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.