The Simple Pastor
By Phil Whittall, church planter, blogger & book reviewer
RT @lukedvd: Hope his resignation from the England manager job will allow @JoelVirgo to focus on his church duties #nomorehairdye 16 hrs ago
While a number of practical details still need to work themselves out over the next few weeks and months essentially from the 1st August I made the shift from being a proprietor to landlord. We retain the freehold on the business and are proud to have a Christian bookshop and cafe, a Christian youthwork charity and a Christian money advice charity find a home in our 200 year old building.
Christian bookshops in the UK are a vanishing breed, even theological colleges can’t maintain them and there are more towns without than with. I hope one remains in Shrewsbury for years to come. I hope the new trust that has taken on the bookshop build on our successes and succeeds where we have failed. I’ll remain a loyal customer.
Having said that I feel it is all in God’s hands and His timing is eternally perfect. So I have real peace about it and am grateful that now my family has grown and the church is merging, there is one less responsibility to give attention to, one less division on my time and energy. I’m not really one to dwell too much on the past so there’s a certain amount of anticipation as to the next step in the adventure of following Christ.
In 2004 I became one of the owners of a Christian bookshop. I believed that there was a place for a business that made Christian books, resources, music and most importantly the Bible readily available on the High Street. The selection of Bibles in your average Waterstones or WH Smith is, after all, not too great.
I believed that this shop could have a different ‘spirit’ to it, run (as best we could) with Christian values, that could offer employment and most importantly be a place that was a witness to non-believers and an encouragement to the family of God.
In this I think we have in some measure succeeded. Recently a woman gave her life to Christ right there in the shop, others have been prayed for, found encouragement and a listening ear. The coffee shop is beginning to provide a venue for fellowship and friendship. Not to mention those who have found the Word of God, resources to build faith, strengthen marriages, give generously, be creative, and live wholeheartedly for God. The stories continue to grow.
I hoped it would succeed and provide me with the opportunity to be generous with the proceeds and on this front we have failed. It’s a tough word failed, but when it comes to making money this bookshop has done the opposite. It’s been frustrating, confusing and painful. I was sure, I am sure that it was the Lord who led me to take on this old business and give it new life. In my head I know the life of even one soul who has found Christ is worth more than tens of thousands, my heart and bank balance struggle to agree.
There are a number of frustrations. I get cross with Christians who tick us off for selling say a Joyce Meyer book or The Shack because they think its theology is dodgy and then go and buy stuff from Amazon which sells any old godless crap. I get frustrated by the lack of reading and hunger to learn about our faith (it’s just such a wasted opportunity). I’m bothered by a belief that penny pinching somehow equals good stewardship, and upset that some churches think they have a divine right to a discount.
Anyway my time as the owner of a Christian bookshop is soon to come to an end but not I hope for the bookshop. I’m hoping that the Christians of Shrewsbury (and further afield) will see the vision I have, see the reasons why there should be illumination, light on the high street, why it’s important to help someone in person find a copy of the Bible they can read or give and will buy shares in a new charitable trust in order that not just the bookshop but the mission of the business can carry on. This video explains the campaign more
Help keep the light shining from Illuminate Trust on Vimeo.
If you want more information you can find out more by emailing trust@illuminatebooks.co.uk.
HT: To Andy & Gareth for plugs on their blogs
I don’t agree and I’m glad to say Cadbury’s don’t either. Here’s their response to a recent badger…
“We are happy to confirm that Cadbury has extended its commitment to Fairtrade. Three more markets are to receive Fairtrade certification for Cadbury’s flagship brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk, by early 2010: Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This announcement will bring the independent FAIRTRADE Mark into millions more homes in five of Cadbury’s key chocolate markets. Due to our distribution chain, bars will also be available in Japan! Cadbury celebrated the arrival of the first bars to carry the FAIRTRADE Mark into UK shops in July. Through Fairtrade certifying Cadbury Dairy Milk in five key chocolate markets, Fairtrade cocoa sales from Ghana will be quadrupled, from 5,000 to 20,000 tonnes. Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation are proud to be working together to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers. Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy Milk builds on the work of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership’s investment in sustainable cocoa growing communities and Cadbury’s long heritage of social responsibility. You can find out more about this by visiting: http://www.cadbury.com Cadbury estimate that by 2018 it will have made a demonstrable difference to the lives of around half a million farmers in Cadbury’s cocoa markets. You can also learn more about our approach to ethical and sustainable sourcing and Cadbury’s broader sustainability commitments by visiting www.dearcadbury.com. To follow the development of the Fairtrade story, you can also visit our dedicated blog site at:http://www.cadburydairymilk.typepad.com If we can provide you with any additional information about the Fairtrade certification of Cadbury Dairy Milk please do not hesitate to contact me on +44 1895 615011 or at alison.ward@cadbury.com. We are always delighted to her from Tearfund supporters and we thank you for once again contacting us to share your views. My family are loyal Tearfund supporters and so I have followed your developments for many years! Yours truly Alison Ward
Global Head of Corporate Responsibility
Cadbury”
Well done Cadbury’s!
