Hello everybody! Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.
I'm here with Bryant Martin. We are in State College, Pennsylvania.
It is a little different for in the Anabaptist world, especially the conservative Anabaptist world,
to have something like this in an urban setting;
where you have started a coffee shop/cafe right here in downtown near a college.
Tell us about that, what's the vision how, did this thing get started, what inspired you to do this?
My wife, Linnell, and I have lived in an urban setting ever since we got married in 2008.
Three years ago we moved here to State College Pennsylvania
with the dream of starting an urban cafe or a coffee shop
where we could naturally reach out to people living in this in this area.
And so, when we got here, there was several others in the congregation here who had that same vision.
We began to pray about it together, and to pray about, specifically for a Kingdom embassy
that we could have right in downtown, right next to Penn State University.
There's 45,000 students.
That's a lot of people!
There's international students here from 130 different countries; lots of opportunity.
And so we begin to pray about that.
So we moved here in in 2015, like I said, in February of 2015,
exactly seven years, basically, after we got married.
Then later that year in August, as we have been praying about the congregation,
we discovered this place here was for sale.
We began to pray about it, began to interact with the owners,
and within several days (we had to move very quickly
because there's another party that was interested as well), we were able to acquire this place.
A month later, September 8th,
(all these details I haven't forgotten because it was, it was a very big time for us)
we actually were able to open the cafe.
God really brought together a lot of different resources.
We did not do it on our own.
He brought people to work alongside my wife in creating the menu,
certain numerous ones from our congregation jumped in and helped;
and so really what you see here
is a combination of of many, many, people that God just brought out of the blue.
In thinking about how we started here,
it's really important I believe to talk about how we got the name,
and a couple of the details surrounding this actual location.
My wife and I had a name in our back pocket for a couple years of what
we would call our cafe when we started it.
After we leased this location the leasing company said,
"There's no way you can have your name because it has coffee in it,
and our biggest customer is Starbucks (which is 50 feet away from us here)."
That was kind of a blow because we were really looking forward to having that name.
We begin to pray about it, "Lord what name would you have us to to use here."
Within about a week after we leased it,
(this all was happening I was still working for a former company that was part of)
one day I was talking with my wife on the phone, and she was headed down town here to the cafe,
and I said, "Hey Linnell, what is this street right next to our cafe, what is it called?"
And she goes, "It's called Sowers Street."
I was like, "What!"
"Sowers Street."
"Really! So, Sowers, of course, a sower went forth sowing the word.
It's such a, there's just so much, you know, packed into that. So much meaning.
We begin talking about it and out of that came Sowers Harvest.
Another really neat thing that happened to, in that time
(so I told you a little while back earlier we were praying as a congregation
for a kingdom embassy in downtown State College),
About a month then after we were even opened up maybe,
we realized that this parking lot here is called Ambassador Square.
And actually this building that we're in is called the Ambassador building.
And so that really was a blessing to realize; that goes wow.
We wanted an embassy, a piece of the home country on foreign soil,
It felt like God just really, really blessed that.
I remember hearing about when this thing opened,
and hearing about how quickly it grew, can you speak into that a little bit?
We're right downtown. We have, you know, four floors above us;
about, I think, two hundred students in this building;
surrounded by apartment buildings; the campus is just a half a block away;
45,000 students, of course you know local people as well.
So at first we're kind of tucked in the center of this building
back behind Starbucks, against the street.
So we're kind of back in off the main walkway, and we didn't do any advertising either in starting.
We just felt like we had to first figure out, to conquer, the mountain of coffee cuisine;
because, it was so new to us and all our staff that was coming on had no experience.
So we just opened up our doors one day,
and I remember our first two customers in the door.
It's Paul, he lives four stories above us here, and still here; I spoke with him today.
And then also an international student from Kuwait who became good friends with [us].
[We] had him in our home for dinner, he and his father actually.
So I never forget those two customers in the door.
But yes, it started off very slow.
And then our name started to get out.
One of the things that the restaurants around us were telling us is that you need to be open on Sunday,
and that you also need to be open late.
Because after two o'clock you can really make a lot of money off of the crowds coming out the bars;
and so I knew those two weren't an option.
We did have some evening hours at first, but as we started getting into it,
sort of getting busier and busier.
All of a sudden our team was hitting eighteen people, and so we began to cut back.
Till today, we are only open five days a week starting at 7:30, closing at 3:00.
