Philip Klayman (Owner of Three Tree Coffee)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me. Right. I know this is a very different biography is what is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because, listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, et cetera, et cetera, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work. But in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right? So that's the first reason this is a risk and I'm gonna de risk this book for you. Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing. In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page. And that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9 by filling out that form. You'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5merechristians.com and be entered to win this crazy, epic trip for two to Europe. So visit 5merechristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the Gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals but who work as sales directors, drywall installers and couriers? That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to Philip Clayman. He's the co founder of Three Tree Coffee, based in Statesboro, Georgia with a few locations around the state of Georgia, Philippines. Philip and I had a phenomenal conversation. You guys know I sell you on three things from every episode, right? I probably could have given you seven from this one. We talked about why you should consider not leading with your why and your faith in the workplace. But of course, always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that's within you. We talked about how and why God calls us to make counter strategic moves at work and how Jesus's example leads us to push back against worldly wisdom around delegation. I love loved this episode with my new friend, Philip Klayman. Philip Klayman, welcome to the Mere Christians podcast.

Thank you. I'm super excited to be on. Appreciate you having me.

So I was telling you before, I thoroughly enjoyed some cup of coffee roasted by your team at Three Tree Coffee. My wife and I enjoyed this morning. It was dope. What's your favorite roast? I don't know.

What.

What did I have? You told me. What I had is some yellow label.

You know, only the best for you. Jordan. I sent you what is my favorite ro right now. It is our Honduras Copan coffee. Yeah, that's what I It's called a black honey process, which just in brief, means that the seeds are aged in some of the mucilage for a time that allows fermentation. Long story short, it is a really fantastic cup. Yellow label sent it to you because I thought you'd enjoy it. That is my go to coffee right now.

How do you take your coffee?

Yep, take it black. I enjoy a black cup of coffee. I also really enjoy some smaller espresso drinks. So maybe just straight espresso or a cortado or something like that.

I don't think I've ever met somebody who's like, serious in the coffee world that doesn't drink their coffee black. I'm not there. I'm not there. I need some work. I'm not very serious about my coffee.

It takes time. I did not like coffee when I first got out of college. So there's always hope. There's always hope.

So if you go to the Mere Christian's podcast website, the description for the show says the three vocations I mentioned are entrepreneurs, baristas, and accountants. What's crazy is we've never actually Had a barista, which kind of cracks me up. We've had lots of entrepreneurs. We've had some accountants. But speaking of college, you worked as a barista straight out of college. Is that where you started to fall in love with coffee?

Yes, it is. So throughout college, I went to the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and I did not drink coffee. I thought coffee was gross. It kind of tasted bitter. I didn't understand the whole craze around it. And coming out of college, my wife was still in school, and I was looking for a gig that kept us in Athens, and I applied for a job as a barista. I think it was the community that drew me in more than the coffee itself. They never asked me if I liked coffee or not and got the job. But it was through that job that absolutely I started.

Pretty important interview question. P.S.

You'D think so they asked me if I was a vegetable. I'd be. But anyways, you know, that's where I really fell in love with coffee. And more importantly, I really started to see the potential it has to mobilize communities. I mean, it was really amazing seeing people gather around this product and almost be more open to each other around this product. And I think that's where it really gave the dream of, wow, what could we do with this? For God's kingdom?

What was your answer to the question of what vegetable would you be if you were a vegetable?

Well, you can't tell it from the video, Jordan, but I'm six foot five and a half. So I said I would be a carrot because I'm tall.

I love it. And you got red hair. That's like, a perfect answer.

Exactly. And I got the job. So if you ever get asked that question, answer a carrot, and there's a good chance.

Yep, nailed it. Hey. All right, so tell us about the origin story of Three Tree, this coffee company that you are co. Founder. Co owner of. How did this thing get started?

So my wife is from Statesboro, Georgia, which is where I currently live. We ended up moving to Statesboro to be a little bit closer to her family for a season. And this was all around the time where we were starting to just kind of see a vision for how God could use coffee in our life to glorify him to the ends of the earth. And so it kind of all started with saying, well, we know how to make coffee. We can make a pour over. We can pull shots of espresso. We can draw latte art. We should probably learn a little bit more about the roasting. Side. And so my wife and I spent all of our savings on this tiny little roaster and just started roasting in our backyard 1 pound literally at a time, and selling it at our local farmer's market. And just saying, let's get more comfortable with roasting and probably more importantly, let's get more comfortable with business. If we want to use business as a ministry or as missions, we better learn, right? We better learn how to sell, how to market ourselves, and all these different things. So that's how it all started. Just roasting coffee in our backyard one pound at a time. And we weren't sure what it would become, but God has some pretty amazing plans for us, and so we're excited for where it's gone.

I love it. Do you know my friend Jeff Heck of Monday Night Brewing? He's not too far from you.

That is. That does not ring a bell.

Oh, man.

