Tentmaking in Silicon

The title of this post is a mite more exciting than the contents. It’s a bit of personal reflection on my own life and business.

It’s just over 10 years since I started Energion Publications. In fact, I was rather surprised, when I looked at the first book we released, to see that it has a copyright date of 2004. We had one book before that, but it was one we bought out as we started the company.

When we started Energion Publications, I was earning my living by managing small networks, with an occasional sideline in custom software development. I kept that business while I built up the publishing operation. It was an absolutely necessary part of the program. Starting a new publishing company ten years ago, and surviving the past 10 years, required some source of additional income.

But my goal throughout was to be able to drop the computer work and work full time as a publisher. I kept thinking that the publishing business should be not just self-supporting; it should be able to support me as well. There are some quite good reasons to desire that result. If I just take the last two days, I had over 8 hours of my time taken away from urgent work meeting publishing deadlines. These were things that couldn’t have waited. One involved a power outage and a nearby lightning strike (only one small part actually had to be replaced), and the other a software vendor who provided incorrect license numbers with a software upgrade, thus effectively shutting down an entire office. Both could be fixed. But they came at a very bad time for me.

As an aside, you may ask, why am I blogging if I’m so far behind on work? There are two reasons. 1) I can’t actually work as many hours as I’d like to on book production. A moment comes when the brain says, “Enough!” and I have to take a break. On the other hand, doing a bit of blogging is one of my forms of relaxation, so I can do it as prevention. 2) We sell more books when my wife and I blog. I haven’t quite figured this one out, and it may just be correlation without causation, but more likely it has to do with total web traffic. More people read this blog than read our company blog. It took me a bit to see blogging as anything other than fun, and I still refuse to be guided by business needs in my personal blogging, but the fact is that it appears to be useful beyond what I would have imagined. So here I am.

I have also tried to consider the publishing efforts a business. Yes, it does ministry, because it makes Christian materials available. But it’s a business. My behavior isn’t always in tune with that. There are things I publish, not because I think they will make money, but because I think they should be available. I’m an independent publisher. My wife and I can make decisions like that as we need to.

That independence is important. I recall being in a discussion once in which a young pastor hinted at something about ministry from the book of Acts. One of the members of the group told him the idea sounded dangerous. He responded that he wouldn’t say it to the bishop, but it was a possibility he had to raise. I had to jump in to say that I didn’t report to any bishop, so I could say that the verse meant precisely that! At the time it was a joke. Then I got to thinking.

There is a place for independence. There is a place for accountability. Because I have two jobs, I have a certain independence. Because my business is not attached to any denomination I am free to publish what I and those who advise me believe is important. Not things that I (or they) necessarily agree with, but things that should be heard. Again, because I have two jobs, I can consider publishing something that doesn’t appear to have potential to become the next Christian bestseller.

So over the last year there has been a change in the way I think about these two jobs. I no longer look for the time when I will no longer be doing IT work. Rather I consider the IT work as the tentmaking that allows me to pursue the ministry of publishing. Yes, I still run the publishing enterprise as a business. It’s organized on a for-profit basis. I’m not going to start doing fundraising or seeking donations. That’s another thing that I’m freed from by my other business. Sometimes it means I can give books to those who need them.

Is this a form of bi-vocational ministry? I don’t really know what to call it. I just thought I’d reflect in public on why I work the way I do. Jody and I appreciate the prayers, support, work, and the advice of those who have supported us as we work.