“God Is Bigger Than 2.7 Million”: Minister Marion Hall Turns to Crowdfunding to Buy a Church Building

• Minister Marion Hall launched a GoFundMe appeal for a church building
• She put the full cost at US$2.7 million
• US$1 million would let the church buy the property and take a mortgage
• At the time of the Observer’s report, the appeal had raised US$220 from six donors

Minister Marion Hall, the gospel artiste formerly known in dancehall as Lady Saw, asked the public in August 2023 to help her church buy a permanent home. The Jamaica Observer reported that she had set up a GoFundMe campaign and promoted it on her official Instagram page.

“We have found a property to build the home of Holy Ghost Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ. Can you please help us by donating to the purchasing and building of the Lord house,” she wrote. Hall founded the church in 2020 and had been preaching through livestreams since then. She became a born-again Christian in 2015 and was ordained as an evangelist in 2018 at Emmanuel Apostolic Church in Kingston.

She set out the numbers plainly. “The full cost is 2.7 million, but 1 million will allow us to buy it and have a mortgage,” she wrote, referring to US dollars. She described the property as one “with a building on it” and wrote: “The money may sound big, but God is bigger than 2.7 million.”

Hall said the site would also be used for community work. “This building will also the home of Marion Hall cooking ministry where we will feed the less fortunate once a week,” she wrote.

When the Observer reported on the campaign, it had raised US$220 from six donors, far short of the US$1 million target. The report did not say where the property was.

Hall’s appeal shows two ways Jamaican congregations increasingly try to become property owners: crowdfunding online, and a US$1 million deposit to unlock a mortgage on the balance. Online appeals can reach Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora, but as this one showed early on, a well-known name does not guarantee quick donations. For churches thinking about the same route, the harder questions come after the deposit: can offerings cover mortgage payments every month, is the title clean, and who will hold the property in trust for the congregation? Answering those questions early protects both donors and members.

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