Lead by Example (Instructor Reyenga interviewing Mr. Rich DeVos)
Henry Reyenga - Shortly after Mr. DeVos started mentoring me, I decided to join Amway. And it was an interesting experience for me. I was planting a church in Colorado at the time. And in since he was going to mentor me, I thought, you know, I want to do I want to walk his path a little while I want to see what it was he does. Why does Amway work, even though I knew my calling was not to be an Amway distributor. So I did. And then six months I had 80 distributors that I had sponsored. And in fact, I was starting to really make a lot of money. And I remember praying one night, my wife and I said, Okay, are we gonna build an Amway business, or we call to plant a church? Well, remember, our goal was to do Amway to learn, and one of the things that happened I'll never forget was an Egyptian. Lady. We had them over, we were showing the network marketing plan of Amway. And we were so clear, we told people come see, you know, you want to option Amway we're in and we were always upfront, everybody. So we came in and this Egyptian lady left the room where that presentation was at and my wife went to see her. And this Egyptian lady opened up our cupboards. Good for her, and she opened up the cupboards and my wife said, Excuse me, can I help you, and in her Egyptian action, she said, I was just looking to see if you had Amway in your cupboards. Good for her. I learned something. That's a great lesson. That was a huge lesson. And the apostle Paul writes like that, he says, I will not venture to speak of anything, except what Christ has accomplished through me, in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said, and done. He said, Look, in my cupboards, what I'm asking you to believe, I believe, what I'm doing, I'm asking you to do. And I remember one of the principles that in that Amway business I learned was, it was called product use, if you're going to sell something that you yourself, are not using that as a very hollow way to promote it. So in other words, if you're sharing the gospel, and you say, read the Bible and pray, and you yourself, are not reading the Bible, and praying and you yourself, aren't sharing with your family, if your family is not getting that there's some hollow that if we proclaim that which isn't true for us, and one of the things I've noticed, that you've always shared is, who you are, is what you sell. Can you reflect upon that a little bit as a church planter?
Rich DeVos - Well, you know, first of all, you have got to have was Amway or in being a church planter, you have got to be convicted of what you're selling. That's a pretty simple but in business, you find all sorts of people who want to make a bunch of money. And their only goal is seeing how fast they can get rich and not whether they really develop the business properly to help others. I say the fundamental principle in the work you do and I do is that it's you first, and me second. First, I help you and then I will come out, okay. If I'm in business, if I want to make money, I gotta help you make money first, show you how to make money and help you make money, then if I get something out of that fine with you first, me second, now I make money in view, nothing, right? That pattern is
that if that pattern has been done to the Amway business all over the world, and there have been so many church leaders who do make churches, where it was all about them, right. And that's where you kind of get into some kindly, spiritually blessed with great speaking in oratorical skills, and, and all the robes and all you got to have at first you got to have to be a leader. That's not the leadership. We're thinking about servant leadership. So it first of all, are the people you're talking to their success, they're becoming solid Christians is important. You're going to be the example to them. But your goal is not to say how much you've become a big wheel out of this, right what how you can help them become better Christian so they can duplicate the process. That's dedication to the total concept of building a church and presenting the gospel to the world. But your goal is just to bring it to one person and help them present to another person's name and then you find it another person. That's where we built the whole Amway business. And so we're now we're in 80 countries. We do over $8 billion worth of business a year. We deal with 10 Is that? Well, we claim 3 million, but that means about five, 6 million people that we deal with all the time. And we have dealt with over a history of 50 years, we've probably dealt with 60 million people that have been through this process of coming in and leaving. But we got 3 million who keep doing it, right. And the business keeps growing. And the people who came through the adage of the business while they were there, and now they're gone, but that's okay. Some of them are gone on to other things. Some are happier, where they are, that didn't matter, we as long as they're in our care, that we encourage them and enrich their life. That's cool. Not that they stayed in my church, right? Or stayed in, in my group, if they went on and prospered in their life, and so forth. I'm happy for them. But you know, we are in the life enriching business and life changing business. And so when we can reach a person, and help them find peace and joy, and salvation in Christ, that we've done, the main thing in life, now it's up to them to do more with it. And so they're not perfect, and you aren't perfect, and you won't do it perfect. And there is no perfect way to do this stuff.
