Paying for a congregation

virmilitaris

My mother-in-law is quite old yet still takes some part-time work, moreso for the company than for the money as it's quite small.

In Korea there are some jobs which we would consider quite strange, for an example people getting married will often pay people to come to their wedding as guests just for show. They want people to think they have many friends.

She also gets paid to be part of a live audience for a TV show or a guest at other events. The strangest one however happened last month when my wife informed me that her mother was been paid to attend a new church in a rather high class area of the city.

So far she has been paid to attend this church over ten times and whilst the money is quite small, about seven euro per hour, it's still quite a large investment for the church considering that most of the other attendees are also been paid. To put it into perspective the average wage per hour working in a shop or in a bar would be about two euro or two euro fifty per hour taking the high class nature of the area into account.

One offtimes hears how religion is a business and I think this is the most undiluted example of such that I have ever come across.

Has anyone heard of anything like this before ?

Beruthiel

Weird. What is the point of paying someone to attend a church? I mean, what exactly is the gain?

virmilitaris

Beruthiel wrote: »

Weird. What is the point of paying someone to attend a church? I mean, what exactly is the gain?

Ah sorry I didn't make it clear. It's to make it appear as if they have many members. More members = more people want to join.

Beruthiel

I was going to ask if people were really that gullible, but ya, I suppose they are.

robindch

Beruthiel wrote: »

What is the point of paying someone to attend a church?

Astroturfing

Their souls might even get saved in the process :eek:

magicbastarder

isn't korea a bit ****ed up with its attitudes to personal popularity?

PDN

It's certainly not something I've ever heard of before. Quite bizzare.

BengaLover

That nuts..please tell me thats in the USA, right?

PDN

BengaLover wrote: »

That nuts..please tell me thats in the USA, right?

No, I'm pretty sure that when I did geography in school Korea wasn't in the USA.

BengaLover

:D:D:D:D

robindch

Beruthiel wrote: »

What is the point of paying someone to attend a church?

Atually, now that I think about it, you could classify this as capital expenditure -- spend vast wodges of cash to astroturf your congregation to the point at which newcomers (attracted by the paid-for crowd) will hand over enough money that you can repay the initial scheme investors.

It's an interesting form of tax-free pyramid scheme.

I wonder if the scheme investors are people in other branches of the same outfit and who think that they're contributing to a charitable organization?

Dades

PDN wrote: »

No, I'm pretty sure that when I did geography in school Korea wasn't in the USA.

PDN, when you did geography Austria-Hungary was the second largest country in Europe.

Galvasean

Didn't Jordan pay extras to attend her wedding?

Still, if a church paid me to attend their sevices I would definately go, dressed like this:

mikhail

PDN wrote: »

No, I'm pretty sure that when I did geography in school Korea wasn't in the USA.

Yeah, but they've conquered so many countries since, it's hard to fault him for being unsure!

legspin

Dades wrote: »

PDN, when you did geography Austria-Hungary was the second largest country in Europe.

It was an empire rather than a country surely?

Dades

Don't call me Shirley.