Marybeth Snyder, a member of Newtown Quaker Meeting, a business woman and an entrepreneur, will share her spiritual journey at the Newtown Meeting Adult Class at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, September 17. Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends will follow at 11 a.m. The public is invited.
Marybeth is Principal of Superior Benefit Plans, an employee benefits insurance broker and consultant, and describes her journey as one intimately wrapped up in her work in the world. Her talk is entitled Business as Crucible of Faith.
Marybeth Snyder says: “My spiritual journey and my work in the world are indistinguishable to me: one informs the other as I grow closer to God and to my fellow people in community. After college, I fell into the employee benefits field and worked for insurance companies in health care insurance for 20 years. My work had always been an important source of my identity and hard work is what I was raised on. Increasingly, though, I felt that making money was not the sole purpose of work, and wanted my work to count for something more. A deeply spiritual person, but without a formal religion, I began reading about vocation, a calling to work on a deeper level than just having a job.”
Snyder says she began to read about business people who embodied the ideals that she sought. The legend of Quaker business people drew me. George Fox, the 17th century founder of the Religious Society of Friends, recorded “people came to have experience of Friend’s honesty and faithfulness, and found that their yea was yea, and their nay was nay; that they kept to a word in all their dealings,…that they would not cozen and cheat them….”
Quakers have been known throughout their 360 year history for bringing to their business practices the Friend’s testimonies of Integrity, Truth and Equality. As a result, Quaker business people became known as trustworthy and often prospered, enabling them to contribute to the world not only through their businesses but also in the treatment of their employees and philanthropy. Among some of the better-known Quaker–founded businesses are Barclays and Lloyds banks, Clarks shoes, Cadbury chocolates, Bethlehem Steel, Strawbridge and Clothier and Waterford Crystal.
Snyder says she considers it a privilege to be “stretched” as a person of faith in the world of business. “Faith is not an armchair pursuit: it is at work that we are challenged to act in alignment with our beliefs as Friends: to let God’s guidance help us; to act with purpose and integrity. Remembering the Quaker testimony that ‘there is that of God in everyone’ I encounter is sometimes no easy task for me!”
“In my business, I find that outside brokers and consultants often can make it possible for employers to give their employees benefits such as health insurance. It is the employers who need expert help. But it’s the employees who are bewildered by the healthcare and health insurance system and most need our help. We make sense of a broken system so employees can best be served.”
Marybeth Snyder is an Employee Benefits Insurance Broker and Consultant. She started Superior Benefit Plans in 1999 after working for insurance companies for 20 years. She is a graduate of Bishop Conwell High School, and St. Francis College. She is a Fellow of the Wharton School’s International Society of Employee Benefits Specialists.
Newtown Friends Meeting, is open to the public, with Sunday School classes for children and adults at 9:45 a.m. and worship based on expectant silence “after the manner of Friends” at 11 a.m. Childcare is provided.