Henry Reyenga - You know, it's interesting what you said, you know, so we walk in your personal life, but your whole orientation is to serve them to help them. And if you can walk in, you can help them walk it and their success. You created a very powerful image of the gospel. And I think so many times as pastors, one of the one of the dangers of landmines for pastors can fall into is, look at my great sermon.
Rich DeVos - Well like to be praised for all we do. We all like everybody, when you walk out, oh, actually, that was a wonderful sermon. We trust it was. And you may noti have thought it was so go. But nothing new, I say a lot of things that I don't think are very good, but they hit you. Right? As important because
they relate more to you than you did to me. So all you got to do is keep talking and presenting what you believe. And certain people will accept it, and other people will ridicule it, right?
Henry Reyenga - I remember one of the phrases you use in my mentorship with you is never forget Henry, some will, some won't. So what you know, that really stuck with me. And when I share the gospel in, you know, yesterday, again, we were on the beach, and I've talked to many people, and some are very closed, brought up, you know about God and the pastor, and you know, find out where they were. And I was like, but you know, I found most we're not? Well, it
Rich DeVos - doesn't matter for those who would like to so what you move on to the next one, right? You're not here to hammer into them what they don't want to hear, right? Yeah, they gotta be wanting to hear, right. If they don't want to hear, just stop talking to him. Don't embarrass yourself.
Henry Reyenga - The apostle Paul writes in Philippians 3, join with others in following my example. So you know what notice the two principles we're talking about. The one principle is we have to use the product, we have to live it. Okay, we have to open the Bible, pray, do it repeatedly. And then the apostle says and you'll and take note of those who also live according to the pattern, in other words, who also follow the example of Christ and walk it that we gave you. So there's a sense, in a church planting that I've noticed that when like a new believer comes and they actually start reading the Bible and in walk that pattern, that there's an important encouragement factor that needs to be placed in intentional church planter plant. I remember in the Amway business, we would come we would go to some meetings, where other Amway distributors will come and some of the sponsors and the other leaders with somehow, you know, I remember when my wife and I got, like, I don't know what level that was anymore, because this was 1985. But when we got that certain pin, we walked up front, my wife and I felt so excited that, you know, it really encouraged us to keep going, but that same happens in church that there's a sense and some people have a little problem, I mean, you're gonna like applaud someone who's reading the Bible and praying, you know, doesn't that like you know, why are you doing that? We shouldn't have to do that. You know, but yeah, I have found it's always important.
Rich DeVos - You applaud anything you can applaud. There you go. You praise whenever you can give praise. If your child comes home and he's got a C and he's only had D, you applaud the C, if he gets an A and he never had an A you applaud the A, if he's always had A's. You may not applaud it because you're looking for an A plus. So you want him to improve, but it doesn't matter you
applaud whatever it is. Really, if he's got a C, you applaud a C, because he did that good. Instead of, hey, you dummy, you can do better than that, you can say, hey, I'm proud of you for what you did. Right? I think you can do better. But good
job, leave him with a feeling of a good job. But with the idea he can do better. But always applaud whatever achievement a person has. So when a person brings one person with him to church, for them, that's the first time they've ever done that, right? That's worthy of the highest praise. Someone else brings in 10. It's okay. they do that all the time. But for somebody who brings one, that's huge. That's why in our business, if you got one sale, tell us how you made that sale. I want to hear how you did that. So they gain recognition, and teach others who are scared to death yet how they did this, because they are where most of the other people are. Making the first sale is the most important. Making the first witness and somebody accepts Christ is the most important one. After that, all you do is do the same thing again. Yeah. Right. Is that first, it's just duplication. Right. So that first one will give you such excitement and joy. I look back at the people who I witnessed to are still active in the church and they came for Christ. And they're following God's patterns. And you know, it looking at Wow, what a what a blessing. Now, even that one couple, right? If I only had one, I got more than most.
