by Jeff Gilbert '87
On Christmas night in 1988, questions bombarded Earl Seals’ mind. Deep questions for a 16-year-old.
“Does God exist?”
“Who is He?”
Seals didn’t ask questions just because it was Christmas. His older brother John was dying of cancer, and he had given his life to Jesus. Seals didn’t know what getting saved meant. But he knew his brother wasn’t afraid to die, didn’t care about partying anymore, and only wanted to share the story of how Jesus had changed him.
“I saw him go from darkness to light,” Seals said. “I saw him reading his Bible. What happened to my brother?”
Seals wanted answers, but he remained blind to the truth. His girlfriend invited him to a church play on Christmas Eve that he expected to be awful. But the play convicted him of his sin, and when it ended, he talked to a youth leader.
Seals had exposure to church, but he had never heard that Jesus could forgive sins. The good news of who Jesus is became clear. He prayed to be saved.
“The darkness fell from my eyes,” Seals said. “I bowed down before Christ, and my prayer was ‘I am your slave.’”
Knowing nothing about church etiquette, Seals asked for the microphone. He told his story in front of 700 people. God saved another 20+ people, and that night was the catalyst for six weeks of church revival.
Salvation changed Seals’ teenage life, which had previously revolved around girls, working out, fast cars, AC/DC, and a case of beer under the bridge.
“It really created inside of me a desire to understand God's Word better,” Seals said.
He wondered how he — like his brother so faithfully did — would fit into God’s story and make a difference. As he knows more than 30 years later, it’s been through God’s faithfulness at every step.
Seals’ hunger for spiritual knowledge started a string of radical and continuous change that prepared him for stages of life he couldn’t imagine. Salvation propelled a kid from a modest upbringing in east Tennessee to Midwestern cities, to jobs he didn’t want, and eventually into jobs and leadership roles that helped local churches.
Seals worked longer than he wanted to in the direct sales business of selling knives and running regional offices for Cutco. After years of waiting, God led Seals and a friend to start a publishing business that’s now in its 20th year.
Seals’ plans have never been just his own; he credits the Lord with every step of his journey.
“Everything that has ever been done or achieved in my life has very little to do with me, if anything at all,” Seals said. “The reality is, the most I ever wanted to become was to work at the Toyota factory.”
God, however, had a different plan: make an entrepreneur out of a student at Moody Bible Institute.
Chicago is over 500 miles from the Seals’ family farm near Gatlinburg and the Toyota plant. It’s a world away from what Seals was used to: milking cows, running the Exxon station on the midnight shift, then going to school.
When Seals told his father he would be the first in the family to attend college, the message was direct.
“My dad gave me a $20 bill and said, ‘Good luck, son,’” Seals said. “That was it, and off to college I went.”
Seals went to Moody to become a pastor, but his time at school instead made him into an entrepreneur. He needed money to pay for school and to live on, so he stumbled into a job with Cutco. The work was hard, convincing people to buy knives, but he was good at it.
And Seals clearly sensed God's presence and affirmation to continue.
But that encouragement was not what Seals wanted. His friends were graduating from Moody to be pastors and missionaries. And he was selling knives.
When Seals graduated, Cutco asked him to open an office in Indianapolis without the usual two or three years of training.
He was praying and knew God wanted him to pursue the opportunity. While he didn't understand where the Lord's guidance was leading him, he followed it.
Seals’ Indianapolis office became the number one new office in the United States. His income grew, and his regional territory covered two states. But the hours were long. His wife and four children spent eight to 10 weeks at a time in Chicago with his wife’s family so he could focus on work.
“In one breath I would say I had everything, but I also had nothing simultaneously,” Seals said.
And so he prayed for change.
“I would go before the Lord consistently and say, ‘Why do I have to do this?’” Seals said. The answer was the same. The Lord wanted him to be patient. He was preparing him ... but for what?
Then the change he sought began to happen. But not without more waiting and not without more time at Cutco.
Cutco wanted to move Seals to Chicago, increasing his territory to five states and doubling his income. Seals, as much as he wanted to do something else, couldn’t object.
Three years passed and thousands of knives were sold as Seals watched for what might be next. Nothing fit.
Then, late one evening, Seals put his feet up on his desk and called his friend Duane Hixon, who had previously worked at Cutco, and told him after three years of running five states he was finished.
“He says, ‘Good. I have another idea,’” Seals said. “And the Spirit of God whispered very clearly, ‘Pay attention. This is it.’ I didn’t even know what it was. I just knew to pay attention because this was it.”
Hixon’s idea: a neighborhood newsletter supported by advertising.
“It didn’t matter if he said paper clips or pens,” Seals said. “God’s prompting and direction was what I desired more than anything else.”
In 2004, Seals and Hixon started The N2 Company with the goal of turning neighborhoods into communities. Through franchisees, N2 produces over 500 hyper-local magazines in affluent areas across the country, reaching over a million households and donating 2% of all sales toward efforts to end human trafficking.
“We started at zero. It took three years to make one dollar,” Seals said. “What’s really hard about this story is God also whispered, ‘You have to start over,’ which means sell your house.”
As much as Seals wanted a change, his day-to-day comforts were gone. They left behind their custom house, their Christian neighbors, their Christian school, and their luxury car.
Hixon started a magazine in North Carolina, and Seals started one in St. Louis. After three years, they broke even and earned $4,000 each. Twenty years later, N2 does over $150 million in annual sales. And the Seals eventually returned to Chicago.
Since then, Seals launched Christian Business Fellowship, an organization meant to help businesspeople help churches with organizational development and create long-lasting Kingdom impact.
He also became involved with The Chosen streaming series about the life of Jesus. He is listed as an executive producer for his counsel on the business side of The Chosen. In October, Seals came to Cedarville for the Impact 2024 business conference, encouraging businesspeople and church leaders to work together for the common purpose of Gospel ministry.
Seals’ story from redemption to Gospel ministry as a businessman came full circle a few years ago. Before John Seals died at 21 — after going into remission — he wrote a letter in response to the question, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” That letter made its way to Earl Seals.
John’s answer? He realized how much more effective his witness was for Christ when he had cancer. So, he prayed for the cancer to return if it meant he could be more effective. Two weeks later, his prayer was answered.
“My brother fully understood his role in God’s story,” Seals said. “That many may come to Him because of the battle that John was having with cancer. It’s one of the most beautiful stories ever.”
And Seals has come to terms with his mission as well — a life pursuing Christ and using his resources for Gospel purposes.