It’s all the rage now; every Tom, Dick and Harry is becoming a pastor, setting up their own churches and making lots of money, so why not you?

The late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the controversial church of Scientology, famously once said that ‘if you want to get rich, start a religion!’.

You don’t need any formal education even though a grasp of the English language and the ability to read the Bible will be an advantage. You don’t need a ‘calling’ from God or have to endure years of studying in a seminary or university. You can pick up a certificate online that will enable you to call yourself a ‘pastor’, ‘bishop’ or ‘prophet’ for next to nothing from the very many fake Bible colleges or universities.

You don’t even need to prepare your own sermons – there are online Christian organisations that will send you a ready-made sermon, every day for free, if you register your email address with them.

But the one thing you will need is to be a powerful orator – you must be able to talk in a commanding and hypnotizing voice that will make people believe anything you tell them.

Next you need premises. Most pastors start off in their living rooms, boys quarters or room & parlour and move to bigger premises later on.

For a congregation start off with friends and family and get them to spread the word. If you can afford it you can ‘rent’ parishioners to give the impression a lot of people are attending your church.

Now most people who attend ‘end-time’ churches are not there to listen to sermons they want to see miracle healings, listen to prophecies and be cured of all their worldy problems.

To do this most pastors employ simple tricks of deception, like magicians and illusionists on TV – hiring people to pretend they are lame, blind or ill so they can ‘miraculously heal’ them.( – be careful here – a ‘bishop’ recently got a man to lie in a coffin and pretend to be dead so he could bring him back to life. Unfortunately the man actually died and the ‘bishop’ was unable to resurrect him!). You can get an electrical engineer to build a device that will project holographic images of angels onto a wall giving the impression ‘angels’ are in your church just like ‘Prophet’ Shepherd Bushiri does. Or alternatively you can obtain ‘power’ from questionable sources such as witches, witch-doctors and other agents of Darkness to enable you to perform ‘miracles’. People are gullible and once they see or hear about the ‘miracles’ performed in your church they will flock in and then will be the time to start charging them. Start with the mandatory 10% tithe as your primary income earner. To make sure nobody skips their tithe because of recession or other mitigating factors get them to pay with debit card or bank payment app. This way the bank will take out the money automatically every month and pay it to you – and saving you a lot of hassle!

For your secondary income, which can also be multi-streams, you start by charging for counselling, ‘special’ prayers , anointing oil and water and whatever else you can think of!(Recently a Zimbabwean pastor has been selling ‘anointed’ cucumbers to his congregation and apparently the ladies were very excited – excuse the pun!).

But there’s more money to be made from a YouTube channel and publishing books.

To set-up a YouTube channel is easy, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist or a graduate. Just get somebody ( preferably a teenager with at least a working knowledge of iPhone 7) to video your services, upload it, get everybody to subscribe to your channel and watch your videos and Google will pay you, in dollars, at the end of every month.

The next best money-spinner is book publishing. Don’t worry if you can’t write a book because there are lots of unemployed English and media studies graduates out there who’ll ghost write for you for a fee. Just be sure to put a fancy title on it like ‘How to Pray for Money’ or ‘Make Angels Obey You’ and YOUR name as the author and get your congregation to buy it!

When the money starts pouring in from all your ventures the time will be ripe to start diversifying into schools, real-estate and other businesses.

If you keep it up, you might be able to afford a Bentley and a private jet in a couple of years – and a First Class ticket to Hell!

Tony Ogunlowo

Follow me on Twitter: @Archangel641 or visit http://www.archangel641. blogspot.co.uk