Henry Reyenga - Right? If every one got one, we'd be 4 billion, not 2 billion.
Rich DeVos - Yeah. Well, that's how we build the business. Right? And it by I don't know if it's, if it's a, it's our own fear, our own lack of comfidence, or our own weak faith that we don't talk about it, right. But if you're a church leader, those who believe you're a church leader, you're, you're not one of those, you've
committed to do more. Now, you're gonna try and help the others do more. But whatever they do, as you are different fact that you're gonna go on and build a church now you've made that commitment. And now you do that, whatever. For
my Amway, people who commit to really doing it, they were run over burnt coals and, you know, it didn't matter what anybody said they were totally insensitive to what other people said. Right? Yeah. And they were not very skilled, usually. Right. I got people who couldn't speak well. The ones I thought would do the least do the most. The slick ones. Do the least, and talk the most. What what's that about? You know, it's, it's they think they can get by with their slickness, I think, okay. And almost with insincerity, okay, I think they think their superior. But you know, when you do that, you have a harder time relating to other people. Because they look at you is a little too slick. They don't quite trust you, if you're too good. It's better if you stutter a little bit, and you stammer and say, Oh, I don't know that. I don't know how everything works. And then they say, this guy's real. Oh, let me tell you how that works. You know, I got every answer to everything in the world. This guy who came to see me the other day, he had a nice
PowerPoint presentation. Here's your copy of his line. At the end was one of the cutest ones I've seen. He says, Well, if you don't want to give me 100,000 What do you think you might give? I said I haven't thought about giving anything. But he called back already. He was persistent in his pursuit of that, but it was that that slick. Well, if you don't want to do that, will you do this? Will you do something? But I thought was pretty cute. But we don't need slickness. We don't need smooth presentation. We need sincere presentations. You say you know when I came to know Christ, it changed my outlook, it didn't just mean I went to church. But I found myself amongst a whole new group of people who had hope and faith and believe and who cared about other people, instead of the other crowd I was talking about all I did was poke fun of other people and ridicule the poor and never gave anything away to help anybody else. And now I'm with a group of people who care about each other. Wow, that's a difference in my life now. So choose your crowd. You know.
Henry Reyenga - The apostle Paul said many times that I did not come with You know, flattering words. But with sincerity, I spoke the message of Christ, like a father with his children. And in, I've looked at that, too. I am not the greatest speaker in the world. And I know that it's more about my regard for them and my care about them. That God moves their heart and I learned that.
Rich DeVos - Well, that's why your blessing is so great. That's why your a church builder. The slick guys built a church for a while, and then it disappears. Because it, it wasn't built on sincerity. And helping the others come along. It was their fascination with a method with rah rah. I don't mind rah rah, I like rah rah, I do a little rah rah. But I like to, I like to hear good speakers who can communicate sincerely with them, as you talked about, they gotta live that life. They got to show that they care about me after they left town,
Henry Reyenga - not rent a speaker or you know, give me a speech and go home. One of the things in church planting, Rich, is you deal with keeping leaders healthy. And we talked about the recognition of like someone who've just come to Christ, and then you have them come up front, and And what about the leaders? How do you recognize a leader, you have encouraged me by recognizing and encouraging me, but that culture of encouragement for leaders? How to, you know, ultimately, in Amway, you encourage a lot of pretty incredible leaders, and you keep them encouraged.
Rich DeVos - How do I do that, Henry? You go to the zoning meetings?
Henry Reyenga - Well, one thing, you're gonna get me talking a little bit here. One thing is, I noticed that you are, you're not afraid to tell them good job in front
of their peers. And notice that I noticed that no, in terms of Amway is a business, you're not afraid to financially recognize them in the nonprofit world. You know, we encourage and less on the monetary way, but it is still a very tangible that, that we help them see their impact, you know, money in some ways. In the business world, it seems to me it's like it measures impact. If you have this many people, you're impacting Well, there's that
Rich DeVos - much result, you got money, you got profit, you got bonuses, that that are a direct result of what you've done.
