Leonard’s Books, God’s Business

 

My personal Bible

“God wants to bless your business.” 

     ~A pastor at Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference, 2005.

The Prophecy

In 2005, we were struggling to make ends meet – we really were. But we trusted God for the funds to fly Eric to California to attend the Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference in Costa Mesa with Pastor Joe. We knew it was important for him to go there and keep in touch with other pastors, so we put the amount on the credit card and prayed, and he was on his way. 

Without Eric at home, I would heroically try to hold down the fort with his bookselling business, continue to homeschool our six kids and run the household, and talk with him on the phone every evening to touch base. One such evening, we were talking about our experiences of the day and I told him ecstatically about my find at the grocery store. I had just bought five ten-pound bags of chicken parts at $1.98 cents per bag. And while I babbled on about God’s provision for our family and what I could do with 50 pounds of chicken for Chris’s graduation open house, Eric listened and understood my excitement. 

When he got off the phone, he noticed someone standing nearby who had heard part of the conversation.  Eric explained how God had blessed us with the cheap chicken. That fellow attendee was excited to hear it – so excited that he reached into his wallet and added $200 to the blessing. He said God had told him to give this to somebody. Then after Eric got home, there was another check for $500 from his sister, who also had received instructions from God to bless us. That combination covered all our conference expenses, with an excess of about fifty cents. 

But unlike the conferences and annual get-togethers of many denominations, Calvary Chapel pastors did not gather to vote on the issues of the day or issues of church polity. Rather, they gathered for a booster shot of The Word of God, encouragement from other pastors, workshops and worship, and time alone with The Father, away from the hubbub and the daily responsibilities of running a church.

During the conference, Eric got to counsel with another pastor about our newish church, that was pretty small but we hoped it would grow. Then he explained that our business wasn’t really paying enough to make ends meet, but we were thinking about closing down the book sales and perhaps doing bookbinding instead. The other pastor looked thoughtful for a bit and told Eric about his own struggles during the early part of his ministry, feeling like a failure as his wife and family sat in the car to keep warm in the winter because the gas had been shut off in his house. Then he stopped abruptly and said he believed he had a word from the Lord. 

Eric waited to hear what the Lord wanted to say, expecting it to be about our church, since this was a pastors conference of course. Instead, the pastor said, “I believe the Lord is going to bless your business.” A few days after Eric returned from the conference, there was a check in the mail from this pastor, for $1000, for us to invest in our business. That was rather like “putting his money where his mouth is.”

How We Got Started

Back in 1999, our antiques business went online, one of the first businesses in Lafayette to do so. A good friend who was a web developer convinced me that the future belonged to businesses who had websites. She gave me some simple instruction and taught me how to do it myself. You can see how it looked here. I can tell you we never once sold any antiques that way, but we had some people who read our “Antiquer’s Apprentice” posts.

As I related in a previous post, it wasn’t long before Eric had turned his dad’s store into mostly a bookstore along with a whole slew of consignments, and then during 2001, we moved all the books to our new garage (the old Burrows fire station) and sold them out of our home. Shortly after 9/11, in 2001, we announced we had transitioned to all books. But we never had quite enough income. I tried this job and that job, trying to boost our income, but nothing ever worked quite enough to feed the family and keep us afloat. By 2003, we had an online bookstore with categories, built by Chrislands, but still linked from our main website.

Eric had a little side interest in fixing books that had been growing over the years, originally born in 1982, from an attempt on my part to rescue a very ratty old copy of The Prince and the Pauper that was found in a basement. I think it belonged to a relative, but I couldn’t tell you who that might have been. The paper was weak and the pages were pink and purple with mildew and half-eaten by worms. The cover was nonexistent. But I thought it was neat because it was SO OLD! So I had put a wood grain contact paper on it to keep it together. Eric tried doing something with it, based on his discoveries of how a book must be put together, after he’d taken one apart. It looked better, but in the end, he was able to locate another copy of it to replace mine.

As he learned more about book repair and restoration and located some tools and materials, he did some jobs for others, especially two people who bartered with him. He gave them bookbinding credit when they located books on the used market for him that he could sell. The more he did those jobs, the nicer the books looked. I thought, this looks like it could be a good money-maker! 

But Eric didn’t think so yet. By the time of the pastors conference in 2005, we were describing “Leonard’s Book Restoration'' on our website, and advertising that we had over 7,000 books for sale at our other website. But we were still only doing only about two bookbinding projects a week. At least, earned income credit always gave us a sizable tax refund, so we looked forward to tax season.

