Have you ever been in a meeting, whether it is a business meeting or civic meeting or some other type of meeting and the speaker begins to “share the gospel”? You know some type of message which includes the message normally heard in a church service. I am not speaking about a generic prayer for wisdom or guidance but, some verbal link made between the purpose of the group and a Christian message. How did you react or respond – if at all? Was it confusing? Did it cloud or make at least a little hazy the purpose of the meeting or the group? If you were informed or knew of this ahead of time before the meeting began – that is a total different matter. But, if it was planned and you were not told, that is what I am talking about.

   Many years ago, I was a part of a business group which had morphed into a quasi-religious group. The stated purpose of the group was the business of selling consumer products. After you became interested in that and began to attend seminars and “retreats”; another side of the group became evident. Don’t get me wrong, there were very sweet and sincere people in the group. There were many folks who genuinely wanted to “succeed”. The operational methods of the group were revealed in stages. You were not told the entire scope when you first attended a meeting. I suppose the leaders wanted to see how committed you would become before they unloaded the whole deal on you. Maybe they wanted to see how comfortable you were with what you were being shown before you were informed of the next step.

   I came in contact with the group through a shift supervisor at the cafeteria where I worked while attending college. He was a likeable fellow named Dennis Farmer. He had a very interesting background which included being a Formula 1 race car driver in Europe. He would tell stories and catch the attention of many of my co-workers and friends. Every once in a while he would say something odd about making big money – but, not in racing. One day I started asking more questions and he began to tell me the Amway story. As best as I can remember, that was late in 1980. Well, it didn’t take long before I had decided that selling soap and vitamins and whatever else was a great part-time job. It began to garner more and more of my attention and well, you may already know the story. I attended meetings in the evenings during the week and began attending seminars on the weekends once every few months.

  

   As I look back, I can’t really remember where the transition came from selling soap to sharing the gospel came in. It was a smooth transition that went practically unnoticed by me. Several speakers at different meetings began “giving God all the glory for their success”. I remember thinking that was odd at first, but, growing up in a Christian home where we attended church during my childhood, this subtle switch did not make a big mark on my radar. I may have thought how great it was to be in business with other “Christians”. After all when you attended the big meetings in Raleigh or Greensboro or Asheville, on Saturday evening everyone was invited to an interdenominational Sunday worship service the next morning. Did I go? You bet! How great hear the people who were successful share their testimony how God was leading and using them in the selling of soap and hope! It seemed to all fit. Right?

   The marketing group was the Bill Britt group out of the Raleigh area. Bill Britt had been the city manager of Carrboro (?) and had made it big selling Amway and getting others to sell Amway or more accurately — the hope of selling Amway. At first, he seemed a bit bossy and opinionated. But, since I was dealing mainly with one of his down-line: Tony LeVan out of Statesville- I never met Mr. Britt in person. Most assuredly, for a couple of years, I was all into this stuff. There is much more to the story and I will share it at another time. I can’t leave the subject without telling about the Scott brothers. Jim Scott and Greg and Mark(?) were from Whiteville, NC. They were very much convinced that sharing the Amway opportunity was sharing the gospel that would help others be free from debt and worries. They were very sincere folks and quite humorous at times.

   Somewhere along the way, I realized that success in the group depended getting others to believe the Amway gospel and that if that did not happen, then you were not “growing in the business”. In essence, if you were not getting others in, you were not being blessed of God. It was a messy mishmash of people driving big Cadillacs and Mercedes and wearing tuxedos and looking fancy- all over soap and vitamins while telling other folks how happy they were. Why, if they “just followed the plan”, they would be successful, too! You must buy books and tapes, Books and Tapes! It took me a while to disconnect and for years I kept some of the tapes and literature. I went through periods of looking back to see if there was anything still attracting me to the glitz and promise of more and better and AMWAY SUCCESS. It also took years to realize what a perversion it was to equate success in getting others to believe the Amway story and work the plan to being blessed of God. Yes, what a learning curve. But, alas I was not the only one that was caught up in that mess. Has anyone else been down that road? How duped did you feel when you finally realized that what was initially put forth as the message of personal financial freedom with an overlay or overdose of the “gospel” – turned out to be a scam as far as you were concerned? Did you notice that the pressure for you to submit to and copy what the leaders told you to do – it did not always workout?  Did you feel empty or used? Can you see where this is headed?