Henry Reyenga - Right. And the nonprofit world, the impact is, you know, if you've reached for me, you know, I'm looking for elders who will join my hospitality brigade. And to me, that's a little bit of a privileged spot. And, and I don't invite everyone to be on my hospitality brigade. And if they're on that, and they start inviting people over on a regular basis, I will mention them. If I'm ever talking about hospitality, in a sermon, and so, so and so, and so and so on the hospitality brigade.
Rich DeVos - from the pulpit, low table with the because they're making an impact. And most people are afraid to do that for feeling I want to see their faith. If they do it. For one, they miss somebody. Right? So I can't do it for anybody. Right? They miss something. Right? So miss somebody, right? Let's learn to recognize record money is a great reward. But recognition, I think is sometimes a greater reward. In our business, we give pins and we give money. Having a pin and being recognized as a leader. People used to work harder before convention, so they could come with a bigger pin than they would because you make more money. I remember my wife and I did. Most people getting a recognition is maybe the finest type of reward. In government, people who didn't used to make a lot of money, they do well today, but when they all always get a little less money, but they gain recognition for what they were and the importance of their job. They get a big title, their the President's their secretary, always big titles. When President Ford was in the White House. First question he asked, When do I get paid? Because he didn't have any money. He'd been in the government for 30 years at that time. And he didn't have any money to send his son to college. I said, When do I get paid because I gotta send the money in. Now that's a servant, but he became the president United States. And when he had a pardon Nixon he knew it might keep him from winning. But he did anyway. And so, being the honor of what you are and your name, I talk to my children about the importance of your name that I want to give, if I don't give anything else, they give you a good name, that's more important than all the money I gave you. Because with a decent name, it's at least you don't have an anchor around you. Right? You know, a lot of people in life have an anchor. They come
with a bad name, or a bad parent or a bad father, or somebody who brought down their names. And now they gotta live beyond that. I say to Emily xili, who preacher friend of mine. Well, I'm a preacher. I say, no you're the son of a guy in jail. You're the son of a crook. That's what you really are. He said, I don't like to hear that. That's No, but that's what you are. You're a son of a druggie. Right, you overcame it. But you have to, like people in life have to overcome baggage, right? So if you start with a little plus a healthy a little bit, so recognition is more important than the money. So, honor is important to be given. That's why when you honor people who bring new people in, when you bring a new person into the church, you bring with them the person who introduced them to Christ to bring him to the church, right? Because there's a link. Right?
Henry Reyenga - So I was fair, practically church planters Think of it this way. What you're really doing in case someone bring someone to the Lord, they bring them to your church, or they even bring them to church, and you're bringing to the Lord, when you welcome that new person. Don't just mention the new person also mentioned the person that brought them in, get them to come up as well. Amen.
Rich DeVos - Amen. Because what, we did that in our business all the time, so you would honor that person. But what they have that honor, then they that they're emboldened to do it again. Right. Wow. But you know, it's sometimes actually marvel at how difficult we make life. Yeah, we make it harder than it really is. well. If you do want to do this stuff, but you want to be a church planter, then go do it, you know, all this other stuff is peripheral, right? Don't let it get in your way. If this guy says no, or last guy who's, you know that you knew that when you started? Is that a surprise that you got a naysayer around? No. So what's it what's, you know, you knew this long time ago. So just keep moving forward to your goal. But I find them all the time I've had millions of them go out. I've had millions 10s of millions of people that we brought into our business quick. And for all the very reasons that you and I are talking about.
Henry Reyenga - The parallels between your business and the gospel are sure.
Rich DeVos - Close, I used to talk with Reverend Efika, about that from Krishna farm during the grave, you know, he was able, yeah, well, you have money to encourage him. What you got to understand it's not just money. The other is so much bigger, and more value words. So let's, let's therefore we're reluctant to do it. Right? We act like money is more important than the other. So we don't do the one thing we should be doing.
