Network Marketing- Plaguing the Church?

If you have been a member of a church, you have probably been approached about a significant opportunity to own your own business and make a little extra income. And on top of this, you are able to spend more time with your family. Who wouldn't want this?

Network marketing or multi-level marketing feeds into some basic desires:

1. Earn money from the efforts of others without having to do a lot of work.

2. Own a "business" that allows you flexibility to work around the needs of your family.

Network marketing promises so much. But does it deliver? This issue is close to me because I have seen family members get sucked into the promises of network marketing and spend many hours and dollars chasing a dream that never materialized. And this is the problem. According to Robert Fitzpatrick who wrote a book titled False Profits, network marketing:

• Promises a lot but the fact is that less than 1% of all MLM distributors ever earn a profit.
• Is an ineffective way to distribute products. Less than 1% of all retail sales are made through multi-level marketing.
• Feeds into basic impulses of living a life of luxury and materialism. In every network marketing organization, there are a chosen few who are making tremendous incomes at the expense of the masses at the bottom of the pyramid.
• Rarely sells more than 20% of its products to people outside the organization.

I will acknowledge that there are probably a handful of decent products sold through network marketing. I have bought a couple. But the system is faulty. In preparation for a sermon that I will be delivering Sunday, I have been meditating on 1 Timothy 6:6-12.

1 Timothy 6:9-10 says, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

Network marketing at the very core feeds this desire to get filthy rich without having to work for it. Whatever happened to acquiring wealth as the direct result of many years of hard work? The steward realizes that the words of Scripture are true. Proverbs 12:11, "He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment."

For His Glory,

Ashley Hodge