Coffee Shop Sabbatical

Yesterday I closed on the sale of my coffee shop City Falls Coffee.  It was a short stint.  We began remodeling in October and opened on New Years Eve.  Many questioned why?  I will be honest some of the reason was the excitement of trying something new and different, some of the reason was to be part of Uptown Columbus but mainly I just needed a break.  I have been in church work since I was 19 years old.  That is 19 years ago.  I am a self professed workaholic and ministry became just a job for me no longer a calling.  I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in those churches and I learned a lot from Pointe North, Remount, Upatoi and Evangel Temple but I needed to take a step back and evaluate some things.  I have never lived on the other side of the stained glass windows.  Now, I worked in a bar district.

Opening a business is incredibly exhiirating but also a terrible headache to a guy not blessed with the talent for detail.  I thank my awesome wife Audra, Rob Jarrett and some others that helped in the early stages.  We sef financed and poured everything we had into this new mission called City Falls.

It was beautiful, we had a great staff and great coffee.  We were on the map almost immediately.  However, we opened at the worst time for retail, winter.  So, we started with a sputter and had some equipment issues so financially it was rough.  But soon, the shop was paying for itself and was ready to take off…here is my problem.  I like building things but I am a horrible manager so my wife and I decided to sell the shop and use the proceeds to live on till we figure out what is next.

That is where we are.

I will miss a few things about owning a coffee shop.

1) Free coffee

2) All the great regular customers I had and the great conversations that were had

3) Friday nights hanging out with the Bar Owners talking about life…especially after they figured out that I was a pastor.

4) The conversations I was able to have with the homeless, the homosexual, the confused and the searcher

You see, I blogged earlier (somehow it got lost) that these people had never heard of Perry Noble or Steven Furtick or cared about the feud between Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll.  They were just trudging through life trying to figure it out.

I learned a lot about my theology and humanity while on this coffee shop sabbatical.  I learned that preaching is easy, pastoring is messy.  I learned that this new form of reformed doctrine/fundamentalism/angry preaching is great for stirring up the troops in your churches but doesn’t communicate when you are sitting across a table from someone pouring out their heart.

I am going to finish my degree and get my seminary degree over the next 2 years and while I do I am praying God would continue to form me to be the Pastor he wants me to be.  Not a clone like so many others but I want to work out my salvation and then lead others to him.

Through coffee, I have fallen in love with Jesus again.  It feels good.