At a service this month in Bethnal Green, in London’s East End, it was clear that the mass karaoke was a highlight. “’Living On A Prayer’ smashes it so hard,” Jones said. “Or ‘Don’t Stop Me Now,’ everyone is like, ‘Oh, my God,’ I get to sing this at 11 o’clock on a Sunday–and I’m not even drunk!”…

Jones, meanwhile, had been struck by a flash of inspiration. “I left a Christmas carol service and thought, there’s so much here that I love, it’s just such a shame that there’s something in the middle that I don’t believe in,” he said. By the end of the road trip, the seeds that would grow into Sunday Assembly had been planted.

A few weeks after my first experience at an atheist church service, as news of the world tour and a fundraising drive was announced, and The Times of London published an approving editorial congratulating the charismatic Jones on the emergence of his new church, I began to wonder whether any right-thinking person could really be setting up their own world religion.

Sitting on a wooden stool in a trendy pizza joint in East London, Jones, 32, agreed to outline his plan for global domination. “The dream is a Sunday Assembly in every town, city or village that wants one,” he said. As he enthuses, jokes and extemporizes, it is obvious why he found success as a comedian and performer. Indeed, he is such a consummate salesman that he was chosen to front a series of advertisements in recent years including Colgate, the Eurostar train service and Ikea.