Gold For God
In August of 1988, I moved to Michigan and became the Midwest Regional Representative for a seminary on the East Coast. My primary occupation was to raise financial support from a major denomination that was one of the seminary’s main constituents.
I had been in the pulpit slugging it out with the devil and the congregation in Florida and three previous boxing arenas (pastorates) for 17 years. I, like most preachers, avoided the subject of money because of so many religious shysters who duped people out of their money and made them cynical about ministers who continually hustled for the dollar. Thus, I knew absolutely nothing about fundraising. Shortly after being hired, I was talking to the President of the seminary and asked him if he was going to give me a job description. Right then on the spot he gave me my job description. I’ll never forget it. It was a verbal one and the only one I ever received in 15 years. It was 3 words long. “Go get money.” That was it. So he gave me a lot of latitude. He left it up to me to figure it out and use God-given talents and personality to accomplish the goal by whatever legitimate means possible.
The first thing I had to get over was this lingering fear and reluctance inside of me to ask people for money. That took a long time. But I hated the pastorate so much that I kept pushing the envelope to overcome it and eventually did.
When we arrived in Michigan, I had a few names of present and past donors. For my first appointment, I picked out the name of a man who did not live far from me. He was a farmer. It was an uneventful meeting for the most part. He was retired and told me something that came to be par for the course whenever I called on farmers. He had no money, said he. As the years went by, no matter if I sat with a farmer whose estate expanded as far as the eye could see or whose herds of hogs and cattle rivaled the populations in the 10/40 window, all of them recited the same phrase: they didn’t have any money. I was about ready to pack it in and get up to leave when he made a statement that literally stopped me in my tracks.
“You need to go see my son the dentist.” I heard the same sound that those on the 1950s TV program “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx heard when somebody said the secret word. Music started playing and a sign with the secret work dropped down. The word was "dentist."
When I lived in Florida, across the street from the parsonage lived two fellows that I used to talk to once in a while. One of them was named Andrew. Andrew was not around much because he was working and galavanting across the United States for a reason unknown to me. One day I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me a tale that was almost incomprehensible.
Andrew travelled the country visiting dentists. He would leave Tampa International, rent a car in some distant city, and start making the rounds from a list that was provided to him. He would waltz into a dentist’s office, and in a private meeting reveal that he was a representative of a mint or some kind of gold refining company in Philadelphia. Then he and the dentist would work out a scheme to leverage the dentist’s gold.
“Gold?” I said. “Dentists have gold?”
Andrew reminded me that dentists made gold teeth, overlays, and crap like that. Of course, the final eye-popping bill for services that was handed to the patient as he exited the building included the gold and the labor it took to form the crown, overlay, or whatever. But the dentist’s cut was only beginning.
“Okay,” I queried, “but since the dentist is putting the gold in people’s mouths, how does he obtain additional gold that you excavate from him? Is he buying more gold than he needs and charging them for it?”
Andrew went on to explain that a gold tooth, for example, is made by someone that approximately fits the space measured for it, but it is not a perfect fit, as you well know, if you have ever had any kind of gold inserted into your mouth. The tooth or overlay will nearly always sit high, for example, and when you bite down, you can feel that your bite is off. It is like having a rock between your uppers and lowers when you clamp down. So this high spot must be eliminated.
As he was saying all this, I was recalling a recent experience I had had with my dentist when he told me that the best alternative from a number of choices he gave me for a filling was to have gold. So I opted for that. He had to make it, of course, and when I returned for a visit, I had this very experience of chomping down during the fitting and biting on what felt like a kernel of popcorn on that high spot.
