Our Story: How and Why Did We Open a Bookstore

Occasionally in life you are blessed with a moment of reflection and fresh perspective that leaves you with feelings of both gratitude and awe. For us at The Happy Book Stack, this is that moment and we are privileged and honored to share it with you.

Similar to most aspiring entrepreneurs who are slightly eclectic and very much in love with the idea of things, I have always loved the thought of owning and operating a bookstore. The smell of books, the rows and rows of bookshelves, the smell of coffee in the air and the innate and penetrating feeling that you are somehow making the community a little brighter and perhaps a bit more grounded. A scene such as this excited me. 

If I were to follow my romantic leadings, I would venture so far as to say that a bookstore is unlike any other place in the world. If it is a warm environment to the community and it carefully curates its inventory so that it can meet the needs of its reader, I think that there is no happier customer than the customer that walks through its doors. A bookstore is possibly one of the last places that an entire family can walk into with hopeful anticipation in their heart to stumble upon a book or some other item that is pleasing and enlightening- both intellectually stimulating and entertaining.

We lead our children into bookstores in order to help ensure a great future for them. We come back in ourselves to stir up that childlike wonder and to retain our sensitives to the more sacred and base parts of our humanity. The parts that are best stimulated and sharpened through the slow burn of the turning page rather than the flashing light of a smart phone. A bookstore is after all, is a portal into other worlds. A collection of writers, both dead and alive, who put pen to paper in hope that one day you could reanimate their words as you read their works, and then continue to carry them with you in your thoughts long after you put their book down. 

These collective thoughts and notions filled my head and answered the question in my heart as to why open a bookstore in spite of everything else that I could be doing. Yet the question as to how remained. I learned through much frustration that questions like these we must often leave up to God as we struggle forward. 

Like many people, I left high school for college neither knowing exactly what I wanted to do or why I should choose one particular path over another. I knew that I liked the idea of studying business since I seemed to have an entrepreneurial tilt, so I started my studies there. It fortunately didn't take me very long at all to discover that the business that I was studying in college was more the type that would look good on a resume rather than teaching me how to actually start a business. Once I decided that I likely wanted to work for myself, a resume didn't seem like the most important piece of paper anyway. The important thing that I needed to figure out was what type of business did I ultimately want to be in. 

I decided that I would study English simply to delve deeper into literature and develop my ability to write and communicate my ideas effectively, trusting that would take me somewhere in the end. To further complicate things, I had always felt torn between business and ministry. In college I spent much of time involved in ministry. During my final year and half of school I ran a successful construction business with a friend that I had partnered with. It was in this success that I began to struggle for the second time in my life with what direction I wanted my life to go. Was I going to choose to go into ministry or to run a business?

I had actually gone through this battle rigorously enough that when I did graduate, I got a degree in both English and Theology. These seemingly dueling pursuits seemed to continually pursue me. After college, I began to teach English as a second language and sold books online, while I figured out exactly what I wanted to do. As I was doing this and attempting to sort myself out, I became the co-pastor of the church that I was attending without ever planning or trying to. My book business began to grow more and more to the point that I left my job teaching English. As my business began to grow and expand I also took over the lead pastor role in the church. It was during this time that something began to change in me.

I had become disenfranchised with the church seemingly being ineffective in reaching the lost and hurting in spite of big budgets and big buildings. Through pastoring I had seen that there were plenty of people in churches with good hearts and intentions, but the machinations of church programs, schedules and hierarchies of power rendered most of its members as passive participants within the church walls rather than agents of change in their community. This was a problem that I could not stomach trying to change from the top down.

Our church was a smaller church at this time and we were able to give of our time to the community, but we were just taking in enough money to pay the bills and couldn't give to the community and other ministries like we would have wanted. I didn't want to simply exists and keep taking up resources, especially when there are so many other churches in the city where we were in. This led me and the leadership to bring our church into the home and restart in such a way that all of our resources could be used for ministry and instead of our services being centered around passively listening to a sermon, we could all meet together and talk through the Bible together. 

Upon doing this, the building that we had been meeting in for church became available and was in need of someone assuming its lease. I had not considered or planned to start a bookstore at this point, but my business had just gotten to the point where it seemed possible to take the plunge and attempt to open one if I was willing to be crazily optimistic. 

After committing to the lease, it took us 10 months to get the store up and going. It took much longer than I had thought and was also harder than I imagined but that is something that I think most idealist experience. Some things never quite come together as fast as you I would like, but I have tried to enjoy the process.

The store has changed a lot since we opened as we continue to expand our selection, hire new staff, and acquire new customers. I love being in the community and seeing how happy our customers are to come in. The people that I am privileged to work alongside actually have all gone to church with me in the past. I finally feel at home in trying to balance both business and ministry. I think that we can do a lot of good in our community and I hope that we leave each customer a bit happier each time they walk out our doors. 

For those of you that have read this far, I appreciate your interest and support. You are supporting a small business that aims to grow the right way and keep customers first while striving to make every community that we find ourselves in a brighter place. Here is to many more years, many more bookstores and hopefully some coffee in the mix of it all!