As a college student in Alabama in the early 1980s, Craig Featherstone dreamed of becoming a rock star. His band Chezwick — named for a character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” — played gigs across the Southeast, from small-town bars to Atlanta’s 4,678-seat Fox Theatre.
Among their favorites to play were songs by Aerosmith, Bad Company and Led Zeppelin, particularly the latter’s classic “Stairway to Heaven.”
“We just crushed it,” Featherstone said. “I wanted to be the new Robert Plant.”
But his musical ambitions were derailed by a summer spent selling Bibles door-to-door in Mississippi.
A friend convinced him to give it a try, though Featherstone — now director of LifeWay Global Resources — didn’t have much interest in matters of faith at the time. He’d grown up Catholic but never had any personal discipleship.
Still he thought he could make a few dollars selling Bibles with his friend. As it turned out, the experience changed his life.
During training with the Varsity Company, then part of Thomas Nelson publishers, Featherstone learned sales techniques and some details about the Bibles he’d be selling.
The head of the program talked about his own faith during the training, which intrigued Featherstone, then a student at Auburn University.
“He talked a lot about what real success in life was about,” Featherstone said of the message that stuck with him as he sold Bibles over the summer.
Knack for selling
He’d been plopped down in Columbia, Miss., with a faux-leather case of Bibles and resources to knock on at least 50 doors a day. The job was commission-based; the first week he worked 92 hours and made $140.
But Featherstone had a knack for selling. Many of the people he talked with wanted a Bible for their own personal study or to pass on to a family member.
“I learned to attach sales to things that people needed,” Featherstone said.
What struck him was the hospitality and kindness of some of the people he met. Many invited him to have something to eat or visit their church. One of them was the pastor of a small Pentecostal church who invited Featherstone to sing at a revival meeting even though he wasn’t a believer.
“There I was in this tiny Pentecostal church singing ‘Sail On’ by the Imperials,” he recounted. “They had to teach it to me before the service.”
By the end of the summer Featherstone had become one of the program’s most successful salesmen. And he was ready to accept Christ.
Back at Auburn he joined The Navigators and Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru). The Navigators taught him to love the Bible while Campus Crusade taught him the importance of evangelism. Those two themes, along with the skills he learned selling Bibles door-to-door, shaped his career.
Featherstone worked at an advertising agency in Atlanta, serving Fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola and Christian ministries like Focus on the Family. That led to a marketing job at Thomas Nelson.
While there he worked on a project called “Voices of the Faithful,” a series of daily devotions written by International Mission Board missionaries and edited by Beth Moore. That project opened his eyes to the work of the Church overseas. Before then Featherstone hadn’t cared much about missions.
About 10 years ago, Featherstone transitioned to LifeWay to work with its B&H Publishers trade books division. One of his hopes was to help expand LifeWay’s international presence.
His experience selling Bibles door-to-door is still paying off. In those early days he talked with Christians of all kinds from Presbyterians to Pentecostals, which he credits for preparing him to serve Christians around the world.
“Most Christians in the world are neither Southern nor Baptists,” Featherstone said, but they still need the biblical resources LifeWay provides.
With the Church’s growth in places like India, China and Brazil, Featherstone believes evangelicals worldwide could benefit from LifeWay resources.
With that growth comes a need to develop leaders and mechanisms for discipleship, Thomas said.
“One of the biggest opportunities for LifeWay is to put tools in the hands of pastors to help them develop the next generation of leaders and teach them how to do small groups,” Thomas said. “We’re able to do that through books, curriculum, video, software, even worship music.”
LifeWay has had an overseas presence for decades, but that work has increased in recent years. Currently LifeWay resources are available in 76 countries and in more than 40 languages.
That will jump to 155 countries in the next few months through expanded digital content, with churches and customers able to buy LifeWay resources at a local price using local currency.
“A major part of our strategy will be working with in-country providers in places where the gospel is exploding,” Featherstone said. “We want to help churches in those countries get the … resources they need. We can’t just export an American model.”
LifeWay Global Resources also will develop new content from international authors. (BP)
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