Now here comes the part that enabled Andrew to travel the country and make an enormous amount of money. How does the dentist lower that high spot so that when you bite down, it feels natural? He files it like a black smith. As the drill sped up like a turbine and sent that high-pitched whine vibrating into my skull causing my back to arch and my hands to grip the chair like I was being electrocuted - and praying that this would soon be over - the dentist climbed up on my head and leaned on the drill with his entire body like a coal miner and chipped off as much of the precious metal as he could. All I could think about was the sadist Steve Martin the dentist in that movie Little Shop of Horrors. Chunks and splinters of gold flew off and swirled around inside my mouth like dollar bills in a game show wind tunnel . But when I arose from the chair, my mouth had been cleaned like a crime scene. So what happened to all those little flakes of gold that used to sparkle in the sunlight inside a California sluice or pan in 1849 at Sutter Creek and brought in thousands of prospectors - like dentists - from all over the world?
All of the patients who have sat in the chair being fitted with gold teeth, crowns, and what have you while having the high spots filed down will recall that also inside their mouths along with the power drill was a small vacuum cleaner - a vacuum that was sucking up everything through a tube going through the wall and into a safe in the back room. At the time, I did not think of it, and I did not care. I just wanted out of that chair. And the dentist is counting on that same state of mind for each of his victims.
So what eventually happens to all of these tiny flakes that are sucked up from thousands of patients over the years?
That is why Andrew was out on the road every day. His industry knew dentists hoarded stockpiles of gold somewhere under lock and key, and he was there to mine it from them in exchange for cash. I remember one time he told me that one dentist forked over his gold upon retirement, and after it was sent to Philadelphia’s assay office, the dentist bought himself a Rolls Royce.
So when the farmer said that he had no money and that I should see his son who was a DENTIST, it reminded me of that story of the three billy goats gruff where each of the smaller goats recommended their larger, more hearty brother for the evening meal. I thanked him and dialed his son’s telephone number like I was punching in 911 while witnessing a Rodney King beating. I told him who I was, how I got his name, and asked him for an appointment. He told me to come to his house that coming Saturday morning.
This was getting better all the time because privacy for a wealthy donor is especially important in case he has to excuse himself and take a trip into the gold mine and bring up a solid block of the precious, heavy, yellow metal. If both spouses are there, all the better. There is quick agreement on whether they should sprinkle out a few grains of dust from a small bag or use the block and tackle to pull up a solid slab, which is what I was after.
At the appointed hour, I put on my professional personality, all friendly and gracious and smiling like a cheshire cat as I anticipated testing the strength of the coil and leaf springs on my car when I left with a dead weight jackpot. I was led into the kitchen where we sat at a huge oaken table, capable of holding great weight and no doubt the place where he had weighed the tailings of his patients as he had filed their precious teeth like an iron smith while the kitchen light reflected and glistened a yellow light across his face during many a late night of Midas accounting. It was here once again that I hoped my persuasive powers could get him to hand over at least a gold brick for my taking. As the Lord directed him, of course. With both he and his wife listening to my spiel about the overwhelming needs of the seminary and how his generous gift could bring out the greatest outpouring of the Spirit in the modern age, I calculated the reactions that I was observing. At first, I could only see a small bag of gold dust taking shape as I hit on a few key phrases that seemed to ring their bells. But as they warmed, from time to time they would glance at one another. I knew what I was saying was having a significant impact. Interest was deepening as they started to lean in toward me. They nodded as if what I was relating was as urgent as getting a vaccine into Liberia for the ebola virus. Their glances lengthened and became knowing looks. I was starting to really connect now. The small bags of dust morphed into sacks. Having 20 years of experience that I now have, I know now that they were indicating to one another that at last someone had come to their house with a world-changing cause that warranted some heavy-duty precious metal that they were holding in reserve in a gold mine somewhere under the house. Rich people want to know that their major gifts are making significant differences. You get to know these things with years of experience. You and your donor become one mind.
All this time as I gave my pitch and answered questions, I was certain this gift was going to be big. I was so excited that wanted to take a break, excuse myself, and call the Vice-President for Development and tell him that I had a hook the size of the anchor on the Queen Mary caught in the mouth of a whale that was about to throw himself on top of the seminary. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t sure how much gold was going to be in the bucket, but he should call the President and tell him to start conjuring up a new vision for the future, and to think bigger than he ever had before. I wanted to tell him to stand by the phone and wait till after I had gone to the weigh station for the final number as I went back in and closed the deal.
