Demos Shakarian (1913—1983)
Country of Origin
-
United States
Countries/Regions of Ministry
- United States
Traditions
- Pentecostal
Ministries
- Marketplace minister and leader
Demos Shakarian was prepared for his calling as a maketplace minister and leader from when he was young. What he knew best was the dairy business, having learned it from his father. His grandparents and family had fled their native Armenia in 1905 on the basis of a bold prophecy about a coming calamity for Christians in the Muslim-dominated Ottoman Empire. The Armenian genocide indeed devastated the region in 1915, soon after the outbreak of World War I.
Settling in Los Angeles, less than a mile from the fledgling Azusa Street Mission, the Shakarians joined the nearby Armenian Pentecostal Church. It was here that young Demos (born in 1913) gave his life to Christ and, at age thirteen, was baptized in the Holy Spirit. He also received healing for a hearing difficulty. By then, the family had moved a few miles southeast to Downey, California, where land was cheaper, and was busily building what eventually became Reliance Dairy Farms, the nation’s largest privately owned herd of milk cows. Demos was taught how to milk them, keep them healthy, and sell their daily output at a profit.
Eventually, he and his wife, Rose, wondered what they might do to advance the Lord’s work in their sphere. In 1940, Demos began modestly by setting up tent meetings for itinerant speakers. The first tent seated only three hundred, but in that campaign, sixty-seven were filled with the Holy Spirit. Larger gatherings took place throughout the decade, culminating in a 1948 Hollywood Bowl youth rally that drew 22,000. Shakarian financed it through a fundraising dinner he held for a hundred fellow businessmen at Knott’s Berry Farm.
The entrepreneur began to consider how to intentionally incorporate businessmen into spreading the gospel, making their life's work a ministry. He recognized that there were many more businessmen in the world than preachers, making the latter an untapped force for the kingdom of God. Shakarian then helped organize an Oral Roberts campaign in the fall of 1951 that drew more than 200,000 people. He took the chance to float an idea with the evangelist: what about some kind of businessmen’s fellowship to help spread the gospel? Roberts gave him warm encouragement.
Not long after, 200 businessmen showed up on a Saturday morning in the upstairs room of the landmark Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. There they organized what became the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI). It sought to introduce men in the laborforce to a God strong enough to restore their souls, relationships, and bodies—in other words, a full gospel. Oral Roberts was the main speaker that first morning, closing with a passionate prayer for God to use this group. Membership in the group was open to any man not in professional ministry.
Shakarian followed Roberts to his next campaign in Fresno and gathered another 150 men to the concept. By January 1952, more than a hundred in Phoenix joined and incorporation followed. Shakarian’s stroke of genius was in not duplicating a church service or healing meeting but taking his cue from the luncheon format of Rotary service clubs or Kiwanis. Businessmen gathered around food, got to know one another, and listened to a colleague's testimony before returning to the office or other workplace. The microphone was shared widely, among Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Catholics. The Spirit cut across all tradition, and the idea caught fire. By 1970, there were 300,000 members in 700 chapters across the US and beyond. Roberts called them “God’s Ballroom Saints.” FGBMFI “airlifts” took planeloads of Christian businessmen to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia to spread the word.
A monthly digest-size magazine called Voice was inaugurated and widely passed around, with life stories of marketplace men and their encounters with God. In 1978, the annual convention drew a peak attendance of 25,000. Every year at the FGBMFI board meeting, Demos Shakarian would resign his position as president and step out into the hall; the board would promptly vote him back in for another year. By his own admission, he never saw himself as more than a “helper” in the Body of Christ in the vein of 1 Cor. 12:28.
By 1986, the Full Gospel Business Men’s ranks had swelled to 700,000 regular attenders in 3,000 chapters across 95 nations, including such hard places as the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Saudi Arabia. John and Elizabeth Sherrill recorded this movement in The Happiest People on Earth. No one could have been happier with the flood of Spirit-energized faith across the professional landscape than the once dairyman, Demos Shakarian.
Further Reading
- The Happiest People on Earth.
- Under His Banner.