Why I Had to Learn Business After Ministry

No one tells you this when you’re raised in spiritual environments:

You can love God deeply
and still have no idea how to build something sustainably.

I didn’t leave ministry and suddenly become “worldly.”
I left a system where spiritual language replaced practical skill.

And that confusion followed me longer than I expected.

When calling replaces competence

In many Word of Faith and charismatic spaces, passion is treated as preparation.

If you’re sincere enough, bold enough, anointed enough — everything else is supposed to fall into place.

But sincerity doesn’t teach you:

how to price your work
how to create structure
how to set boundaries
how to build something that doesn’t depend on constant emotional output

So when you step into the real work of building — a center, a business, a space for women — you feel behind before you even start.

Not because you lack wisdom.
But because you were never taught how things actually function.

The disorientation after leaving

Coming out of charismatic culture and into business is deeply disorienting.

You realize how much of what you were taught was spiritualized survival:

“God will provide” used instead of planning
“Trust the process” used instead of accountability
“Obedience” used instead of clarity

And when those phrases stop working, you’re left standing there thinking:

Why does everyone else seem to know how to do this?

That feeling of being “behind” is not failure.
It’s exposure.

Exposure to the gap between spiritual enthusiasm and real-world skill.

Why Life Anchor felt harder than it should have

Life Anchor didn’t fail because it lacked vision.

It struggled because vision alone is not enough.

I had to learn — slowly and sometimes painfully — that integrity requires structure.
That care requires systems.
That sustainability requires skills no one prayed over me to receive.

There were seasons I stopped women’s groups.
Stopped retreats.
Stepped back completely.

Not because I didn’t believe in the work — but because continuing without learning how to steward it would have been irresponsible.

That was a hard truth to accept.

Learning business without losing yourself

One of my fears was that learning business would make me cold, corporate, or disconnected.

What I found instead was the opposite.

Learning business:

protected my energy
clarified my boundaries
reduced spiritual pressure
made the work safer for women

Business done with integrity doesn’t replace faith.
It removes chaos.

And for women coming out of spiritual manipulation, less chaos is healing.

Why I’m not rushing anymore

I’m still learning.

I still meet with my clients.
I’m still building Life Anchor.
My husband is still working on the salt room.
I’m still preparing retreats.

But I’m no longer pretending I already know everything.

I’m not interested in growth that outpaces maturity.
I’m not interested in language that sounds spiritual but avoids responsibility.
And I’m not interested in repeating systems that harmed people — including myself.