This helps to explain a lot to me. I had been on a pastor selection committee to obtain a new pastor for my church. Our previous awesome pastor had to leave when the church voted to become more conservative and this conflicted with his military reserve Chaplain obligation. We were incrementally stepping thru the process of identifying a new pastor when a very rich guy swooped in to help “plant a new church” and whoosh, next thing we knew, we had a new pastor and we had bypassed everything we had been doing. I left, for various other reasons. I hear growth has increased in the church, but my observations when I encounter still current church members, their nucleus of friends has not increased outside of the original contacts they had maintained before the new church. I always ask why we are helping these people when they have this large-scale church they belong to; and I wonder why there are never any new people who show up at these social events. I can’t say I hear complaints, but I wonder if there is an “enshitification” that can take place in these events as people work to increase membership.

> Evangelicals do not have much use for credentials.

This explains so very much.

For the behind the scenes investors in The church planning, can they personally profit from their investments? Church real estate can be valuable.