As 44-year-old Bill VanAlen carefully wound his Ford Thunderbird up the never-ending driveway, panic incited the Philadelphia real-estate attorney to turn around. But thickets obstructed that maneuver. He squirmed, knowing that the other men's wives would be present -- his second wife had just left him. The Vanderbilt heir could have used a drink.

Yet spiritual intrigue propelled him on toward the dinner party given by a couple esteemed as community leaders and strong Christians.

Once up the drive and seated on the mansion's side porch, Bill kept eyeing his car. And when the host told each guest to describe "where they were in their walks with the Lord," he yearned to peel out. But good manners made him stay through the closing prayer -- even when Art DeMoss asked them, in atypical fashion, to join hands.

"I hadn't held hands with another guy since grade school," he says dryly. "And I didn't want to squeeze it too hard. I had taken a mind-control course, so I envisioned myself sitting on an ice cube and made my mind go blank.

"Then into my mind came the host's voice, 'Jesus, thank You for coming down to Earth and living a perfect life.' I had never heard that before. 'Thank You for dying for our sins past, present and future.' I had never heard that either. So I said, 'Lord, I've messed up my life pretty badly. Why don't You give it a try?'"

The host that night in 1977 was insurance magnate Arthur S. DeMoss of the DeMoss Foundation. This illuminating affair for Bill VanAlen was a standard night for Art, going through the paces of lifestyle evangelism.

As founder and president of National Liberty Corporation in Valley Forge, Pa., Art interacted with community leaders -- most of whom, like Bill, were not aware they could know Christ personally. His heart ached for them. Many of these professionals did not attend evangelical churches or Billy Graham Crusades. Their wealth and frenetic schedules insulated them from contact with those outside their social circle, and their hard-work ethic fostered a mindset of self-sufficiency. He resolved to meet these "unreachables" where they lived.

Art's wife, Nancy, grew used to him bringing friends, neighbors and coworkers home to tell them of God's unconditional love. But what began as living-room conversations over Sara Lee coffeecake graduated into full-blown dinner parties by the late 1960s.

The population the DeMosses sought to win over enjoyed socializing, and dinner parties created non-threatening environments. Especially when the night included hearing from high-profile speakers like Watergate-convicted Chuck Colson or moonwalker Jim Irwin. So effective were these parties that 40 percent of the guests would indicate commitments to place their faith in Christ. Over the years, the strategy proved itself an effective tool to reach spiritually cloistered executives.

But the number of decisions grew overwhelming to handle. So in 1976, when Art invited Campus Crusade to start discipling the dinner-party converts, Executive Ministries was born.

Consequently, the ministry did not dissolve in September 1979 when Art, at 54, collapsed and died from a heart attack. Soon after, some of the very individuals who had trusted Christ at a dinner party, and then grown in their faith through Executive Ministries Bible studies, were joining Campus Crusade's staff full time.

Currently, the ministry boasts 51 staff members and 350 volunteers in 18 U.S. cities. And Nancy DeMoss remains the quintessential hostess, still throwing the most parties from New York City to Palm Beach, Fla., and encouraging other hosts as far away as Europe and Asia.

Its catalytic nature distinguishes Executive Ministries here and abroad from many of Campus Crusade's 31 U.S.-based ministries. "It's not my ministry," clarifies Rudy Miller, former national director, who currently serves the ministry in Palm Beach. "I don't go into a city to start Executive Ministries. We identify laypeople in a city and then equip them to reach their peers."

One such person, Dr. Patrick Lester, joined a group of physicians in Tulsa, Okla., who wanted to reach peers but lacked a plan, until they linked up with Executive Ministries. "They showed us a detailed program," Patrick notes of the two staff members who came in person, "that was quite attractive to those of us less organized." That training yielded three dinner parties with 150 professionals indicating a desire to take the next step in their relationship with God.

This proven strategy also flourishes outside America's borders with parties given in 37 countries worldwide. "There was never a set time when we said, 'We're going international with this,'" Rudy notes. "But as influencers travel, they take the strategy with them."

From 1976 to 1993 Don Preston of Greenville, S.C., owned a mail-order business and hosted 44 dinner parties on the side. Now on staff full time with Executive Ministries' overseas arm, Embassy/Executive Ministries International, Don has garnered a special interest in Asia. In July 1994, he took 14 of his businessmen disciples on an outreach trip to Cambodia.

So touched, the men decided to financially invest in Campus Crusade's ministry there to city and rural peoples. In March, several traveled back over a one-month period to host and conduct follow-up for a dinner party in an attempt to reach Cambodia's scant but powerful executive class -- post-Khmer Rouge government officials.

With America's power structure harder to delineate, some may wonder who exactly Executive Ministries is trying to reach. In the last 30 years, the format and the target audience has changed little: professionally -- pressured; personally -- lonely; spiritually -- unchurched or members of "socially correct" churches. Rudy Miller emphasizes that they are leaders, not just the wealthy. But each outreach's guest list ultimately lies with each city's host team, so parties on Chicago's North Shore sparkle with sequins and CEOs, while coats, ties and school-board presidents befit other locales.

"A lot of people who make pretty darn-good money here drive pickup trucks and wear blue jeans," says Steve Wilson, dinner-party host in Bradenton, Fla. "Like someone who's a masonry contractor and lays block. He probably doesn't own a coat and tie. But his income is vastly higher than many people we would traditionally call the target audience."

However it breaks down, the group identified in the July 31, 1995, Newsweek as the "overclass" - America's affluential and influential - is being approached with the gospel by seemingly few other Christian ministries. Possibly because they're hard to find. "Increasingly, the overclass is choosing to live in ways that minimize its mixing with the middle class," reported Newsweek. "It becomes a matter of status not to have contact [with strangers]."

So Executive Ministries goes to them. "These parties are a way to fulfill the Great Commission in a demographic group that is hard to reach," says former Colorado Senator Bill Armstrong, a speaker at more than 100 parties. "If invited to hear the same message at a church, these people just wouldn't go."

Newsweek quoted lawyer and novelist Scott Turow expressing the angst of the overclass: "We know the unexamined life is not worth living, we're good parents, we recycle. But what have we done for anybody else?"