Vision Casting

When I picture opening a coffee shop with my friends, I don't see a business. The building could contain anything- it doesn't need to be a cafe, it could be a restaurant, a vacuum store, a verizon outlet, a bike repair shop- we just happen to really love coffee. I see a place that starts with three people who are passionately in love with Jesus. We have oriented ourselves toward him and as Darrell said "Jesus has oriented himself toward the father... His passion is to reveal His Father. His joy is in HIM. He loves Him. Getting to know Jesus is getting to know this passion." Entering into this relationship has caused us to also enter into his passionate love for the world and for communities- to be compelled by his desire to practically serve and reach out to all who come into contact with him through us. This upwelling of passion is what drives us to open a coffee shop.

First we individually seek God and enter into the co-lover relationship established within the trinity. Next we minister to each other by building each other up in love and by pushing each other toward Christ. A lot of what this would practically look like stems from the stuff in the supes-ult. It's similar to what we've become familiar with within Sonshine. It's the ways we seek balanced lives, and the ways we discipline ourselves in the word as a group, regularly affirm each other, rely and trust on the ways each other are being guided by Christ, and keep each other accountable through truth and love. THEN we invite others into this relationship. We invite our friends and staff to experience and understand what's at the heart of our ministry. By practicing this lifestyle and modeling staff conduct after it, our coffee shop will be founded on something greater than ourselves.

If we are admin, staff are drivers, and customers are campers, then our surrounding business community is the Paradise Point staff. We will seek to be aware of the knowledge that not everyone will be able to personally experience the atmosphere we are seeking to develop behind the counter of the coffee shop- just as the Paradise staff do not experience the magic of going out on the water for a week, those in the business community will not directly experience or understand how our day-to-day business is run. Therefore we are very intentional in how our business is run and how we interact with our ‘neighbors’.

In the same way, what our business stands for is no secret. I don’t have much to say about this right now that hasn’t already been said, but yeah. We live our lives openly… we make public our failures, our struggles, and most of all the hope that we have.

This last point is open to be contested, but I want us to get really, really good at making coffee. I want us to become systematic and professional- to be a flourishing business, not a life-sucking enterprise. This will not happen overnight and we will always be relying on the help of others. It’s not a pride thing and I’m struggling expressing it in words, so as much as I shouldn’t, I’m going to utilize another Sonshine reference. I want to tap into the same desires that Reid has for us to be really good drivers. I’ve seen the desire in each of us, and I know we have each individually experienced the ministry that can blossom under a well oiled, well timed houseboat schedule or well executed ski-run. Our coffee should be tasty and enjoyed just as campers should have a good banana boat run.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I'm working on not feeling constrained by what I write here. Our vision for this coffee shop is adaptive. I have weird insecurities about putting into words something that will change over time and insecurities about realizing that I cannot fully describe the vision we have for what this coffee shop would be and stand for. I feel weird reiterating what you two have already so beautifully written- about restating things that are familiar, or that people already know. I KNOW these are the same insecurities I have about preaching or speaking. I recognize how ridiculous that is and the understanding of my ridiculousness hasn't caused the insecurities to disappear, but saying it aloud releases a lot of the power they have over me.

I just want to finish by saying I truly love you both. I’m so overwhelmed by love right now and I don’t know what’s going to come of this enterprise, but to some extent- whatever. THIS is what this is about- the process, the risk, the growth, the journey. Anything that comes of this is His fruit, but the fruit that is already growing is enough to satisfy for a lifetime. I have so much respect and love for you both and selfishly I think I’m the luckiest person to have such devoted, and also gifted friends. You are constantly teaching me new things and showing me new sides of our Father. Praise be to God. Praise YHWH. Hallelujah.