What do you think is the most successful product in Africa?
In Africa, there’s a church that wants to put a branch within five minutes of every home on earth.
And it’s gaining ground.
It currently has over nine million worshippers, 40,000 branches in 190 countries, and a Headquarter in Nigeria that’s the size of a small city.
And their head pastor is one of the richest preachers on earth—reportedly worth USD 110 million.
It’s called the Redeemed Christian Church of God (or RCCG).
The Redemption Camp has 5,000 houses, banks, supermarkets, and a 25 Megawatts power plant
And it’s not the only African church with size, reach, and deep pockets.
There are over 20 mega churches in Africa with over 10 million attendees each.
And six of the world’s top ten richest pastors are African.
That’s because Africa is…
The God-loving continent
In Africa, you’d be hard-pressed to find a person who isn’t religious.
It is home to 30 percent of the world’s Christians and 22 percent of the world’s Muslims.
And 95 percent of people in Africa believe in a deity.
You see it in the language.
Phrases like “God Abeg” and “God Forbid” are slang, but they’re also lighthearted prayers for your wishes to be granted or your worst fears to be averted.
“Bwana asifiwe,” that is the Kiswahili term for ‘Praise the lord!’
‘Ibaje eniyan kodase oluwa duro’, which loosely translates to “the bad works of a man do not stop the work of God.”
You see it in the names people have, with most people having either a biblical name or an Arabic one.
Muhammad, an Islamic name, is the most popular name in Africa.
Just as John, Joseph, Mark and Mathew are for Africans indoctrinated in Christendom
And you see it in the Churches—in their size and number of locations.
Some are the size of bedrooms; others dwarf stadiums.
The Redemption Camp Headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria, has an open auditorium that hosts 1 million people.
The United Family International Church auditorium in Zimbabwe can seat 30,000 people at once
A prophet in Tanzania recently inaugurated a 50,000 open-air auditorium in Dar-es-salaam with the country’s president gracing the occasion.
And the Glory Dome in Abuja, Nigeria, can seat 100,000.
For contrast, the world’s biggest stadium, the Narendra Modi Stadium, India, can only seat 132,000 people.
This open auditorium seats over 1 million people in one service. That’s roughly 10 times the size of the world’s biggest stadium
Africa looks like a continent in love with the gospel, and it is…
But the weird thing is, religion is hardly a moral compass in Africa.
The continent ranks high in child marriage, with 41 percent of girls in West and Central Africa married before age 18
It’s rife with interreligious and tribal violence
Abductions, enforced disappearance and murder are rife in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
Sub-Saharan Africa is ranked as one of the most politically corrupt regions in the world, with 90 percent of countries being in the bottom half of transparency rankings.
So, if religion is not a moral compass here, what is it?
We’ll let you in on a secret.
In Africa, religion is a product
Most people don’t think of religion as a product,
But it’s probably the most successful product ever.
Religion is about 10,000 years old
It has over 6 billion users.
And it has daily and weekly active users through prayers, sermons, and scriptures.
In May 2025, over 250,000 people gathered around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to watch a new Pope get elected. Almost 30 million people watched it worldwide.
And nowhere does it have a better product-market fit than in Africa.
Because Africa is a continent that runs on hope.
Most Africans live on a continent where things don’t often go the way they should:
Jobs aren’t guaranteed, and youth unemployment is at 30 percent in countries like Nigeria.
Health isn’t guaranteed and neither is treatment, because in Africa, a simple illness could mean financial disaster
And safety isn’t guaranteed, especially in places with a high risk of conflict.
Therefore, people need something to cling to for safety and to keep going.
For many, that’s religion.
It’s the hope that sells
In the colonial era, many churches in Africa were built by Catholic and Protestant missionaries.
Post-independence (in the 1960s), a new wave of Pentecostal churches emerged.
These churches didn’t just preach morality. They preached possibility.
They talked about healing, prosperity, and divine intervention in your daily hustle.
They offered prayers that promised to solve real-world problems: infertility, unemployment, and illness.
Today, there are churches in Africa that started off in small towns, but now have tens of millions of followers globally.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God, a church started by a math professor who became a Pastor, wants to have 40 million followers by 2030.
David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church, is worth over USD 150 million, making him the world’s richest preacher
And these churches keep up with the times, often changing their strategy and messaging to fit people’s tastes.
When literacy rates started going up in Africa, many of them printed books.
Rhapsody of Realities is a weekly devotional by Christ Embassy that’s sold billions of copies worldwide.
When Television came on the scene, they created TV networks.
The Perez Chapel International in Ghana runs an international Television network called Dominion TV.
Between 2014 and 2018, Dominion TV got over 20 million viewers every day.
And when tech came around, African churches adopted it and even built it.
Christ Embassy built Kingschat, a messaging app that now has over 14 million users worldwide.
Asoriba, a church management app, is used by over 1,100 churches across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda
Harvester’s Church holds church services on YouTube every weekend, with over 150,000 people in attendance
This ability to adapt has served them well.
But they have even deeper strategies that many startups can learn from.
So, let’s break it down.
How to start a startup church
Step One:
Have foot soldiers.
African churches have some of the biggest referral networks you’ll find on the continent.
Every current member was likely brought in by another member.
And they have specific members whose job is to go out to recruit more people.
These “evangelists” sometimes go into villages, faraway towns, or even overseas to preach to people and have them convert.
Sometimes, they settle there and become a part of the local community.
Making their bond with new followers even tighter.
Step Two:
Build an ecosystem.
Here’s a secret about the biggest churches in Africa: they’re not just churches.
They own schools, universities, hospitals, media houses, and even banks.
So, they’re deeply rooted in the everyday lives of people
Faith Living Church owns Covenant University; a private college consistently ranked among the top three universities in Nigeria
Christ Embassy owns Parallex Bank, a commercial bank where followers (and the public) can save money and grow their wealth.
And African Gospel Church in Kenya owns the AGC Tenkwet Hospital, a 400-bed hospital that serves over a million people in East and Central Africa
This tight ecosystem creates a kind of loyalty that’s rare in other places.
People attend church every week.
They share the word in the local neighborhood.
Their kids attend the church’s school.
They consume the Church’s content on TV at night.
They bank with the church.
Even global Churches have successfully tested these strategies in Africa.
The Seventh-day Adventists started a college to train church workers in Africa back in 1959.
And, 40 years later, in 1999, it transitioned to become Babcock University.
It then went on to produce the Paystack founders and has 15,000 students today.
Well, religion has foot soldiers and an ecosystem.
But its wild success is all built on one core ingredient that other products have used.
Enter: Emotional Utility
There’s a concept in economics called utility.
It’s a measure of how much satisfaction we get when we consume things.
When you buy a cup of coffee, you get an energy shot. And when you take a glass of water, your thirst goes away.
Religion gives us something even deeper: hope.
Not just hope that life will get better. But you will be better, that you’ll be healed, employed, and blessed.
And when it’s all over? Heaven awaits.
They’re selling heaven as a service.
That delivers a massive amount of emotional utility.
And this is true for some of the world’s most successful products, too.
They all address something deeply emotional to us.
Facebook gives us connection
YouTube gives us endless entertainment
And Google gives us knowledge
Religion, though, gives us the belief that no matter how bad life is, something better is coming
And in Africa, that promise sells like nothing else.
Religion delivers the biggest emotional utility in Africa.
And that’s why it’s Africa’s most popular product.
What do you think about religion as a product in Africa?