By Ian Ortega
Lots of people have written to me asking for advice on how to make it in the church business. Many messages have been sent in through my blog (www.ortegaian.com) and I think it’s high time I shared the secrets on making it in this churchpreneurship business.
Only in Uganda where there are more churches than hospitals and schools combined. Everyone here is desperate for a miracle and the earlier you position yourself, the better. Follow these guidelines and you will soon be declared a millionaire. Our God will give you a double portion, a tenth fold.
1. Get an Attractive Name For Your Business (read church)
Don’t get something that’s boring. Come up with a name that’s bound to attract many youthful people and corporates. Perhaps a name such as “Finger of God” and an attractive slogan; “where God pokes his nose into your life and blesses you.”
2. Work On Your Accent
Many Ugandan pastorpreneurs have mastered this. Your accent is what will draw people to you. Make sure you have the ability to pronounce God as “Gad” and Spirit as “spurit” thereafter make sure, you have a good interpreter.
3. Take Public Speaking Lessons
These will come in very handy while doing this business. You need to make eye contact, you need to have those powerful postures. You should also read lots of self-help books and quote those statements while linking them to the Bible. Tell the congregation, “when you raise your attitude, God will lift you to another altitude.” And make sure everyone is noting down those powerful statements.
4. Buy A Tablet PC
Gone are the days of reading hard-copies of the Bible. As a religious entrepreneur, you must invest in those electronic media. Get a Kindle and read your Bible from there, tap with your spiritual finger, pause a bit then quote a powerful verse. Stick to verses that promise healing, wealth and better relationships. Never talk about verses that threaten people with hell. Stick to the gospel of Grace.
5. Marry a Very Beautiful Wife and Raise Her to the Level of Pastor
If your name is Pastor Ian Ortega, your wife automatically becomes Pr. Miley Ortega. Let your pastor lead the women’s group. Let her organize the Girls conference every year and talk about marriage issues while telling everyone wanting to attend to pay not less than Shs. 250,000 for ordinary and Shs.500,000 for Bronze and A Million for Gold.
6. Have a Radio Program and Possibly a TV Program
Make sure you are always on radio praying for people. Ask them to put their hands on the radio and believe God for their miracle. Ask them to have faith and command all those demons to disappear from their lives. Knock on the common problems everyone has. If you are addressing University Students, talk about retakes, exams and first-class degrees. If you are talking about women, declare that no woman who tries to destroy their marriages will succeed, send fire to their side-dishes.
7. Perform Miracles
Now let me give you a guide-line to performing miracles. Don’t perform the normal miracles of healing Ebola patients, of making the lame walk or the blind to see or resurrecting the dead. No way. That’s recipe for failure. Stick to miracles that you are sure are very possible.
Declare to a random lady that the witchcraft that had been sent to her is now gone. Declare to a Student that she will pass her exams with flying colours.
Stick to low-risk miracles my brother. Go to a congregation of 1000 people and tell them that someone is getting a job that month. Tell them that someone will get pregnant after waiting for too long. Assure them of their marriage that you’ve seen as you were praying.
8. Acquire Prophetic Skills
Here, you must have the ability to study the current patterns and base your predictions on those patterns. Take a few betting lessons and you will know the odds.
For example, now that you know nude photos are the order of the day in Uganda. Make sure your prophesy something such as; “God is showing me nude photos. A big, famous, celebrity’s nude photos are being leaked. I see her reputation being tarnished. I see her getting depressed. Please pray for this celebrity that God will deliver her. “
Go ahead and make another prophesy such as; “Oh No, God this can’t be. I see a great politician dying. He is dying in very unclear ways. I also see a great business man dying, and all his properties being taken by the creditors. Let’s pray for their families.”
9. Don’t Forget The Power of Tongues My Brother
You don’t have to be very clear about what you are saying, just get words from any language and mix them up randomly. Practice makes perfect. Go ahead and mutter out words such as; “Rikashambarabaababababa oooo shantabaya lexiconana my anaconda don’t unlessa gotta big buns…” Get someone to translate your tongues, someone with those gifts of the Holy Spirit. Let him interpret the statement to mean; “God is showing the man of God a breakthrough. He sees a woman, you’ve been crying for too long. You’ve tried all sorts of make-up, tried all sorts of things to trap men but none of them has said a word to you. God is showing me your Prince Handsome lady.”
10. Testimony, Testimony and Testimony
You can break the other rules but kindly don’t break this rule. It forms the foundation on which your churchpreneurship business will be built. Tell everyone to come up and testify. Make sure the testimonies have your name somewhere. This is a rock-star business, you have to share the credit with God. “Praise the Lord brethren. I want to thank God, that when I came here, my business in Kabalagala was doing very bad. But when the man of God laid hands on me, everything changed. I have experienced favour and grace. Clients come to me like flies. Even before I report for work, I already have phone calls from clients booking me for the night. I give all thanks and praise to God, and I have brought my etoffali.”
When you follow these ten guide-lines, you will soon be the name on everyone’s lips. You will soon open up branches all over the country. You will go ahead to begin a building project and build a mega church which will be opened by a big politician. Soon, you will be driving that expensive car that God showed you in your dreams. And above all, you may find yourself in a big scandal, but there’s nothing wrong with the scandal. That’s free publicity for you. Simply ask your congregation to ignore your haters. Build mansions as your congregation gets evicted from their houses over failure to pay rent. Organize over-nights and at the end of the year, book up a football pitch to organize a passover to the New Year titled; “2015, A Year Of Bombastic Miracles.”
That my friend is how to succeed as a pastorpreneur in Uganda.
Disclaimer: The writer is a practicing Agnostic who has no idea whether these things work or not. Kindly don’t try out these ideas at home. Excessive belief in what he writes could cause death.