21 Business Ideas for Pastors to Make Money in 2024

Aside from tithes, offerings, and gifts, do you know there are some business ideas for pastors to make money?

If you’re into the pastoral line and you’re looking to start up side businesses to fortify your financial status, then you’re definitely on the right page. And you’re not alone. 

The pastoral call is demanding. You need to study hard, prepare sermons to canvas, and truly get to become intimate with the spirit of God. But the truth is – you need money. 

There are expenses you need to shoulder as a gospel minister, and you don’t want to depend on the pockets of the members of the Church for survival. 

Primarily, you need multiple sources of income to garner enough money to both help your flock with and handle other church activities – especially as it has to do with giving and outreach. 

Without taking much time, you’ll get a dose of 21 business ideas for pastors right here, and you can start any of these businesses and expect lucrative returns in the long run. 

Some of the business ideas for pastors on this list won’t cost you a dime, and others… quite costly to start up. 

That being said, here are 21 business ideas for pastors that you can delve into and make some extra money (even more than the $99k average pastor’s salary). 

21 Business Ideas for Pastors to Make Money in 2024

1. Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is simply writing to get paid. This is made easier by the availability of freelance marketplaces on the internet like Fiverr and Upwork. 

Now you won’t spend a dime here, and as a pastor, you can decide on how many hours of your precious day you spend working and hunting freelance writing jobs. 

To get started, you need to be sure you can write about something fabulous. My best bet is you’re a religious guru and the religious niche is most related to your career (being a pastor). 

So you want to search for freelance writing jobs in the religious niche – vet the freelance marketplaces for employers looking for writers in the religious niche. 

This is pretty easy as most of the freelance platforms have an algorithm to match your expertise with employers’ demands. So if you’re a tech guru and you fill it into your profile, the platforms automatically queue up jobs related to tech. 

Quickly sign up on either of the best freelance platforms and get to work. You can take 2 or 3 hours off your day to build a profitable freelance writing career in no time. 

2. Copywriting

Brands are willing to pay you a lot of money to write brief, highly compelling, and converting sales speeches and product descriptions for their products. 

It’s like this – you write for brands and help them with copywriting tasks, and you get paid. Copywriting doesn’t take a whole day. It’s a skill you need to master (at least to some point). 

Copywriting isn’t cranking up a 1,000-word article or a 10,000-word guide. Product copies are short and highly compelling. They’re tagged along with products and are easy to read. 

This is easily one of the best business ideas for pastors looking to make extra money. It gets easier to write copies that turn random (potential) buyers into loyal customers over time. 

And once you gain mastery of this art, then you’ll be on the payroll of multiple brands in a short while. This means more jobs and more money. 

3. Public Speaking 

Public speaking at events, programs, and other gatherings is one of the best business ideas for pastors as it is closely in line with what you do frequently – speaking. 

While you might not consider this a business idea or even take it to become a business in itself, public speakers not trundling the pastoral path cash in on public speaking as a business big time. 

4. Uberpreneur 

If you own a car, you can do this part-time as a side gig.  Being a pastor, you can explore your leisure hours during weekends to pick up random passengers using a ride-sharing app like Uber. 

It’s easy and doesn’t cost much. But you’ll need to have a car of your own first to make things much easier. You get paid for every passenger you pick up and you can do this as many times in a day. 

Another way around this is hiring someone to run around in your car using the ride-sharing app while you supervise the earnings and transactions. 

Come to terms with the staff you hire as to how much you’ll take home daily weekly or monthly. And how much he/she keeps daily (or weekly/monthly). This way, it becomes an excellent passive income stream. 

5. Graphics Designing

Are you a graphics designer or do you have a list of good graphics designers who design your church handbills and billboards? Then you can leverage the profit potential of graphics designing. 

It’s two ways – source for graphics design jobs on freelance platforms and outsource the jobs to experts in the field, or reach out to brands and organizations offering to help them out with everything graphics designing. 

On freelance platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, graphics designers get paid like rockstars. And you don’t have to do it yourself as a pastor. 

You can hunt for these jobs and outsource the task to someone else (apparently a reliable and efficient graphics designer). It costs nothing to explore this business idea. You can start right away. But if you farm out the tasks to experts, then you need to pay them off (which will cost money).  

6. Ghost Writing 

More than 80% of successful brands and writers don’t compose their articles in solitaire. They get help from brilliant writers who can replicate any writing voice, flow, and spirit. 

For a pastor, this shouldn’t be a problem (as you can speak in any manner or voice you choose). You want to brush up on your writing skills to venture this path. 

Ghostwriting is a profitable business idea for pastors, and the best part is it costs nothing to start up. You’re the asset here. And you get paid (more than $1k per article in most cases) to cobble up great content. 

7. Real Estate

I know one too many pastors making it big in the real estate industry. Don’t think they don’t do great with their ministerial purpose because they have just more than the name – they’re spiritually upright. 

With your influence as a pastor, people trust you. And you can turn this trust into opportunities that’ll generate good money. The real estate industry works with capital and trust. 

