The Church is made up of Christians from a myriad of different professions, and yet their ordinary tales of God at work rarely get told. In this series, we bring you stories of faith on the frontline
My name is Pete Moon, and I’m a reluctant entrepreneur. I started out studying for a degree in media, before going to Bible college and becoming a pastor.
In retrospect, I don’t think I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and I was more influenced by what other people thought I should do than where God was leading me. I also had some unresolved grief. I started questioning whether God wanted me to remain in the Church and, in due course, I retrained as a plumber and kitchen fitter, and then set up my first company.
During that time, I was burning the candle at both ends. I began to build a second business. Moonster Leather has now grown into a multi-million-pound enterprise selling handmade premium leather goods in ten online marketplaces worldwide (see p54). It snowballed in a way that I never expected.
I think God wants us in places where we come alive. I did a StrengthsFinder exercise a while back, and that helped me to see that there were certain practical and creative things I enjoyed doing. I was driven to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. People started to say: “Oh, that’s really entrepreneurial” but I didn’t feel like an entrepreneur. I was just interested in the next thing.
I’m committed to producing quality products, building strong teams and implementing good processes. Scaling a team and market have been both exciting and challenging. We’ve worked hard on our vision and values, with generosity being a top value. We impacted five communities across five continents by giving a percentage of our profits back. We also shared a small percentage of profit with our team when we sold the business. We always pay suppliers on time.
I’ve seen God at work in so many ways. We’ve had amazing answers to prayer, such as finding an excellent supplier who fell over themselves to help us, and who grew alongside us. Despite challenges like missing or stolen shipments, we have put our trust in God.
Balancing work with my personal life, especially with two children, has been a struggle. But I’m working on it! I would ask you to pray for me to learn how to rest, develop new disciplines and understand what it means to move from success to significance. Please pray that I will make a significant and impactful contribution in the future
Pete Moon was speaking to Paul Woolley
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