Henry Reyenga - Right? We train people were given all of this education, all all this, like head knowledge. But just what they really needed a little bit of the feet to walk into someone else's life, they need to shake a few hands.
Rich DeVos - Get out of get out of your office and start meeting some people. You know, when when a couple of people have the seminary and so forth. You've got to be into this community, not into just your church community, you've got to be a witness to the whole community. You got to be the one leading in prayer as a rotary club or whenever event is having. They call you to preach. You got a two minute sermon to give right? And you got to be out there representing Christ in all these situations. But you're not going to be asked if you aren't a member, if you don't come to the events to where you meet two people, right? You've got to put yourself out to bring people in. That's incredible.
Henry Reyenga - Another subject I think we'll cover yet in this presentation, and that is a church planter. Now, as a leader needs to be encouraged as a leader. We see how the apostle Paul in I Timothy 1:18, Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by following them, you may fight the good fight. And what Paul was to Timothy was a mentor, and you've been a mentor to me, and I've had some other mentors in my life and I look at when I started actively seeking a mentor. I found that my own life as a leader was supported And I began learning and learning and learning in a way I never had learned before. What do you think about that every church planter as serious this part of the presentation, you church planters out there, you students who are here, really pause and take note of this. But
Rich DeVos - the difference was, you decided to find somebody, whoever they were, that you admire, to hook yourself to. So that's the first decision, is that, right? It's not the whatever happened after that, you use it. That's somebody I want, I admire and I respect what they're doing. I want to learn from them. Okay. So that means you want to learn, right? But most people don't want to learn. They don't want to hang around with somebody who's done more than they have, because then they look a little shabby, so to speak. So therefore, they would rather not be in the presence of that person. And there's a lot of people who feel like, Oh, I can't go up to him. Why can't you go up to me, or why I'm just a sinner like you are. But somehow, that inferiority of feeling, you're going to be church planter, you can't have that inferior feeling, you're going to have a superior feeling. Because you are superior, because you offer Christ. That's more important than anything I've ever done. You see, right outside of what I do, is
Henry Reyenga - that it's a superior privilege. you proclaim Christ,
Rich DeVos - that puts you ahead of all of them. See, all you're learning from me is technique, right? Or encouragement, but you already got the best thing to sell. So why do you have nothing to be afraid of, nothing to shy away from you go in
his courage and his support for you. That's your mentor. And the feeling is, fortunately, I grew up in a home where my father kept saying to me, you can do it, you can do it, it was always that encouragement even though I hadn't done anything. It was his faith in me that I could do it. And his words were you can do it. Those are words I signed, like a lot of people watching. I want your autograph, sign you can do it. I want to see that you believe I can do it. Now, at least in the your end of the world, that seems to be very important. But it's important to everybody.
Henry Reyenga - So even a pastor needs to put in his life, mentors and positive encouragement. And, and like you said, the desire to be teachable, but then to find not just the, you know, teachables the I'm gonna find this negative person whos going to correct me all the time. But finding people who who are there to coach to encourage to pray for and and and learn from, I mean, that that to the church planter out there that are an important piece in their life. Well, you know, this
Rich DeVos - assuming that something went wrong, and you don't feel well and the church isn't going well, who do you call? Who do you call that there's like you say in your life, you're lucky to have five good friends. Okay. And they're determined, like, if you were out and you got into a bad situation, you You're picked up for drunken driving you you're thrown in jail? Who do you call? Who do you call to bail you out? Who will write a $500 check for you or whatever to get you out. That'll tell you how your how many friends you got. That you can call in the middle of the night to come over and help you do something when you're in trouble. And who do you call and your proclaim to the world you're going to be a church planter. Now you made a public statement, when you signed for this course, you said you want to be a church planter. So everybody knows, you know, all your friends know this now, right? And now, if you don't do this, you're gonna be marked as a failure. You know, the fear of failure is a better driver than the desire to gain. The fact that you have to admit, you're gonna have to admit to somebody if you don't do this thing, that you fail. And your family's gonna know you're a failure. Your children are going to say, My father is a failure. He's tried to be a church planter, but he didn't succeed at that. Now he's got this job and he lost that. And your family, you begin this and now you know your a failure. You can't you can't afford to let that happen to your life. That will affect your all your lineage and your family. You