   Now, I am not sure how this system evolved or why it has changed within the Amway distribution network. There may have been other disgruntled folks and some rules and restrictions handed down. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed changes in the marketing approaches for distributors inside the United States, but, the commercials keep coming on television. Maybe the problems were just within the Britt group I was a part of.    

   Let’s turn the clock forward to 1992. By this time, I was married and we had a daughter. The prior years for me had been filled with wading through different aspects of the “full-gospel” experience some of the seeds of which had been planted during the Amway years. As much as I would try to deny it, the Name it- Claim it –Word of Faith– Prosperity gospel at times sounded like Amway without soap or even visa versa. But, since while listening to the Name it- Claim it –Word of Faith– Prosperity gospel there did not seem to be a physical “product”, I was oblivious to any connection. For years, I listened to Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Charles Capps and others. I went to convention meetings for Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland and even went to a Word Explosion in Tulsa in 1987! It all was “very voluntary” and no one was requiring me to participate or compel others to participate in the quest to learn more of the “gospel” message. Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston, SC in 1989. Shortly after that time, I became confused and disgruntled over some events and began attending a church where the pastor did not embrace the Word of Faith type doctrine. That church experience ended in December of 1991 and in January of 1992, my wife and I came into contact with Gerald and Linda Southerland in Greenville, SC.

   As mentioned here in previous posts, my wife had known Gerald and Linda from her middle school or high school years. She trusted them. I trusted her trust and thus began to trust Gerald and Linda. What had happened in his church prior to our arrival was not mentioned very often. Over the years, I did pickup that his church had been larger before 1992. We were told when Gerald and Linda started receiving deliverance and brought that message back to their church from Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF)—many members wanted to “keep their devils” and left the church. When we arrived there were maybe 80 or so members. I could be generous with that estimate. As we came in, the exodus was still taking place. A recent anonymous source who attended before 1992 estimated the peak membership at “over 400 members”. Wow, quite a drop by the time we got there! That would help explain this source’s additional comments about Gerald’s preaching previous to 1992: “At the end of my time, every service was just money and demons, over and over again. That tension is what killed his church. Gerald was just ranting that people were not giving enough, and became obsessed with devils. People were not getting messages of hope or anything positive anymore, which drew them in the first place… The place emptied out, and people drained away. He even lectured about that, saying people had to be in the church every time the doors were open or they were going to hell. He sent them there by making church hell.”

  No, I did not get that perspective when I first arrived at Grace and Truth Fellowship in 1992. Well, there was preaching about devils and still the threads of the faith and prosperity message. One note of interest, before the church moved to the house on Blacks Drive, who came to preach a couple of special services but Dr. Jerry Gross and his wife- Bobbie. Honestly, I listened and realized they were still deep into the Word of Faith Prosperity message. It was sad and confusing as I could already tell Gerald and Linda were migrating away from that message. I felt sorry for the Grosses. But, where did the new direction and emphasis “away from that message” take the church? Why, we were moving into the message of strong prayer, blasting and deliverance!

   Over the years, the messages preached at Grace and Truth Fellowship evolved into slight variations or direct copies of the messages preached at WOFF. The longer one would attend Grace and Truth and then the special meetings of WOFF, the more you could notice the “sharing of God’s word”. Why, God was speaking the same things to both churches! How cool was that? Well, we didn’t say “cool” then, but, the developing synergy between the two groups was just sign of things to come. Jane Whaley would bring other “leaders” and regular members to Greenville to help cast out devils and get help for the Greenville members… At times, the meetings became quite loud and lively. When the church moved to the Blacks Drive house and began holding services in the basement, the meetings were even louder as the space was less and the sound of the loud prayer had nowhere to go…

   Not only was God speaking the same things to Jane Whaley of WOFF and then Gerald, but, the means to implement the messages and revelations were also “flowing” from WOFF to Greenville. When people had doubts or questions in Greenville, it became quite evident that Gerald and Linda were taking direct counsel from Jane Whaley. So, the methods to help members “live in God’s ways” also began to flow from WOFF to Greenville. We were being gradually introduced to the mind control methods used at WOFF. However, for many of us, it went totally undetected. We were totally unaware that the increasing list of rules and restraints that were labeled as “the way God’s people live” were in fact classic textbook measures used to implement mind control over individuals or a group of people. These measures worked whether or not the group was a church, a business, a political group or meditation group or whatever kind of group.

   Now, that I am this far into this post, I realize there is no way to fully explain in this post the many surrounding dynamics that took place in the Greenville church from 1992 to 2002. So, I will list the points I want to make and hope the material leading up to here will be enough of a foundation to support my conclusions.

