To begin with, they have hired some of the best minds universities and seminaries can train. Graduates with MBAs are common place in the evangelical churches, bringing skills in marketing, management and financial planning to church administrative affairs, as if they were Microsoft, Citibank, Sony or Nissan.

They are into niche-marketing, targeting specific groups, such as the young, the middle class, farmworkers or top civil servants, as well as the millions of people who left the mainstream churches or never belonged to one.

For example, Pastor Creflo A. Dollar targets middle-class Black women, much like some churches in the Caribbean and Africa.

For his part, the Rev. John Osteen offers a variety of self-help services, including free marriage and financial counseling, low-cost bulk food and the use of “fidelity groups” to advise those suffering from addiction to sex.

Others have used church complexes to hold Sunday schools for children based on the Disney World model; organized Church cafes that look like the popular neighborhood coffee shop or medium-priced restaurants in the city, and run workshops on management for which attendees must pay a fee.

For example, Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, which has an annual budget of $48 million and employs 427 persons, generates an additional $4 million from its coffee shop, restaurants, auto repair and summer camps.

“We have cowboy churches for people working on ranches, country music churches, even motorcycle churches aimed at bikers,” explained Martin King of the 16.4 million- member Southern Baptist Convention.

There’s more. Many have put aside the staid hymns, which are staples of the mainstream churches, and use slick musical presentations that borrow from hip-hop and rock and scream music that appeal to youths.

Now, where does the money go?

Much of it goes into television and radio. The Rev. Dollar spends $30 million to produce and air his weekly TV sermons.

“It takes money to pay staff, have services, to provide for 60 ministries that we have, said Pastor Dollar, whose church had an annual budget of $70 million. “It takes money to impact lives.”

In addition, churches invest in large commercial complexes that include banks, pharmacies, schools and even housing.

“The Bible says in Psalms 35 and 37 that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants,” insists the Rev. Dollar. “Poverty is a curse. We have tried to equate humility and poverty, but it’s just not sound. It’s a curse. Jesus came to set us free from the curse of the law. Sin, death, sickness, and poverty are part of that curse.”

That’s why he advocates “humility with prosperity.” Pastor Osteen seemingly shares that view.

“I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers and that we are able to send our kids to college (and university),” he told a business publication. “I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing. [My view] may go against some of the older, traditional teachings, but I think we should have a mindset that God wants us to prosper in our relationships, our health and our finances. God’s desire is that we excel.”

He says the message is one of encouragement, of offering people hope for a better life, and that God “is a good God, and has a plan” for people.

“I am absolutely trying to bring them to Christianity,” said Osteen, perhaps America’s most popular preacher.

Obviously millions embrace what they are hearing. More and more Christian believers are turning to the preachers, fueling the growth of mega churches, which attract at least 2,000 worshippers every Sunday.

For instance, a Brooklyn mega church attracts 15,000 worshippers every Sunday, 95 percent of them are Black, many of them are doctors, high-priced attorneys, prominent elected officials and successful business owners and executives. Caribbean immigrants flock to the church whose Black pastor constantly reminds the congregation that he rose from poverty to prominence.

Incidentally, some of the most powerful people in Washington consider themselves evangelicals. For while former President Bill Clinton was an Episcopalian or Anglican, President George Bush, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert and a dozen other members of the House and Senate are evangelicals.

Pastor Laurel Scott, a West Indian who heads the Old West United Methodist Church, a historic religious edifice in Boston, doesn’t embrace the “Prosperity Gospel” because, she said, its message was “only a part of the Christian experience.”

She believes many people are turning to the “prosperity Gospel” because they are seeking instant gratification and may not be interested in the pain and suffering that go with every day life.

“Most people don’t think beyond the next few years and we see a phenomenon in the past couple of years in which young people are not planning to live past age 50 years,” she said. “It has become popular to live fast and die young. Most of us who are concerned about life beyond would see beyond immediate prosperity. The mainline churches will preach not just prosperity but will preach the whole of life. And there aren’t a lot of people who are interested in the whole of life. There aren’t a lot of people who want to hear about the pain that is necessarily a part of the human condition until that pain comes with it.”

And herein lies the rub. When the “pain” hits, asserts the Rev. Scott, that’s when people either turn back to the mainstream churches or want to hear about coping with problems.

“That’s when we see many of them,” she declared.