Tier 2 (Minister of Religion) - Supernumerary?

[mikeinglasgow]

The religious charity I work for is licensed under Tier 2 Minister of Religion. We want to start a church (a church plant) in another city but the role requires the individual to be self-funded (raise their financial support through faith donations) as well as raise funds for the project itself - if this were to hold events, conduct research, create a website, attend conferences, advertise, the costs to set up their own charitable entity, etc. As we are a small charity, we won't have the means to pay a salary and thus it requires someone to pioneer this church plant. They would also be required to affirm the organisations statement of faith and be a Christian (occupational requirement).

I think I could say this vacancy/role is supernumerary - the work would stop if they weren't there, there isn't anything even 'there' yet in the city for our charity and if they weren't there, we wouldn't be able to carry-on (even start) the duties ourselves. So it's a pioneering project that requires the individual to fund the project and lead it.

I initially assumed it required the RLMT (and wasn't supernumerary until I read up on this) and tried to create a 'self-funded' role through the Job Centre. They rejected my job posting for failing to meet the NMW but we aren't paying them - they need to raise the funds themselves. Their T&C's don't allow voluntary/self-funded roles like this but if it's not supernumerary, then I am stuck as I cannot advertise through the required JobCentre online process.

So what is the role - given what I have described, could I justifiably say it is supernumerary and thus not conduct the RLMT?