I raised support for the first few years of our church plant and then I was on the payroll for about 9 years after that before transitioning off.
Looking back on these years, I wanted to share some lessons I’ve learned. I hope these help those of you thinking of starting a tentmaking journey of your own. I also hope it encourages those of you already on the adventure.
Lesson 1: I wish I would’ve started sooner.
I was just sharing this with my cousin over lunch this past week. We were talking about business and I mentioned to him that after these years of tentmaking, I wished I had started sooner.
There were some opportunities that the Lord brought into my path in the early days of ministry that I didn’t seize because I thought everyone in ministry was supposed to get paid by the ministry. I assumed I shouldn’t pursue those because I was going to eventually come on the payroll at the church.
In hindsight, I wish I would’ve chosen differently. This has been an exciting journey of trusting the Lord for our daily bread.
Lesson 2: I’m glad I got a coach early in the journey.
When I started my real estate business, I hired a coach soon after. I already had some experience with flipping real estate, but I knew I could scale more quickly with the help of a coach. That absolutely proved to be true.
At one point I tried to measure the ROI from the amount I invested in coaching and it had quite a few zeros on the end. I think the coaching in the beginning helped me to come off the payroll at the church quicker than I could’ve done on my own.
Lesson 3: Multiple smaller income streams beat one bigger income stream
I’ve written about this multiple times in this newsletter. What’s been great about pursuing multiple streams of income is that your livelihood doesn’t rely on just one stream.
If one stream dries up, you have others to cover you while you build another stream.
During my tentmaking journey, we’ve started multiple businesses doing a variety of things and this gave us more of a sense of security than had we put all of our eggs in one basket.
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I’ll share 3 more lessons next week.
I recommend pastors, missionaries & Christian leaders begin a tentmaking journey if they haven’t already. Initially it can seem scary, but in the end I think you’ll be glad you took the step of faith.