As I sat there watching the two of them try to calculate the final numbers in their minds before entering into deliberations with one another, I kept picturing the seminary personnel carrying me around the campus on their shoulders as they sang, “How Great Thou Art”, not me, of course, the Lord. I could not believe that on the very 2nd call I made I had miraculously funded the present and the future of the seminary. I had found the goose that laid the golden eggs. All these things were swirling in my mind as this couple nodded and finally agreed together that this ministry was going to be the one that bypassed all other causes they supported and went to the top of the pyramid.
At last, the dentist said, “I'll be back.” His wife got up and followed him to a room where they could talk privately and presumably put on their work clothes and carbide head lamps to descend into the mine. I had never fundraised a dollar in my entire life, but I recognized that I had a special gift that had laid dormant for all these years. Only the Lord knows how many life-changing ministries I could have financed had I known this before. The ability to pull money from people’s pockets for world hunger, medical emergencies, gospel missions was invaluable. I had found my special gift.
When he came back and sat down at the table, he took out a checkbook. I thought he would be dragging in a mine cart on railroad tracks loaded down with bullion. But the amount of gold to cover the amount of the check could easily be converted to cash. It was all the same. Carrying a wedge of gold to my car in broad daylight was risky anyway. It seemed to me that he was taking longer than usual to write the check, deliberating just how many zeroes would cover the vision he and his wife had devised. I sat there as coy as Warren Buffet, as if I were used to waiting for huge checks. At last, he tore it off and handed it across the table. Without looking at it, my trembling hand took the check. I tried to tell if adding a lot of zeroes in ink made the check heavier than the ones I wrote. I placed it in my shirt pocket without looking at it and thanked him profusely for his generosity and assured him that the gospel would cover the earth and sea through thousands of students whose tuition he underwrote because of this significant gift.
With that, I left. I nonchalantly backed from his driveway and hammered the gas pedal till I was out of sight so that I could park the car and look at the total. I pulled over at a curb and reached for the check from my pocket. Slowly I looked down, and I could not believe what I was beholding. $25.
I had been in the pulpit slugging it out with the devil and the congregation in Florida and three previous boxing arenas (pastorates) for 17 years. I, like most preachers, avoided the subject of money because of so many religious shysters who duped people out of their money and made them cynical about ministers who continually hustled for the dollar. Thus, I knew absolutely nothing about fundraising. Shortly after being hired, I was talking to the President of the seminary and asked him if he was going to give me a job description. Right then on the spot he gave me my job description. I’ll never forget it. It was a verbal one and the only one I ever received in 15 years. It was 3 words long. “Go get money.” That was it. So he gave me a lot of latitude. He left it up to me to figure it out and use God-given talents and personality to accomplish the goal by whatever legitimate means possible.
The first thing I had to get over was this lingering fear and reluctance inside of me to ask people for money. That took a long time. But I hated the pastorate so much that I kept pushing the envelope to overcome it and eventually did.
When we arrived in Michigan, I had a few names of present and past donors. For my first appointment, I picked out the name of a man who did not live far from me. He was a farmer. It was an uneventful meeting for the most part. He was retired and told me something that came to be par for the course whenever I called on farmers. He had no money, said he. As the years went by, no matter if I sat with a farmer whose estate expanded as far as the eye could see or whose herds of hogs and cattle rivaled the populations in the 10/40 window, all of them recited the same phrase: they didn’t have any money. I was about ready to pack it in and get up to leave when he made a statement that literally stopped me in my tracks.
“You need to go see my son the dentist.” I heard the same sound that those on the 1950s TV program “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx heard when somebody said the secret word. Music started playing and a sign with the secret work dropped down. The word was "dentist."
When I lived in Florida, across the street from the parsonage lived two fellows that I used to talk to once in a while. One of them was named Andrew. Andrew was not around much because he was working and galavanting across the United States for a reason unknown to me. One day I asked him what he did for a living, and he told me a tale that was almost incomprehensible.