I mean, people need to trust you enough to leave you a million-dollar worth of property. You don’t have to look too far to start this. And I bet someone in your congregation is into the real estate industry big-time. 

Start from there and tap into the already existing influence and trust you’ve built over the years to propel your real estate venture. In the end, it’s all about buying and selling properties – you can push buttons with phone calls.

If you are already into real estate or just want to join the business, you can register on popular real estate listing platforms with a token as a subscription to sell or lease out your properties.

If you’re in Nigeria, Realty9ja.com is a good platform to buy, rent, lease, or sell properties.

8. Gospel Blogging

I don’t want to veer off the gospel line. So let’s stick with gospel blogging (which is still very profitable). Start a gospel blog, answer questions, and you can transcribe your sermons to text documents with the help of freelancers or your media team (if they’re that good). 

The first step – your niche is gospel. More than 2 billion people are already interested. Secondly, start your blog. This guide will teach you how to start a free blog even with an Android phone. 

Reach out to other gospel bloggers who will be quick and happy to connect with you. Have your media team create guest content on several other gospel blogs to build your blog’s authority, and then you can start launching ultra-relevant content on your blog to get traffic. 

When the traffic starts turning in, monetize your blog using affiliate links, and Google ads, or sell your books (and products) – more on this soon. 

What you’ll blog about? There are thousands of questions currently unanswered about God. You know better. Provide answers in a way that people will keep coming back for more answers. 

9. Gospel YouTube Channel Monetization

Allen Parr is one gospel minister who reaches thousands of viewers with his gospel YouTube channel called “The Beat”. He answers sensitive and controversial questions on the gospel and makes money doing that. 

How so? With more than 740k subscribers, he earns from selling affiliate products, and YouTube ads, and even has a $497 membership program. 

You can do this too, and you don’t have to be a gifted video editor or video maker to begin. Hire someone who can edit videos brilliantly, and efficiently. Or utilize the digital strength of your Church media team to publish video content consistently on your YouTube channel. 

This is inarguably a top business idea for pastors, choristers, and anyone called into the fivefold. 

10. Virtual Assistant 

Virtual assistants work remotely and they help with tasks admins don’t have the luxury of time to handle. They edit content, reply to emails, and organize meeting arrangements. 

But that’s not all – they get paid well to do just that. To become a virtual assistant, all you need to do is apply. Websites like Indeed, Fancy Hands, Magic, and PeoplePerHour are great at listing Virtual Assistant jobs. 

You have only so many hours in a day to carry out your V.A. tasks and keep the cash before it’s time to mount the altar. 

11. Proofreading 

It’s great to write. But great writing mostly beckons on the strength of great proofreading. As a proofreader, you vet content and mitigate unnecessary errors that introduce unprofessionalism. 

Proofreading jobs are rampant on freelance platforms and this is another business idea you don’t have to spend money, to begin with. 

On the bright side, craft corporate letters to brands, send emails to different organizations and inform them you can anchor their proofreading process with dexterity. 

It doesn’t take 10 hours to proofread a document – you can proofread a 3000-word document in about 30 minutes, and do that for several documents to earn $100 – $350 every time (depending on the budget of your freelance employer). 

You also have the option to outsource proofreading tasks to skilled proofreaders you know and take up multiple proofreading tasks to earn more. 

12. Crypto Trading 

Crypto has come to stay. And the decentralized system of financial transactions isn’t hostile to pastors either. 

You can tap into the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies while maintaining and running your ministry. With about $100, you can start trading crypto yourself. 

The best investment is to invest in yourself by learning to trade crypto versus investing in crypto trading firms to help you out. Invest time to learn everything you can about crypto. 

If you can understand God’s word with accuracy, then crypto isn’t as challenging. There’s a possibility to exercise your grace and faith in the crypto world. Who knows? You could execute a trade to make 40,000 times the initial asset you invested within a single day. 

To get started, acquire the knowledge. And get to know the best trading platforms out there. Personally (out of my professional experience as a Crypto Trader), Binance is best for trading. 

But if you want to acquire cryptocurrencies and leave them there to germinate over the coming years, then go for the Blockchain app (or Binance if you can control the urge to not execute daily trading anytime you set eyes on the crypto market). 

13. Catfish Farming

Catfish farming is profitable for anyone looking to start a business. As a pastor, this business idea fits in too. It’s capital-intensive and highly lucrative. 

You don’t have to become a fish farmer overnight. Hire someone to set up the fish farm and coordinate the activities of the farm. 

When the fish reach the maturity stage, you can sell them to make money or start up a catfish barbeque business off the produce of your fish farm. 

14. Poultry Farming 

Poultry farming is a great business idea for pastors and you don’t have to do it yourself. It’s cheap to start up and doesn’t cost much to maintain either (depending on the size of your farm). 

As a Pastor, you’ll have a lot of time to supervise your poultry farm from time to time while you focus on what God wants you to do. 

You can hire a staff to maintain and treat the Poultry just right while you focus on other things. Poultry farming also joins the list of businesses you can comfortably start from home without having to bother about accommodation (or a landed space for the business). 

