Then you joined a sucky religion. (Or at least one with !@#$ty leaders.) Religious leaders should focus on being of benefit to their members. Gotta keep the members happy so they stay and help out.
You might get promoted for making a temple, which could result in monthly grant or more debt is allowed. Otherwise what ways are there for a non-priest to expand faith? Convert nobles but the grants and allowed debt can also be bad as the gold has to come from somewhere so the more benefits they have the more they are going to want their members to donate. Gotta keep the, happy but other than giving gold, what is there to do? And if its just gold it's sucks either for the members for needing to donate a bunch to support the rewards or its asking a ton of gold from the religious leaders which results in people not wanting to be religious leaders.