Andrew travelled the country visiting dentists. He would leave Tampa International, rent a car in some distant city, and start making the rounds from a list that was provided to him. He would waltz into a dentist’s office, and in a private meeting reveal that he was a representative of a mint or some kind of gold refining company in Philadelphia. Then he and the dentist would work out a scheme to leverage the dentist’s gold.
“Gold?” I said. “Dentists have gold?”
Andrew reminded me that dentists made gold teeth, overlays, and crap like that. Of course, the final eye-popping bill for services that was handed to the patient as he exited the building included the gold and the labor it took to form the crown, overlay, or whatever. But the dentist’s cut was only beginning.
“Okay,” I queried, “but since the dentist is putting the gold in people’s mouths, how does he obtain additional gold that you excavate from him? Is he buying more gold than he needs and charging them for it?”
Andrew went on to explain that a gold tooth, for example, is made by someone that approximately fits the space measured for it, but it is not a perfect fit, as you well know, if you have ever had any kind of gold inserted into your mouth. The tooth or overlay will nearly always sit high, for example, and when you bite down, you can feel that your bite is off. It is like having a rock between your uppers and lowers when you clamp down. So this high spot must be eliminated.
As he was saying all this, I was recalling a recent experience I had had with my dentist when he told me that the best alternative from a number of choices he gave me for a filling was to have gold. So I opted for that. He had to make it, of course, and when I returned for a visit, I had this very experience of chomping down during the fitting and biting on what felt like a kernel of popcorn on that high spot.
Now here comes the part that enabled Andrew to travel the country and make an enormous amount of money. How does the dentist lower that high spot so that when you bite down, it feels natural? He files it like a black smith. As the drill sped up like a turbine and sent that high-pitched whine vibrating into my skull causing my back to arch and my hands to grip the chair like I was being electrocuted - and praying that this would soon be over - the dentist climbed up on my head and leaned on the drill with his entire body like a coal miner and chipped off as much of the precious metal as he could. All I could think about was the sadist Steve Martin the dentist in that movie Little Shop of Horrors. Chunks and splinters of gold flew off and swirled around inside my mouth like dollar bills in a game show wind tunnel . But when I arose from the chair, my mouth had been cleaned like a crime scene. So what happened to all those little flakes of gold that used to sparkle in the sunlight inside a California sluice or pan in 1849 at Sutter Creek and brought in thousands of prospectors - like dentists - from all over the world?
All of the patients who have sat in the chair being fitted with gold teeth, crowns, and what have you while having the high spots filed down will recall that also inside their mouths along with the power drill was a small vacuum cleaner - a vacuum that was sucking up everything through a tube going through the wall and into a safe in the back room. At the time, I did not think of it, and I did not care. I just wanted out of that chair. And the dentist is counting on that same state of mind for each of his victims.
So what eventually happens to all of these tiny flakes that are sucked up from thousands of patients over the years?
That is why Andrew was out on the road every day. His industry knew dentists hoarded stockpiles of gold somewhere under lock and key, and he was there to mine it from them in exchange for cash. I remember one time he told me that one dentist forked over his gold upon retirement, and after it was sent to Philadelphia’s assay office, the dentist bought himself a Rolls Royce.
So when the farmer said that he had no money and that I should see his son who was a DENTIST, it reminded me of that story of the three billy goats gruff where each of the smaller goats recommended their larger, more hearty brother for the evening meal. I thanked him and dialed his son’s telephone number like I was punching in 911 while witnessing a Rodney King beating. I told him who I was, how I got his name, and asked him for an appointment. He told me to come to his house that coming Saturday morning.
This was getting better all the time because privacy for a wealthy donor is especially important in case he has to excuse himself and take a trip into the gold mine and bring up a solid block of the precious, heavy, yellow metal. If both spouses are there, all the better. There is quick agreement on whether they should sprinkle out a few grains of dust from a small bag or use the block and tackle to pull up a solid slab, which is what I was after.