Yeah, and the one thing that I found interesting about what you're doing here,
is you give away a lot of your profits for this business.
"Why?" is the big question, and also what what are you doing with the way God has blessed this business?
Obviously it's a for-profit venture, I mean, we're not, you know,
this isn't like a non-profit ministry or something.
But how are you using this business as a way of blessing others, blessing the community,
using it to reach out to the people around you?
One of the things that we network with, or maybe a ministry that we dovetail with, is All-Nations Bible Translation.
Starting this cafe was like, how can we steward this space?
How can we make it businesses mission? Even though we are a for-profit business,
how can we still rally around a common purpose that would give us purpose,
that would give us that day-to-day drive to see Sowers Harvest not only be a
place of mission but also be a place where we are being profitable,
where we are caring about each cup, caring about each dish.
We are committed to donating our net profits to to All-Nations Bible Translation
and to two other areas as well:
fighting human trafficking and also a local Pregnancy Resource Clinic here.
So this has been a two and a half year process. What have you learned?
That's a big question, but like, what some things that you're like,
"Oh wow! I didn't know that two and a half years ago." How has it impacted you?
One of the things that we started out with was we didn't want to in any way
pull ourselves away from our congregation here.
In those relationships we have, my wife and I have several children,
how can we run, how can we be involved in the food industry and not harm other relationships?
Anyone involved in the food industry knows the challenges that it brings the table.
It's often a very demanding, long hours.
We've seen, my wife and I have seen different times in our lives,
the friends who've been involved in that, and how it has maybe in some time, some place, some points,
done more harm than good. So that is one things we've learned.
Probably a second is we started out with way too big of a menu.
People we're telling us you know, "Bryant, Linnell, you guys are gonna shrink that menu down."
You don't need a huge menu; and so we've shrunk that too as we went along.
And sometimes we're biting their fingernails worried about
how is this going to affect ourselves; because, we did have customers walk out the door.
So that's another thing we have learned too is that you don't need a huge menu.
Well and then the other thing is, so you obviously have learned
a lot about the food industry, about setting up you know a cafe,
how have people responded? The local community, have they... I mean obviously you're staying pretty busy.
So yeah, what's the response been?
Obviously we're in a very liberal town.
It's a college town very, very, progressive, very liberal.
And so as we've thought about how do we want to present ourselves
as a Kingdom business, what what does that look like, how does that feel?
One of our things that we talked about a lot was we wanted to be an oasis of friendship and fellowship.
One of the realities of a college town is that thirty percent of students are like critically lonely.
People have a facade on, you won't realize that, but that is the case.
One of the things we thought about a lot,
thought about at the beginning a lot is, how does that look like,
do we put Bible verses all over the walls?
So how do want those first impressions to be when they come in the door?
So trying to make an atmosphere where the atheist would feel welcomed.
I have a good friend who comes in here Friday who is an atheist;
and it's been exciting to see him coming back every Friday morning,
spending several hours here working from here.
I believe that the presence of God is here with our workers, that's a huge part of that.
Could you go into a little more detail like on the impact, like what's the impact been on the on the local community?
So I think of a conversation that I had right there the other day
with a student, she comes in every day,
she talks about how she loves coming here to study, because it's peaceful here.
The employees are so kind to her, and so she comes back every day.
And I see her, I see;
the other day I saw one of the ladies who worked behind the counter sitting with her and talking with her.
And to me that's thrilling to see our team come out, sit down with them, and talk with them.
Another really important thing for me, is a win for me, is when I can take one of our
customers and take them to one of our services.
This past Sunday there was an Iranian couple with their son at our service and had supper with us.
That's a win when I can get people from here take that next step,
to come to my place for a meal, to come and join our congregation for a service
where they can ask others questions, they can see how.
What does it look like to be part of the body, what does it look like to be a follower of Jesus?
And they can see a much better picture that, much fuller picture that, when they're with a body of believers in
a worship service and a fellowship meal. And so that's exciting, that's a win.
Good stuff. Thank you Bryant for showing me around, letting me see your cafe.
What you're doing here is very interesting, I find it very intriguing; appreciate you sharing with us.
Thank you everyone for watching and be sure to come back for new content each week.
We have podcast and also a video format.
And if you have questions for people like Bryant, or maybe you went a little bit of follow up,
leave a comment, let us know what you think.
We would love to hear from you. And we will see you in the next episode.
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