My next poll is a bit of investigation into finding out more about my readers – if you read this is an RSS feed please visit the blog at least to click on the vote and disappear again. So are you male or female?
But it’s not just in this country it’s happening, but in the US as well as this post, The truth about Christian bookstores from Dan Edelen explains.
For regular updates on Christian bookshops in the UK check out Phil Groom’s Christian Bookshops Blog which has some recent challenges faced by Christian internet retailers or here at another blog Phil runs. So if you buy online why not buy from a Christian online. Cue plug for www.illuminatebooks.co.uk
One theme has re-occured a few time, and that is ‘why do reformed Christians dislike Wesley Owen so much?’ I’m not sure why but it seems to me they do. Answers on a comment form please…some like Hugh Bourne have begun the discussion here
My other related posts (unimaginatively titled it seems)
“Last week I added a poll to this site and asked where you buy the majority of your books. The results really surprised me. As of this moment Amazon has a clear lead with 55% of the votes. That means that half of us buy the majority of our books from Amazon instead of the local Christian bookstore or one of the many online Christian retailers. There are almost three times more votes for online retailers as brick-and-mortar retailers. While I’ll grant that this poll is far from scientific, it does show a clear trend (and one that makes sense of the fact that so many Christian bookstores are closing their doors).
In the comments, of which there are currently 89, many people indicated that Christians should do better than Amazon–that we should go out of our way to support Christian-owned businesses (see, for example, this one or this one).” read more
The original post here and the comments are very revealing…
The situation in this country is exactly the same, with plenty of shops closing their doors and very few attempting to reopen them.
A while ago my friend Matt Hosier asked me if I read this book. I hadn’t but I have now. In Business for the Glory of God Wayne Grudem attempts an apologetic for business. Business he feels is under attack and good Christians end up worrying that by being involved in business they are somehow falling short. So Wayne Grudem steps up to give a theological defence for making a profit. He argues that business is neither evil nor even morally neutral but inherently good and created by God.
There are 9 key areas that Grudem examines; ownership, productivity, employment, commercial transactions, profit, money, inequality of possessions, competition & borrowing and lending. He ends with a short review on the effects of the above on attitudes of the heart and the effect of business on world poverty.
Each chapter starts with a phrase: “…is fundamentally good and provides many opportunities for glorifying God but also many temptations to sin” and ends with a sentence like, “But the distortions of something good must not cause us to think the thing itself is evil…”
Grudem does a reasonable job of concisely laying out his reasons why business is good and very briefly raising some of the dangers of greed, envy and materialism. The weakest arguments by far are his argument that inequality of possessions is the way God intended things to be, that this is a good thing that gives glory to God. While extreme wealth and extreme poverty are both considered ‘bad things’ there’s no way of drawing a line, no attempt at working out how some inequality is good but too much inequality is bad. Nor is there a recognition that in the countries that have excelled in competition, profit making and generally getting rich are also the countries with the greatest inequality.
The other weak chapter are his concluding remarks on world poverty. Plenty of people agree with the premise that trade is better than aid (for example here and here) but there is a naivety about his words that are worrying. The reason poor countries are poor are because of poor governance, massively inefficient bureacracies all of which is true but it’s not the whole story. No mention of unjust trade practices by rich nations, no mention of corruption in developed nations or crimes such as slavery and colonialism or undemocratic practices in our own institutions. the picture is black and white and suggests the fault for being poor is with the poor.
Finally, the book seems aimed at combating those who think business is fundamentally evil and that it seems is a scheme of the devil. But who are these agents of the devil? Communists? Green eco liberals? He doesn’t say, which really makes it seem like straw man arguments are being used. There is also a touching naivity about it, that we the consumers set the price for the goods we pay – or we simply would stop buying them (p41), it seems that despite food riots around the world and rising fears about energy costs at home not everything is subject to Dr Grudem’s laws..
So while it is good to be in business, and it is good to equip those who are called to business, this short book is unbalanced by taking complicated issues and making them black and white. The book is not a long one (83 pages) so Dr Grudem has done good business with this book selling at £9.99, although he says a longer book on the subject is planned.
Links
My friend Phil Groom is blogging on the business of Christian bookshops and has this excellent post on why they’re needed. I should add a disclaimer that it’s excellent not just because it quotes from this post on this blog and the comments left on it. Do read it and join in the debate.
The other thing of course is that Christian bookshops in the UK are on a fast decline with lack of investment, increasing rental prices and costs, a declining church and one that reads less and less and then add to that the challenge of the internet and it’s not a great time to be in this business and many no longer are.
So here’s a question do you buy from your local Christian bookshop? If not why not? If so why? Is the lowest price everything when shopping online? Is the presence of a Christian retailer on the high street something to be desired or not? I’d be interested to know your thoughts…
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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