At the appointed hour, I put on my professional personality, all friendly and gracious and smiling like a cheshire cat as I anticipated testing the strength of the coil and leaf springs on my car when I left with a dead weight jackpot. I was led into the kitchen where we sat at a huge oaken table, capable of holding great weight and no doubt the place where he had weighed the tailings of his patients as he had filed their precious teeth like an iron smith while the kitchen light reflected and glistened a yellow light across his face during many a late night of Midas accounting. It was here once again that I hoped my persuasive powers could get him to hand over at least a gold brick for my taking. As the Lord directed him, of course. With both he and his wife listening to my spiel about the overwhelming needs of the seminary and how his generous gift could bring out the greatest outpouring of the Spirit in the modern age, I calculated the reactions that I was observing. At first, I could only see a small bag of gold dust taking shape as I hit on a few key phrases that seemed to ring their bells. But as they warmed, from time to time they would glance at one another. I knew what I was saying was having a significant impact. Interest was deepening as they started to lean in toward me. They nodded as if what I was relating was as urgent as getting a vaccine into Liberia for the ebola virus. Their glances lengthened and became knowing looks. I was starting to really connect now. The small bags of dust morphed into sacks. Having 20 years of experience that I now have, I know now that they were indicating to one another that at last someone had come to their house with a world-changing cause that warranted some heavy-duty precious metal that they were holding in reserve in a gold mine somewhere under the house. Rich people want to know that their major gifts are making significant differences. You get to know these things with years of experience. You and your donor become one mind.
All this time as I gave my pitch and answered questions, I was certain this gift was going to be big. I was so excited that wanted to take a break, excuse myself, and call the Vice-President for Development and tell him that I had a hook the size of the anchor on the Queen Mary caught in the mouth of a whale that was about to throw himself on top of the seminary. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t sure how much gold was going to be in the bucket, but he should call the President and tell him to start conjuring up a new vision for the future, and to think bigger than he ever had before. I wanted to tell him to stand by the phone and wait till after I had gone to the weigh station for the final number as I went back in and closed the deal.
As I sat there watching the two of them try to calculate the final numbers in their minds before entering into deliberations with one another, I kept picturing the seminary personnel carrying me around the campus on their shoulders as they sang, “How Great Thou Art”, not me, of course, the Lord. I could not believe that on the very 2nd call I made I had miraculously funded the present and the future of the seminary. I had found the goose that laid the golden eggs. All these things were swirling in my mind as this couple nodded and finally agreed together that this ministry was going to be the one that bypassed all other causes they supported and went to the top of the pyramid.
At last, the dentist said, “I'll be back.” His wife got up and followed him to a room where they could talk privately and presumably put on their work clothes and carbide head lamps to descend into the mine. I had never fundraised a dollar in my entire life, but I recognized that I had a special gift that had laid dormant for all these years. Only the Lord knows how many life-changing ministries I could have financed had I known this before. The ability to pull money from people’s pockets for world hunger, medical emergencies, gospel missions was invaluable. I had found my special gift.
When he came back and sat down at the table, he took out a checkbook. I thought he would be dragging in a mine cart on railroad tracks loaded down with bullion. But the amount of gold to cover the amount of the check could easily be converted to cash. It was all the same. Carrying a wedge of gold to my car in broad daylight was risky anyway. It seemed to me that he was taking longer than usual to write the check, deliberating just how many zeroes would cover the vision he and his wife had devised. I sat there as coy as Warren Buffet, as if I were used to waiting for huge checks. At last, he tore it off and handed it across the table. Without looking at it, my trembling hand took the check. I tried to tell if adding a lot of zeroes in ink made the check heavier than the ones I wrote. I placed it in my shirt pocket without looking at it and thanked him profusely for his generosity and assured him that the gospel would cover the earth and sea through thousands of students whose tuition he underwrote because of this significant gift.
With that, I left. I nonchalantly backed from his driveway and hammered the gas pedal till I was out of sight so that I could park the car and look at the total. I pulled over at a curb and reached for the check from my pocket. Slowly I looked down, and I could not believe what I was beholding. $25.