as spiritual weakness, while compliance is portrayed as righteousness.

This dynamic, critics say, blurs the line between consent and coercion.

“Guilt becomes the enforcement mechanism,” said former church deaconess and mothers club pioneer. “You’re made to feel that saying no is a failure as a mother and as a believer.”

Concentration of Profits

MCGI’s local store operations are reportedly controlled by entities linked to the leadership of Daniel Razon and his family. While labor costs are effectively zero, revenue remains centralized.

Observers point to the visible disparity between leadership wealth and the unpaid status of women performing production work as evidence of value extraction.

Echoes of Abolished Practices

Labor advocates argue that modern labor protections emerged precisely to prevent such arrangements. Wages were established as a boundary to stop systems from relying on uncompensated essential work.

“When that boundary is removed, you recreate conditions society already rejected,” one analyst said.

Calls for Accountability

Critics emphasize that the issue is not religious belief but organizational practice. They argue that faith does not justify unpaid commercial labor, especially when it disproportionately affects women already burdened with care responsibilities.

“The labor of mothers is not infinite,” said a former Mothers’ Club member. “It has value. And it should not be taken without consent and compensation.”

As scrutiny grows, advocates are calling for transparency, labor safeguards, and a clear separation between religious service and commercial operations within MCGI.