He did do about a million sets of Grant’s Memoirs in full leather for a regular customer and sometimes he also fixed people’s Bibles. It just wasn’t very easy to do Bibles, because people wanted their Bibles to be flexible, and they required something different.

In 2006, we had a call from Liz and Jason, long-time homeschooling friends who needed a place to stay. They had recently been married but were homeless, Jason was ill, Liz was pregnant, and it was winter. Well, we had all our rooms full, but we found space for them on two feather ticks in a sunroom that had been built between our house and the old summer kitchen, which had been remodeled by Liz’s older brothers.

This was tough because by that time, we were on food stamps. We weren’t supposed to be sharing our food stamps with someone else, so Liz and Jason had to also file for food stamps.

And then the letter came. Twice a year, we had to be re-evaluated for food stamps, and we didn’t think anything of it, but this time, things were different. Because we had bought the fire station when Eric’s mom died, we actually owned it. It housed all our books, and it was how we made our living. But now we were told that because we outright owned the $6,000 property, we no longer qualified for food stamps. This was serious. So now what?

We had an emergency family meeting, along with Liz and Jason, who needed to know the situation. And we lifted the need to the Lord in prayer. Then, we sprang into action.

First, I picked up some new WYSIWYG software (What You See Is What You Get – pronounced “wizzy-wig”) and updated our website to something more modern (and busy!). And then I spent every night working on that website, and after that, promoting it. I built links everywhere. I found out where we had competitors and how they advertised, and then I did it too. I joined web directories, web rings, and bulletin boards. I got spots on publishers’ websites and databases of bookbinders in practice. When I say every night, I mean that I was up all night long, surfing the web and building our business. My goal was to get ten quote requests per day for Eric, and I found a free counter to put at the bottom of the home page to show how popular our site was.

We tackled the problem of Bible flexibility, as we realized how profitable that market could be. And when we understood that the combination of the right leather, the right glue, and the right inner lining worked for flexibility, we knew we had a good product – flexible, durable, and good looking.

Meanwhile, the others had jobs. Chris, Susie, Robyn, and Valerie all were recruited to be apprentices in the shop. Even David was able to put away the type after we used it for imprinting.

Hmmmm ... I wonder what this one is!

I grabbed Vivian, who was on track to being 9 years old that year, and gave her the job of cooking dinner for all of us every night. I didn’t do much homeschooling, but it was a crash course in Work Experience for a month. 

Liz and Jason were watching how trusting the Lord in a time of crisis worked, and I got to bring them to doctor appointments, where Jason was being evaluated to find out why he was fainting and hallucinating. They moved out before Micah was born, but that was good. We didn’t really have a good setup for a baby at that time. 

Eric was running the shop out in the garage next to the for-sale books, and also running the church. We did start to get lots of inquiries, and finally I realized that this was actually what I should have been doing all along. This was no longer a case of “Eric’s business.” It was “our business,” and when we were doing things together as a couple, or as a family, things worked out far better.

I did try to keep up with the website and improve upon it from time to time, but what I needed to do first was “move in.” Eric had taken the remodeled summer kitchen from me when he moved home in 2001, so I needed to reclaim it. He had a small rope edge desk with a desktop computer perched precariously on it, along with lots of papers and things that looked like they were going to fall off and often did.

We took a trip to Staples and I told him we had to have that computer desk – that one right there! Sure it was just particle board, but it was a good start. After a little organizing and rearranging, and a real office chair, I chased Eric out and became his office worker, answering all his emails and keeping things organized. I did away with his scribbled, barely decipherable sales books and bought Quickbooks for the computer.

The kids, as family employees, benefitted from both an increase in family income, and having some spending money of their own. We settled down into a “working after school” routine, which worked for a good long time, as long as we still had homeschool students in the house. After a while it was clear we’d need to hire some non-family employees too. We even thought about building a new bookbinding facility in the backyard, but we ended up buying the trailer on an adjoining property that we used as an annex, and a house a block and a half away where we consolidated our shop.

Today, Leonard’s Book Restoration is very well-known, and the prophecy from the Pastors Conference was right. Our website is very visible since it’s been there so long. We’ve had up to 16 or so employees at one time, including some grandkids, though now we can’t really do that with social distancing.  Jason’s health is much better now, he and Liz have three kids, they both returned as faithful employees of Leonard’s, and Micah is also a homeschooled apprentice.