15. Laundry/Dry Cleaning 

Not very many folks have the avalanche of time and strength to maintain their clothes. This is a good thing as it ushers in the need for Drycleaning and laundry services. 

Your pastoral line is compatible with this business as the majority of members patronize the services of a laundryman. You probably don’t have to do too many promos before a swarm of customers darkens the door of your laundry/dry cleaning business center. 

You won’t get to do the task of washing and ironing yourself; it’s onerous. Hire staff or more to get things done – your responsibilities are largely supervisory, financial, and promotional. 

16. Event Equipment Rental Business 

Owning a rental service business is one of the top business ideas for pastors looking to make money while making a positive impact in their divinely fabricated gospel ministerial path. 

So how it works is you acquire equipment like chairs, musical instruments, and more than spice up and make for a great event. Next up, you list them up for lease and get paid whenever clients come around to hire them. 

Customers hire and return the equipment within a specific timeframe so they’re up for lease again. The equipment is always yours, but you earn from them. This way they become assets generating a steady flow of income. 

Whether it’s a birthday party, an academic ceremony, a wedding, a night beach party, or a matriculation ceremony – someone gets paid for every hired piece of equipment in the scene. 

You can start this business yourself as a pastor, and let the Church know about it. 

The Church will mostly constitute a huge proportion of your first loyal clients regardless of the business your startup. You have leverage here. You’re trusted and it’ll be easy to scale any business you start up pretty fast. That’s Grace. 

17. E-commerce Business

E-commerce websites make a lot of money. In 2020 alone, Amazon generated a net income of 21.33 billion dollars. 

Your e-commerce website might not scratch 10% of that figure in the first few years, but having an e-commerce website is a step towards building a passive income empire even as a pastor. 

Don’t look too far, your e-commerce website could be all about selling Church items like microphones, pulpits, and cords. 

If you have a knack for multiple items, then you can integrate other niche products into your e-commerce inventory. 

Starting an e-commerce website/business might cost a few hundred bucks as you’ll need to run frequent adverts or depend on a long-term content marketing strategy to build traffic, attract your target audience, and boost sales. 

18. T-shirt Designing 

Do you know you can design t-shirts for free and get paid when people buy your t-shirt designs? On platforms (and web apps) like Teespring, Amazon Merch, and RedBubble, you can create your fashion store stuffed with your designs. 

The designs are printed on-demand which means whenever a buyer places an order for them, the company prints and sends the t-shirts. 

It doesn’t cost a dime to start doing this and you can get started right now. The more designs you have, the more chances you have at making more sales and more money. 

It takes about 5 minutes or 20 at most to design a virtual t-shirt (but it depends on the kind of design you have in mind; and how well you want to design your products). 

19. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is not a new trend and it’s one of the top business ideas for pastors to make money in real time. How it works is you create an online store, connect it to a supplier’s website, and upload product pictures (with the prices) on your store. 

Whenever someone clicks to buy, the order redirects to the supplier’s website, the supplier ships the item and you get to keep the markup profit. And yes, you don’t need to know everything about dropshipping to kickstart your side business. 

You can hire someone to build your dropshipping store, design and promote it, and handle everything that has to do with the online business while you focus on other things. 

If you’re still in doubt as to how well the dropshipping business is profitable for pastors (and anyone else), then the $10 million/year dropshipping story of Alexander and Andreas will set your motivation on steroids.   

20. Book Publishing

It’s normal for pastors to publish books and cash in on imparting the world with their knowledge, experience, and revelation. But it’s a business idea not very many pastors consider. 

And you can tap into it to create an inflow of income your generation will play benefactors to. Some of the wealthiest preachers and even motivational speakers earn a fortune from the sales of books they author. 

That being said, nobody writes a book in 24 hours sitting on a comfy couch. Start by co-authoring a book or become a guest preacher/speaker for a gospel TV station/show. 

Move it up to writing and publishing leaflets, pamphlets, and gospel articles. Study hard, and build enough intellectual/spiritual momentum to write your first book. 

21. Stock Trading 

Stock trading is one of the online businesses you can get into with very little capital as a pastor. It’s risky, volatile, and works with a set of time frames. 

As the crypto market, the stock market is volatile. You work with several indicators, charts, and signals to determine the direction of the market. 

The best investment, just like in crypto, is to learn the trade. Acquire the skill to trade stocks, and then you can capitalize on your experience and knowledge to maximize profits. 

Conclusion: Business Ideas for Pastors

While these business ideas for pastors listed here, won’t make you as rich as Joel Osteen or T. D. Jakes overnight, they relieve you of the stress of devising uncanny schemes to sieve funds from your Church. 

The best part is some of the business ideas on this list that cost nothing to start up can transition into passive income ventures generating thousands of dollars monthly for you as a pastor. 

In the end, it’s all about fulfilling the call of God while making enough money (passively) to push the gospel further and live a fulfilled lifestyle.

About Guest Blogger

Moses Ukanna is a certified information scientist, content creator, writer, entrepreneur, and CEO at Potent Stack Digitals. He takes delight in creating meaningful/helpful Content and believes in Quality over Quantity.