Fake pastors, an AI-generated church, a Bryanston address that doesn’t add up and a two-day conference with plenty of promises but very little substance… welcome to Empower 2026.
Johannesburg, South Africa (09 August 2026) – Just when I thought my relationship with completely fictional churches had come to an end… another pastor has entered the chat.
Well, not a real pastor. Or a real church. Or, as far as I can tell, a real conference.
A few months ago, I shared the story of how I was nearly caught by an incredibly elaborate fake church scam. For almost two months, my assistant and I believed I had been booked to travel to the UK to speak at “Elevate 2026”, a conference supposedly hosted by “New Life Community Church”. There were contracts, schedules, panel discussions, travel arrangements, professional emails, and a very convincing website filled with sermons, Bible study, prayer meetings, worship information, and plenty of God.
It was all fake.
Thankfully, I figured it out before handing over any money, wrote about the entire experience on Good Things Guy and made a video warning other speakers about what had happened.
I thought that was the end of it. Then, last week, American comedian Dan Nainan contacted me. Dan had recently been approached by “Living Hope Community Church” to speak at its “Empower 2026 Conference”, an event allegedly taking place right here in South Africa. While doing his due diligence, he found my video about the scam I had almost fallen for.
And the similarities were impossible to ignore.
So I’m writing about it again. I don’t enjoy giving fake churches free publicity but this is exactly how the internet helped me the first time around. When things stopped adding up, I searched the church, the conference and the word “scam” and other speakers who had shared their experiences helped me connect the dots. I want this article to do the same. If another speaker is approached by “Living Hope Community Church” or invited to the “Empower 2026 Conference” and decides to Google either of those names, hopefully they will find this before they get any further.
I’m taking something bad and trying to make something good out of it.
Related Stories
How Do We Keep Matric Dances Special Without Making Them So Expensive?
The Vlamo Video Was Horrifying. The Response Gives Us Hope!
View this post on Instagram
The Scam Follows a Very Familiar Script
What makes this particular scam so effective is that the beginning doesn’t really feel like a scam at all.
I have been a keynote speaker for more than a decade and this is how many bookings happen. Someone contacts you, explains the event, asks about your availability and fees and the conversation moves into contracts, travel arrangements and logistics. In my case, the fake UK church wanted me to deliver a keynote and take part in panel discussions. They agreed to my fee and signed a contract stating that my full payment would be paid two weeks before the event, along with my flights and accommodation (which they were going to send to me). Nothing about that process felt unusual. I have been booked for many talks in this way before. And then, just before payment was supposed to happen… the scam revealed itself.
Suddenly there was something I needed to pay first.
In my “scam”, it was supposedly mandatory UK Business Travel Insurance costing $1,700 (R27,448), which conveniently had to be purchased through their approved travel agent. I was told the money would be refunded after I left the UK. That is when I tapped out.
And it appears that Living Hope Community Church is running a very similar playbook.
One of the most disturbing parts of these scams is the effort that goes into making the churches appear real. The “Living Hope Community Church” website looks remarkably similar to the previous fake church website (which has since been disabled). There are sections dedicated to “Worship Hours”, “Sermons”, “Bible Studies” and, just like last time, an entire section about “Getting to Know Jesus”.
Maybe the people behind the website should spend some time reading that section themselves.
Using Christianity, the Bible, Jesus and God to manufacture trust so that you can steal from people is deplorable. The faith-based language isn’t incidental… it appears to be part of what makes the whole thing feel safe and credible. But start digging and that credibility falls apart pretty quickly. Red flags galore!
Meet the “Team”
Take a closer look at the people supposedly running “Living Hope Community Church” and things get interesting.
The team photos appear to be AI-generated. The names appear invented too. At first glance, you might scroll straight past them without noticing anything strange, but once you actually look at the faces properly, you cannot unsee it.
So, if a “pastor” named Daniel Bawden or Andrew van Wyk contacts you about an exciting speaking opportunity, run. If Rachel Peterson, the supposed “church event co-ordinator”, sends you an email to help organise your appearance, run faster.
Then There’s the Church Address
The fake UK church pulled a similar trick with its address. Being South African, I don’t know Manchester at all, so I didn’t immediately realise that the supposed church address listed on its website was actually in an industrial area. This time, however, they have brought their fictional ministry closer to home.
Living Hope Community Church lists its address as “101 Grosvenor Road, Bryanston”. There is just one small problem… there doesn’t appear to be a “Living Hope Community Church” there. The address places you in the vicinity of Bryanston Vet Clinic, Bryanston Primary School and Nando’s. So I guess “Empower 2026” includes a pup check, a meeting with the headmaster and some peri-peri chicken.
The church image itself also appears to be AI-generated. We ran a reverse image search and it seems the inspiration may have come from New Life Church at 1 Grosvenor Road. A real church. One hundred Grosvenor Roads later and apparently you have an entirely new congregation.
The “Empower 2026 Conference”
Then there is the event itself. The “Empower 2026 Conference” promotional artwork appears to have been generated using AI. That alone isn’t proof of anything, of course. Plenty of legitimate businesses and organisations use AI-generated graphics these days. But it’s everything around it that raises questions. There are no speakers listed. And the two-day programme looks comprehensive until you actually read it properly, at which point you realise there is plenty being said without much information being communicated. It is all fluff and very little substance.
The same feeling runs throughout the website. It appears to have been built from a template remarkably similar to the previous UK church scam, with large portions seemingly generated by AI. It has all the things a church website is supposed to have but very little that can be independently verified.
And that is becoming an increasingly important distinction.
Scams Have Had an AI Upgrade
Internet scams are nothing new. Most of us have been receiving ridiculous emails about unexpected inheritances, lottery winnings, banking emergencies and everything in between for as long as we’ve had email addresses. What has changed is the technology available to the people creating them. AI can generate convincing photos of staff members who don’t exist. It can write biographies, sermons, event programmes and hundreds of pages of believable website copy.
Put all of that together and a scammer no longer needs to send a badly written email and hope somebody takes the bait. They can manufacture an entire organisation. And then, spend weeks building a relationship with the person they are targeting.
That means our own approach to scams has to evolve too. We need to look deeper.
It’s not great, not trusting a church. Or any other business that contacts us. But this is the “new age” we live in. We need to do our due diligence. Search the organisation independently. Search the people involved. Check the physical address. Reverse-search photographs. Look for previous events. Search the conference name alongside words like “scam” and “fraud”. Speak to people who should know the organisation. And pay attention when an arrangement suddenly changes from them paying you… to you paying them.
Turning Their Own Theme Against Them
There is one final detail about Empower 2026 that I couldn’t ignore. The theme of this completely fabricated conference is apparently:
“Overcoming Adversity – Thriving Through God’s Power.”
Well then. I suppose, in a very strange way, I have taken their advice. The first fake church wasted almost two months of my assistant’s and my time. It frustrated me but it also made me realise just how sophisticated these operations have become. I was compelled to do something. I warned people. And months later, on the other side of the planet, an American comedian found that warning.
Perhaps that is the “good thing” here.
I couldn’t stop those scammers from building their first fake church, and I cannot personally stop them from building another one, but I can use the platform I have to make their job significantly harder.
I guess “Empower 2026” got one thing right after all… we really can overcome adversity. I just don’t think the fake pastors expected us to do it by exposing them.
by 