Our shipping department sends out around 200 books and Bibles a month. It seems a little strange to have such a booming business in Burrows, as Eric and I work out of the back of our house and the rest of our employees work in another house a block and a half away, zoned for business. We are the only employer here in the town besides the post office, and we’re surrounded by corn and beanfields in a county that has 75 hogs to each human being. 

It’s truly the Lord’s business. We have been able to bless many, many missionaries, pastors, and teachers over the years. Some of their stories have been downright inspiring. Eric kept a map in the hallway and put a red dot where our customers were from. He stopped last year when we were having unusual situations because of Covid and could no longer have school tour groups coming through nor meet with customers indoors. But by that time, most of North America was already red anyway.

The Lord’s Business

But what does it mean, when I say this is the Lord’s business? Here are some possibilities. 

Is it because it was prophesied that the Lord would bless our business?

Is it because it is owned and operated by a Christian family?

Is it because we just do Bibles and never do Books of Mormon or Harry Potter or Stephen King?

Is it because we force our employees to attend company sponsored Bible studies or attend our church?

Is it because we keep our prices low so common people can afford to keep their Bible intact?

Is it because we tithe on our income or close on Sundays to go to church?

Is it because we do our best to be kind to our customers and not call down fire from Heaven on them when they are difficult?

Most of these things are actually true about our company and our policy. The one about the Bible studies isn’t true. Actually, our employees all do go to church, but they are a diverse lot! We do have to turn down work from time to time because it is objectionable material, like a disgusting lewd book somebody wrote about sex and the Bible, or a book someone’s white supremacist ancestor wrote about how the Negro race was only a half-step up from the apes – you could tell by the shape of their heads!

But there are business owners who happen to be Christians, and businesses that cater to Christians but whose owners aren’t even saved. And then there are Christian business owners who have dedicated their businesses to the Lord. That’s where we fit in. We’re more like the Apostle Paul who made tents with Aquila and Priscilla, or like Mike Lindell and My Pillow. 

 In fact, when the sledge hammer that was Obergefell fell upon America, and suddenly, it was decreed by a few people in black robes in Washington D.C. that for all of America, it was legal and proper to marry someone who was the same sex as yourself, we put a statement on our Facebook page to clarify that because of that ruling, we would no longer put two names on a Bible. There were … some heated discussions on our Facebook page, one of our previous customers told the world that they threw away a leather Bible we had rebound for them because they could no longer stand to look at it, and as a result, our business increased so much that we couldn’t keep up very well.

America is looking for businesses run by people with courage and conviction to patronize. If you are selling food, it would be silly to chase off customers and say that because of their lifestyle, you can’t sell them food. In fact, the more you can minister to lost souls, the better.

But as Christians who run a business that is the Lord’s, we realize that He is ultimately the Boss, not we ourselves, not the Government, and not even the Customer. And if He is the Boss, then, we are His servants.  We need to treat both our customers and our employees right.  Decision making needs to be by The Book. The spirit of the business is Wisdom from above. 

Will we rebind Bibles that belong to homosexuals? Absolutely! Will we rebind a Bible in Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Version,” putting “HOLY BIBLE” at the top of the spine? Absolutely not! 

Will we refuse to pay withholding taxes to the government? No. Will we hire unbelievers who regularly blaspheme God’s name? Nope.

Do we rebind books other than Bibles? Yes, if we are okay with the content. Do we also see our business as a mission field! You bet! That’s why we put tracts in every shipment.

Sometimes we have an opportunity to pray with a customer. One time, before Covid, Chris had the rest of the shop workers gather with him around someone who had been diagnosed with cancer. Maybe a year later, that customer came back, specifically to tell us that he had been healed.

And sometimes, one of our customers will pray for us, sometimes when we least expect it. We keep the communication lines open with God at Leonard’s. That is critical. 

Do you own a business? Are you wondering how you can practically use these principles in a different type of business model? How can you make your business, the Lord’s business? That, my friend, must be settled in your heart, by the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And then, when you pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” you can be sure that He is listening.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

~James 1:5

“Lord, I pray for those who may be reading this post and wondering how they can have a business that is Yours. I join with them now in asking for inspiration, wisdom, and guidance. Because they are looking to You in faith, reward them openly with the answers they need.  In the Name of Jesus we pray, Amen.”