Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Layton Williams is curating a series we’re calling “Ministry Out of the Box,” which features stories of ministers serving God in unexpected, diverse ways. What can ordained ministry look like outside of the parish? How might we understand God calling us outside of the traditional ministry ‘box?’ We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Adam Walker Cleaveland

“Hi, my name is Adam, and I’m an entrepreneur.”

What?

When I was in seminary ten years ago, if you had told me I would graduate, serve three churches, and then start a business creating resources for children’s ministry… I would never have believed you.

First, I really didn’t care for children’s ministry (shhh, don’t tell anyone).

Second, I had read a lot of business and leadership books while in ministry and during my time in seminary, but it always felt like I should have been reading them with those old brown paper bag book covers like you used to make in elementary school for your textbooks. Sure, you could glean some interesting analogies and ideas from those books for ministry, but they were business books, and ministry and business needed to be kept far away from each other. I was, after all, pursuing the higher calling – being a pastor.

Oh, the naiveté of a first-year seminarian.

And yet, here I am. Ten years out of seminary and I’m a businessman (although, when I was just starting out and living the life of a ‘solopreneur,’ I could understand why Jay-Z might have felt like he himself was the business, man, and not just a businessman).

My journey here was not a quick or easy one. It was filled with successes, joys, and a lot of fulfillment serving churches in parish ministry. It was also filled with loss, depression, conflict, and moments of utter frustration with my calls. Parish ministry can be life-giving, but it can also suck the life out of you. It can make you question your call and your faith, and one can grow increasingly cynical about ministry.

Through a series of events over a two-year period, I eventually found myself imagining what it would look like to start a business offering illustrated faith resources to churches and families. The fact that there was an adult coloring craze occurring at the same time that I launched Illustrated Children’s Ministry (ICM) was also quite helpful.

Once the business began to take off and I started writing and talking more about the work we were doing, I found myself oddly avoiding some words related to the business. I became aware that I used certain words instead of more business-y-sounding words. I wouldn’t talk about our “products” but I would share extensively about our “resources.” We didn’t have “customers” – we had a “community.” ICM was a ministry – not a business.

For someone who spent a lot of time reminding parishioners that they could live out their callings as doctors, teachers, and businesspeople, I sure was having a hard time acknowledging that it wasn’t a bad thing that I was now an entrepreneur running a successful business. Why did I feel the need to avoid words like “products” when that is exactly what we sell at ICM? It’s like all those conversations in seminary about the church not being a business made me think that there was something wrong with being a business, or a businessperson.

And clearly, there isn’t anything wrong with it.

In fact, now that I am an entrepreneur and running my own small business, I feel like I’m doing more ministry and having a greater impact in the world by using my gifts in this way. One of the products that ICM sells is large coloring posters. For this past Advent, we had over one thousand churches from all over the world using our posters and creating opportunities for their communities to gather intergenerationally. We are currently selling stations of the cross coloring posters, and we’ve surpassed our numbers from Advent. I’m guessing that we’ll have close to 1,500 churches, schools, campus ministries, and retirement communities around the world coloring our posters.

Whether by choice or by necessity, I imagine that more and more pastors are going to start thinking about alternative ways that they can support themselves and their families, and starting a business is a great option. Fizzle is an online community for independent entrepreneurs who are working hard to earn a living doing something they love. I found this community when I started ICM and it’s been an incredible place of information and support. The crew at Fizzle says that the most successful businesses come together when you find a problem that people have in the world, you get to know those people, and care about them enough to be able to offer them a solution to that problem.

Gosh, I feel like I’ve heard something like that before.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
-Frederick Buechner

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Adam Walker Cleaveland is the founder of Illustrated Children’s Ministry, LLC, a business that creates illustrated faith resources for the church and the home. He lives in Chicago with his wife (a pastor), their 5-yr old son and 6-week old daughter. Find out more about Illustrated Children’s Ministry at their website: illustratedchildrensministry.com.