Norway and Stave church synergy?

I wonder is there some nice way that you can use faith generation of Stave church for Norway?

Pillaging enemy coast and land improvements with Norway is fun and pretty profitable, but the Church has puzzled me.

 

Grand Master's Chapel? Not really sure myself, but this is just a simple suggestion.

 

Its been a while since I played Norway but in theory with early uniques you should be able to get an early GA. So you an use your faith to spam settlers/builders while you go raiding. You can also buy great people with the faith until you get grand master chapel.
The stave chruch works pretty well with work ethic as well since it grants additional adjacency which is pretty usefull in every situation.

 

If the map is right, Norway can be great for a dark classical and heroic medieval. Focus early on getting a couple cities and holy sites up, hold off on building the longship (maybe - depends on era score), and build up enough land troops to hold your territory and (eventually) form an invasion force as needed. Then during classical you get easy era score for tier 2 govs, a religion, longship, stave church, plus starting to explore with your longships. As @Buktu mentioned, work ethic can be pretty strong with stave church, so you should have pretty well-developed and sizeable cities, which gives you a great homebase to go raid away. Then in your heroic medieval, you can spam settlers with what should be a pretty developed faith generation (and pillaging) and start spreading out across the world, while also getting bonus science from the harbors you'll presumably be building, and another benefit of your choosing.

 

On standard rules I would go for theocracy and domination/religious using the churches. Post R&F it would be grand master’s.
They could also hold relics I guess.

 

Monumentality to buy settlers or builders. If Valetta is in you can faith buy city center buildings for easy defense.

Also just Work Ethic.