It used to be that we could operate from the utter safety of a Seminary. Instead of one church we could have influence over dozens. However, this method has weaknesses. We still have our seminaries and they still create the basis of the philosophical beliefs that many of the believers hold, but we have had to work on a more direct form of control. Pursuit of academic work within the First Church now take a backseat to fieldwork.
Anthropological fieldwork is similar, as is Missionary work.
Often, a Minister goes out and starts a church. Sometimes, especially in the case of a Tele-evangelical ministry a puppet figure head is used. We target the rich and the upper middle class. We recruit like minded individuals and use our informal contacts as an invisible intelligence network. We learned this from the best.