Last week I shared the first principle of the kingdom that I was told Amway Corporation understood better than the church did. This week I will share the second principle I learned from them. I learned the principle of connecting vision to a practical plan for accomplishing the vision.

         When someone comes into Amway, they are immediately shown what is possible to attain and how to set goals for attaining it. Then it is made clear to them where they are and what is the next step. This marries the vision to a doable task. As the saying goes, “Any task is doable if broken down into small enough parts.” Amway makes the process simple and practical. They also continually remind everyone of the vision.

         I was never part of Amway and am not involved with any multi-level or network marketing business, even though I do highly esteem them. This was my choice, because in my calling I did not want to relate to anyone as a business prospect. I had built a business, and now I am called to help build the body of Christ, not a business. However, in speaking at and attending Amway and other conventions, I have seen them leading many thousands to the Lord and helping them find their place in His body, probably more effectively than any churches or movements I have known.

         For many of these new Christians, Amway, or these other multi-level organizations, became a substitute for the body of Christ. This was not the fault of Amway, whose leaders often lamented this to me, but because these new believers could not find a church that would teach, train, equip, and release them into their purpose, like these organizations would. For this reason, many churches reacted against these organizations, but they would have done much better to learn from them. To this day, it is still rare to find any local church that is training, equipping, and releasing their people into their purpose. This will change for all that survive the coming few years.

         I am not advocating making the body of Christ into a multi-level organization because the Lord already did that. Few in the body of Christ understand this, but to the degree they do, they tend to advance very quickly. Those who do not understand it tend to remain locked in spiritual immaturity. When the Lord spoke of the signs of the end of the age, one of the things He said was, “Woe to those who nurse babes in those days” (see Matthew 24:19). We could interpret this as “Woe to those who keep their people in immaturity.”

         If we are going to make it as His body through these times, we must grow up in all things into Christ. The present model many churches are built on makes them into big sheep pens where food is thrown to the sheep once or twice a week. This will not survive much longer. The churches that are going to survive, and even prosper, into the future will be those that not only impart the vision of how far any Christian can go in Christ, but also help them along the way. Next week, we will begin to examine the vision and practical steps in getting there.