Henry Reyenga - know, what you're bringing up is interesting. We talked about positive encouragement, but there's also an accountability side that you are called to be a church planter, a leader or a pastor. And I have to admit for myself, like I don't want to be a failure. Now. I We'll tell you church planters out there. If you try, and it doesn't work out, it may be your gifts aren't totally there, but you still try. And you failed at that you still learn more than most other leaders. So when we, you know, we want to contextualize, and we talk about failure, but there is a little bit inside of you, that is got its motivation to say, I want to do this, I don't want to fail. But if you do fail, know that you're still pretty cool, because you at least tried. But still, you know, because I know that, you know, right now we're, you know, planting churches where, you know, we didn't see Christian leaders Institute, we're going to be launching Chris way, pretty soon it will be for network, it'll be a social networking for leaders. Finance, Sunday is coming where we can get your people in there. We have church, you. And inside of me, too. I'm like, I don't want to fail. And getting every means possible out there to create leaders. And that's important, you know, because I really have to have that internal, you know,
Rich DeVos - the desire to succeed? Yes. As opposed to the embarrassment of failure. And, but there's no crime in failing, no, there is victory in trying. Yes. And a failure is only the next opportunity to succeed. I failed at several businesses, you have noticed I don't the first businesses, we started , we had to file bankruptcy at one business. We were making ping pong tables. You were making those We sold stock to our neighbors and our friends. And so we had admit failure. And take a bankruptcy. In our early days of starting businesses. We started a restaurant, that wasn't a very good experience. You mean, you can't make good hamburgers? I could make good hamburgers, it couldn't make any money at making good hamburgers. It was not I used to say to people, everybody should have a restaurant once to get it over with to realize how many people fail in running a restaurant. Okay. running a restaurant is is very difficult. Everybody thinks that looks easy. Oh, I know how to do that. I think restaurant people who succeed are the ones who sit behind the cash register and watch everything that goes on in the restaurant. They watch the portions that are reserved, they they control the money and make sure people don't get out the door without paying. That's why the owner always sits by the cash register. Okay. And if he doesn't sit by that he's got a pretty big restaurant so he can have somebody else do it. His wife. Don't underestimate the importance of your partner, your wife or your husband. Bring them along with you. Right? They have this has got to be a joint venture. If it's not a joint venture, it won't make it. Right. I have a pastor friend. And his wife said to me, I decided when I was in college, I was going to marry a minister. Oh, that's a dedicated preacher's wife. And she is terrific. She's dynamite. Her husband is a great preacher too. But but that's
yeah, you may not have felt that way. When you got married, you might have been the farthest thing from your mind. But if he's decided he wants to do that, you can be his encourager you can be is destroyer. Wow, you got to be behind him. And so opening your house up, your house should always be open. Your husband should always be free to bring somebody over. And if somebody that you just met and says I just got you just I met him on the train, he just don't invite over dinner. He didn't have ways to go over dinner at night. So I brought him over and we're gonna sit and chat with him, you always have an extra place at the table. My wife has always done it. But our home where I grew up with always open for any kids who want to bring over. We built our home in a way that they're kid friendly. It was in the design, to be open to other people to come in. You build the playroom so that they can bring their friends over, because you really have all of our children's heads, because of course we have some money, but they all have gyms on their own, or they have a bowling alley or they have something so that all the kids come over their house, right? So they know where their kids are. But you don't have to have any of that. A card table a full table. I bought a pool table one day I got a whole lecture on how pool table can bring people to Christ and how it bridges generations because grandpa can play pool with his grandson and they can communicate with each other while one is shooting. The other person is shooting. More conversations take place in that setting. Or you talk to your grandson witness to him and share with him creating a place where you can witness and a hospitality center right in your home anybody can do it and you will build a church around that if you want to