The LBs made us feel that not going to the seminar was like not being "in fellowship". In fact, just missing too many meetings meant you were well on your way down the road of perdition. George's visits were treated almost like the apostle Paul were coming to visit. There was extra invitation, and nobody would dare miss that meeting.
I've written this elsewhere, but due to problems I was having I was "in" and "out" of fellowship (basically, missing meetings.) Finally, the leadership got fed up and put me on discipline. Lucky me, huh? Actually, it helped me because the extra burden of being REQUIRED to go to meetings that I wasn't ALLOWED to participate in broke me almost to the snapping point.