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No. 21
Being a Korean, you really do tend to notice all the Korean churches that are spread over the place. Most of them are small-time operation run in either house with adequate spaces, or small buildings that are for rent. A handful of them manage to luck out and move to a bigger building, but that's another story.
Most of them rely on the traditional evangelizing pyramid scheme to bring in new customers they would like to sell Jesus's love to. I've been to some places that struggled to stay afloat after a rather noticeable shortage of church members, but from what I saw, most of the churches more or less seem to break even at least. Some of them managed to operate for a full decade!
Most of the successful church leaders have a few faithful, persuasive members under them who are compelled to spread faith to the unsuspecting. The tithes from the devoted and from those who want to buy their way into heaven, as well as the special holiday treats they get upon further challenging the members' faith are then used to pay for various programs supposedly designed to further bolster faith, while in reality it's something the pastors do to pretend they're doing something productive. The remainder, which is admittedly the majority of the offerings, are then used to pay off various administration fees before going straight to the pastor's banking account, which I am sure would be full of God's grace he's going to spend on luxuries in His name, amen. Did I mention that profits accrued under the name of religion are tax-exempt?
So, all in all, the amount ultimately depends on how persuasive and articulate the pastor and his posse are, and how many children of God flock around in order to avoid eternal death. Pretty easy money if you're planning on sticking through it for the long haul and are devoid of any sort of morality; religion degrees are a dime a dozen.
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