The Evangelical Industrial Complex has copied many of the very things that have “worked” so well in Amway: *Tell people that Christianity is all about getting your Dreams and realizing your Destiny. Check. *Tell people that having lots of money is a good thing that God wants for you (so you can help others, of course). Check. *Tell people to only listen to positive messages about success and prosperity. Check. *Tell people that they can speak things into existence because words have power. Check….

True Story

In the 1990’s my wife and I had three young children and we were in financial trouble; my income as an artist was very inconsistent. We were invited to become Amway distributors by a family member who knew we were the kind of “go-getters” who could really “make things happen.”

I was very skeptical at first, but I eventually gave in to the promise of “multiple streams of residual income.” In the late 1990’s we heard (and fell for) “The Dream Destiny Thingy.” This is years before it crept into (and devoured) much of the church. It’s a bunch of assumptions that go something like this: “God brought you here today for a reason; it’s not an accident that you’re in this meeting today. The reason you’re struggling financially is because you don’t have a dream-it’s not because you don’t have money! Once you have a big enough dream, the money will follow. Amway is just the business vehicle; this is really about changing people’s lives by getting them to pursue their dreams.” They would pray in the meetings like this: “Thank you God that you’ve given each of us the ability to dream. Help us to chase our dreams, discover our destiny and make a real difference in people’s lives. In Jesus name, Amen.” We were taught about the power of using the right words to speak things into existence. We had to be positive-all the time-because being negative would attract negative results.

Large Amway conventions are the ultimate gig for motivational speakers and other performers, and most of the really big guns were there, helping to prop up the illusion that Amway was a great opportunity for anyone willing to work hard and stick to it. Zig Ziglar, Robert Kiyosaki, John Maxwell and other big name speakers have all done the Amway gig; people would even write books praising the Amway opportunity because they knew thousands of distributors would buy them; it was a built-in audience of niche consumers. I tried not to notice how these people making money by praising Amway never actually joined up and and became an Amway Independant Business Owner themselves.

But the best speakers in the Amway business weren’t the “professional” speakers, they were the “regular folks” who worked hard and had made it to the level of Diamond (or higher). These “regular folks” would convince the socks off of anyone that you could make it happen! “You just need to buy into the system and do everything your leaders tell you to do-your success is guaranteed!” “If you’re dream is big enough, the facts don’t count!” The most convincing Diamond speakers would come from another organization and speak at your meeting to help you grow your business. “Wow, these people are so nice and giving of their time” you would think. Plus, they would always start by praising your leaders and telling you how lucky you were to have the leadership that you had in your own organization.

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