I have some exciting news to share. I have started out on a new adventure in life!
As some of you may know, I have been working for some years as a pastor – most recently as the pastor/chaplain at a private Christian school. The school role has been a good fit for my family. But I feel like it is time for a change. As of January 1, 2018, I cut back to a part-time chaplain role at the school. I will be finishing out the school year part-time, and then once June is over, my denominational employment will come to an end.
As a part-time pastor, I now have some time and freedom to work on several entrepreneurial projects. I hope to get several businesses/projects off the ground over the next several months to make up the income that I have lost by going part-time. By the end of the school year, I need to be making at least the equivalent of what I had been making in my full-time job as a pastor.
Yes, this certainly puts some pressure on me! My wife has a good job, but my family has debt and expenses that my income helps to cover. In other words, we can’t afford to live on just one income at this time. So I am going to have to hustle to replace the income that I am giving up. On the one hand, it is scary and intimidating. On the other hand, it is an exciting challenge.
You may have some questions regarding this transition in my life. Let me see if I can answer some of the more likely ones for you in this post.
- QUESTION: Are you giving up ministry? ANSWER: Yes and No. I am stepping aside from paid full-time pastoral ministry. But please be assured that I will still be involved in “ministry” in a more general sense. I will still be involved in the faith community. I will still seek opportunities to use my gifts and abilities to let my light shine in this dark world. I will still be involved in ministry, just in a different capacity. Does this mean that I will never be involved in paid full-time pastoral ministry again? I don’t know for sure. I don’t know much about the future – but God does!
- QUESTION: What are these “projects” that you have planned? ANSWER: There are several. Let me give you a brief outline of the main ones (as I see things at this point):
- Photo Card Box – This will be a subscription box of assorted photo greeting cards delivered to you each month. The cards will feature stunning outdoor photography on the fronts, will be blank inside (great for any occasion and ready for your personal messages), and will include a web link on the back to more information about the photo on the card (stuff like location, type of camera used, and sometimes even a bit of the backstory of the trip or adventure on which the photo was taken). For more information about this project, check out PhotoCardBox.com.
- Salty Impact – My plan with this is to provide consulting and training to help churches (and potentially other ministries) to present a professional and clean online footprint to the public. Have you ever come across a church that has multiple social media accounts that are apparently not all on the same page (figuratively speaking)? What about a church website that has outdated or missing information and is hard to navigate? Do you ever wonder about churches that have an email address that uses an internet service provider’s domain instead of the church domain (like [email protected] instead of [email protected])? I want to help churches to develop clear and concise website and social media policies, train the members who manage those accounts, and thereby play a role in helping the church to reach out to a generation that is internet dependent. For more information, check out SaltyImpact.com.
- Eremos Life – The focus of the blog is on our family outdoor adventures – things like hiking, backpacking, canoeing, camping, etc. Eremos Life includes a blog and YouTube channel that I started in 2017. But I hope to have more time now to post regularly. I also hope to have more time to actually go on outdoor family adventures! There will be posts and videos about trips and adventures that we go on. There will be tips and gear recommendations. There may be some tutorials about how to do various outdoor adventure related tasks. For more, go to EremosLife.com. Also be sure to subscribe to the Eremos Life YouTube channel. Wondering what “eremos” means? Check out the about page on the site: EremosLife.com/About/.
- Brent A Wilson Blog – That’s this blog! On this site, I plan to blog about my entrepreneurial journey. I will share some things that go well, and probably some things that don’t, as I figure this business stuff out. I will give some product/service recommendations for things that I will be using and find to work well. But don’t expect all the posts on this site to be about my entrepreneurial adventures. I will probably also post occasional religion and opinion stuff. This blog will continue to live at wordpress-1218346-4331098.cloudwaysapps.com. Check back often!
Do you still have questions? Feel free to contact me – I would love to hear from you!