Monday Night Brewing rings a bell. But the name does.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Monday Night Brewing's a big deal in the Southeast. They're great beer manufacturer, but Jeff Heck is a serious Jesus follower. He's actually been here on the Mere Christians podcast before and this is how they got started. Just brewing beer on Monday nights in the backyard at a Bible study and is turned into this fairly major brand in the Southeast. You guys gotta connect. All right. You said this a couple times, how coffee can glorify God. Be explicit about what you mean by that. How does coffee glorify our heavenly father?

So my wife and I were actually looking at doing missions prior to kind of that in between stage. I said I graduated college and started working at a coffee shop. And then it was two years later that we ended up moving to Statesboro and roasting coffee. During that time, we were looking for ways to to join teams overseas. My degree was in agriculture, specifically agricultural economics. And I got that degree because I wanted to use it for ag development in developing countries as a business as missions model. And so we were looking at some different teams around the world and a lot of the situations just fell through because of just really unique freak situations, whether it was medical issues with some of the team leaders or we actually went to Indonesia at one point and God just made it clear on that trip to us and the team that we were going to join that this just wasn't what God had for us. And so there was about a two year wandering in the desert. Right? That's dramatic. But there was two years where we were trying to figure out, God, what do you want to do with our Lives like, we thought missions was really noble and really good. And I still think it's incredibly honorable for anyone that is willing to lay down their life and move to another culture. And yet he just kept closing doors on us. And of course, we're wrestling with, do we fight through the doors, or is this God's will and all that stuff. And long story short, that's where we just started to see what was right in front of us. We saw people gathering around coffee and once again, just being more open around this beverage to one another. We saw lots of believers working in coffee, and yet none of them were really working together, and none of them really knew each other. And that was strange to me. And it was just like coffee just kept getting dropped in our lap. And connections with coffee kept getting dropped in our lap. And so that's when we said, okay, God, clearly coffee has the Christian world's attention. And that's awesome. Once again, we love a good coffee. What if we use that beverage and directed that attention towards other things that are on your heart, like ending human trafficking or missions to the unreached? And so that's, that's really. Those two years is where a lot of these thoughts were getting formed of how can we use this simple beverage to utilize and transform communities? And it's been a while. It's been exciting to see how that's been playing out.

I just finished a great book that was actually recommended to me by a guest here on the show, Dave Evans, who's a co founder of EA Sports. And the book was the Will of God as a Way of Life. Have you read this?

I have not.

So it's really fascinating. It's this former pastor. Basically, the crux of the book is we spend so much time obsessing about God's will for our lives in the future. But Scripture talks very little about that. In fact, Jesus is saying constantly, hey, hey, don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about tomorrow. Worry about today. Worry about what's right in front of you. Worry about doing God's will in the present. And it sounds like that's kind of your story, right? Like you guys are looking ahead of what's next, what's this next season? What's this next thing? God's closing those doors and forcing you guys to just look around, be like, what's in our hand right now, right? That God has called us a steward. I'm putting words in your mouth. Is that a fair characterization of kind of the process that you and your wife went through?

Oh, Absolutely right. And a part of this is a dying to self story. Right. Because I wasn't a big planner during college, but kind of coming out of college. I've always had just strategy. I've loved strategy. I've loved being strategic. And so it's always looking ahead and saying, what's next? How can I leverage my life the most for God? How can I leverage my resources the most? Right. I mean, it was always looking ahead and very strategic focus. And so part of this is dying to self because though I do think God uses strategy and we actually have a lot of scripture of God's will being used through strategy. Paul specifically go on to different places because he said, I'm going to go where there's no witness. Right. He's strategically thinking, how can I glorify God? Frequently he calls us to things that just don't make worldly sense. And it literally is counter strategic sometimes. Actually, I can share about that with us. Closing on Sundays in 2017, if we want to talk about that story. There's times where he calls us to things that simply don't make sense or are not strategic. And it's a dying to self thing. Right.

Of not how is it a dying to self thing? Go deeper on that.

Yeah. It's because we like a comfort.

Right.

We like knowing how things are going to go down. We like security. And he doesn't want those things to be idols. I think it's all founded out of love. Right. Where he wants us to depend on him and to trust him the most. And it's easy for these things to become idols and to say, I've got this. I can do it on my own resources. Or I want to be in control of the situation. And yet that's not what's going to bring him the most glory. It's not what's going to bring us the most joy. And so it takes dying to self. Right. Sometimes letting go, not want. Sometimes always letting go. Daily carrying your cross and saying, God, this is for you. It's all for you. And my hands are open if you were to tell me to do something completely different today. I'm following you. That is a scary way to live. Yeah.

Oh, a hundred percent. And we can't take credit for the results when we do counter strategic things because they don't make any sense when we're doing these things. We're just doing them out of obedience.

Yep. Absolutely.