   When I was approached by Dennis Farmer about Amway, the message was first about a business idea and later contained a surrounding cloak of a gospel message in order to validate the whole parade of glitz and glamour. Some folks were turned off for sure, others, like me at 20 years of age were not put off by the whole deal—after all “they were preaching the gospel” and helping folks –right? As if that excused the deception used in presenting “the Amway marketing plan”? When you boiled it down, participation in the Britt organization was less about selling soap than it was about Britt selling his books and tapes and getting people to attend his meetings. In the open meetings, to soothe and/or ease the soul, there were hints of a gospel message; while in the invitation only meetings for distributors there was a more inclusive “gospel emphasis” to lend credibility to the whole concept. In my opinion, this was a devious perversion of the true gospel of Christ carried out by some very sincere folks.

    Years later, I came in contact with the message preached at Greenville and at WOFF. This too was a message of hope and answers to the ills of the soul. As a simplification, “You are the way you are because of the devils in you. If you submit to God’s ways and get prayer and deliverance, all will be better in your life. You will begin to know God and grow in the knowledge of Him. You will be saved and make it to heaven” So, how did you “grow in the business” of WOFF? Well in the early years of Greenville and WOFF there were books and tapes! After a while the tapes went away, but, the “bookstore” stayed. Other things were sold in the “bookstore” like Leigh Valentine’s make-up, new and used clothes and fundraiser items along with Bibles and candy and drinks. As with the Amway/Britt group, so it was at WOFF- both groups told you how to dress. WOFF was MUCH more controlling in that area. As with the Amway/Britt group, so with WOFF– the money flows up the pyramidal organizational structure. In Amway, “bonus” money came back down from the company. In WOFF, very seldom did money flow out of Jane’s office to regular members. Jane never disclosed the spending of tithes and offerings as other churches do. That was her “prerogative”.  As with the Amway/Britt group, so with WOFF, the purposes and methods are revealed in stages to prospective members. You usually didn’t get blasted and get deliverance your first time at WOFF. Also, you were not told in the first meetings how much your life would change if you joined WOFF.  You were not told that until you were “ready”.

   As with the Amway/Britt organization so it was in WOFF– there was a “gospel message of salvation” to cloak over the true purpose of WOFF- which was keep the money flowing up to Jane and the product of mind control flowing down the organization. As a regular member, the “product” you thought you were receiving was the peace of mind knowing you were walking among God’s chosen people, following God’s “Prophet” or as she has called herself in the past – “Apostle”. Similarly, Bill Britt billed himself as the leading distributor with the most successful Amway group. As with the Amway /Britt organization with the glitz and glamour, so with WOFF; there is the glitz and glamour of Jane’s clothes and her home used a model of “how God can bless you, if you have faith and trust Him and believe Him”. You grow in the business or grow in the Lord by being able to bring others in the church and help them find their calling which is always within WOFF. As with the Amway/Britt organization, those who left were considered “quitters” and failures; in WOFF those who leave are considered God-haters, Judases and to have given up the call of God. In the Amway/Britt organization, if someone left the group you were encouraged not to go talk to them as why would you want to know what a QUITTER thinks? At WOFF, you were forbidden from talking to a former member unless Jane gave you permission and you were under authority, otherwise you could “come under attack”.

   Until I actually began writing this post, I did not realize how many similarities there were between the Amway/Britt organization and WOFF. Ironically, while at WOFF, you were to get prayer and deliverance for being in Amway. Jane preached that Amway was a cult. Is that ironic? Can you say: pot calling the kettle- black? And we come to the question, after being in Amway, why could I not see the similarities in WOFF? First off, I was not open to seeing the similarities. Next, as with Amway, so with WOFF, I reasoned that it could not be bad for you—after all “They Were Preaching the ‘Gospel’” Right?  Well, now I see, not “the” gospel, but a different gospel. There is still a learning curve after leaving WOFF.   

   Thank you, for taking time to visit and read this blog. Please, consume the information on this site responsibly. The author is not a licensed mental health professional and encourages those that need professional help to seek it. The intent of the material is to inform and be a resource. Be sure to tell every member that you know at WOFF about this blog. There are readers at WOFF. Comments are invited from all readers, including present or former members. Polls are not scientific and no private information is gathered.

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       Please, take time to read the Terms of Use for this personal blog. As mentioned, for posts written by John Huddle, any information about WOFF is from his memories and recollections as perfect as that may be or not be.  Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted. (Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 356.