“I refuse to be poor. I will be rich in Jesus name. The bible says God will not disappoint his servant. Today in the evening she will receive 500,000 shillings. But before getting that 500,000 shillings, she needs to pay something to unlock the gift from heaven,” the actor playing the role of ‘the pastor’ roared.

You see, last week, we used role-plays as a training tool to enable our learners to demonstrate they had understood the course content.

We asked our learners, trainees on our Capital for Business course, to create and act short role plays on the topic of their choice from the course content.

One such play, we have titled: “Money Driven Faith” is the source of the opening quote of this post. The role pay is available to watch free on our YouTube channel. CLICK HERE to watch, it is less than 10 minutes.

As I rolled over laughing at how ‘the pastor’ had executed his con, I honestly thought his character in the role-play was purely for comedic entertainment.

Lawoko played the role of ‘the pastor’

I thought it unlikely there are such ‘pastors’ executing such cons among the poor and vulnerable. I did not believe it to be a reflection of the truth.

Our learners corrected me and insisted that ‘pastors’ asking gullible congregants to “pay something to unlock the gift from heaven” is widely happening in communities where they live.

It left me wondering, am I the only one who did not know about the “performing arts pastor?”

So, I looked it up. I typed “pastors and the performing arts” and Google searched. I expected search results which would give insights of scourged o ‘pastors’ conning people.

I did not expect to learn of the existence of actual “performing arts pastors” or sometimes referred to as “creative arts pastors.”

For my generation, this is wild!

How so chaotic ‘organized religion’ is now from the perspective of my generation – Generation X.

Will this chaos be the final straw for us, that will wake up our people to shun conmen clocked in robes executing broad day light robbery in the name of God?

As for our learners, they are most certainly now consciously aware of a source of capital for investment, hidden in plain sight in their respective communities.

As their lead mentor, I sincerely hope our trained change agents do not join in the ‘money driven faith’ bonanza.

I hope they will utilize their new learning, as beneficiaries of our Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre Human Development Project, to innovatively re-direct resources to investment opportunities, for the greater good of their communities.

Our Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre Human Development Project, we are jointly implementing with Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief. CLICK HERE to read more about it,