Yeah. Hey, so I had to ask you this for many, many years. I thought about the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. Yeah, I thought, especially I didn't think of Genesis 2, frankly, a whole lot. I thought about Genesis 1 and God creating with his words. And, you know, it's hard to look at that and describe that as work, right? When you just say, let there be light and there's light. But then when we flip the page of Genesis 2, I love that we see God getting his hands in the dirt by planting a garden. It says in the East. Tim Keller went so far as to call God's work in Genesis 2, quote, unquote, manual labor, which I love. What is. What is the fact that God does work with his words in his hands, planting agricultural things mean for you? That does so much of his work in the work of this business, working with this earth? Is that meaningful to you?

I mean, it is incredibly meaningful. And what it speaks to me is that he actually made us in his image, right? Like, he actually did make us in his image. And that work has a purpose. And I think that's incredibly comforting, I think for everyone, right? Even in entrepreneurship, where you quote, unquote, own your own business, there's still days that feel like the grind, right? Feel like the day in, day out. And it's easy to start looking at work as just this thing we're trying to avoid or get away from. And yet here is God himself creating work, choosing to work, mandating Adam to work. Clearly, work is a part of his life, giving design. And so it's incredibly comforting to me, right, that he would be wanting to be in the same sort of work that we're doing, right? That he would put his hands to the plow as well, in a sense.

Yeah. I almost think the Genesis 2 exposition is there for us so that we don't make the mistake of thinking Genesis 1 was not actually work. If Genesis 1, the transcendent magic majesty of Genesis 1, leaves us to doubt if something was work. Genesis 2 leaves no doubt. That's a paraphrase of a quote from the theology of work commentary that I really, really love. And it gives intrinsic value to the work that we do, right? If God works for the pure joy of it, God had no need to work. He had no need to create, right? And so because God works for the pure joy of making this world more useful for other human beings benefit and enjoyment, then we are free to as well. Our work has intrinsic value. That said, and you've already alluded to this, Philip, our work also has great instrumental value. It is a vehicle that can lead to other good things. And when I asked you in our pre interview, why you think your work matters to God, you pointed to something instrumental that I love, that I don't think we've talked about enough on this podcast. The simple fact that your business provides for your family. Right. Why do you think that was the first thing that came to mind when I asked that question?

Oh, man. Well, the simplest answer is, they just mean so much to me. Right. I mean, I love them to death. And I know that God has such a strong heart for the family unit. I said, we moved to Statesboro to be closer to my wife's family. That was God directed. That was not something we said. Oh, this makes sense. That was God was really taking us through a season of showing us how much the family unit means to him. And at its core, it's the most rawest form of discipleship. Yeah, we're talking about Genesis, right? How he didn't just mandate work, he also mandated creating people, which, of course, I know that can mean other things than just literally making people, but you also can't separate it from the fact of being fruitful and multiplying and literally having.

That's the first command in the first commission. Be fruitful and increase in number, Procreate.

Exactly. And then they're instructed to rule. Take dominion, which requires people. And so the family is the original hierarchy of ruling. I think this is one of the reasons why I think it's in First Timothy, where Paul instructs Timothy that if you want to be an elder, you must manage your household well. Anyone who wants to be an elder, this is a requirement first. Why? Because the family unit is the unit in which God created dominion to take place, ruling to take place. And so for me, if I want to be a good leader in my work, it starts in the home. If I can't be a good leader at home, and if I can't see that as my truest form of discipleship, how is that ever going to translate further in my work or anywhere else? And so to me, it's just. It's profoundly important. It's foundational.

I overlook that. I forget that. Oh, yeah, by the way, this work enables me to provide for this family unit that I'm called the lead and called a disciple. I love that.

And it's easy to mix those up, too. I have seasons where I'm more focused on work than family and seasons where I'm more family than work. And this is where God's patient and he's not counting numbers here. Right. That's what's so encouraging to Me is in my weakness. He's strong. And when I confess, he's willing to forgive and he's patient. And so it has definitely not been a perfect journey of walking that out. But my goodness, they mean the world to me. And I'm doing so much of this for my family and that they would glorify him.

That's good. Hey. So the name of the business, Three Tree Coffee, points to three other ways your work has instrumental value. Can you tell us what the name of the business represents?

Absolutely. So we think a tree symbolizes life in so many ways. And a lot of this, A lot of this comes from scripture or symbolism from scripture. How the trees give, you know, it gives breath for us to breathe and a shelter for the birds of the air and food for us to eat. A tree just symbolizes very much a giving symbolism for us. And so we want to give life in three ways. We want to empower our farmers, we want to end human trafficking, and we want to engage the community. And that's the threefold mission, why we're called Three Tree Coffee.

All right, let's go deeper on a couple of these. I'd love to go deeper on the farmer piece, actually. Listen, I'll be honest. I'm a little ignorant here. I know that I should buy fair trade coffee, direct trade coffee, whatever. But I don't think I and a lot of our listeners understand the problem. Right. And understand what you and other coffee roasters are doing to solve the problem. So talk more about that. How do you see this as an expression of your faith, what you are doing for and with local coffee farmers?

Absolutely. So, once again, my degree was in agriculture. And as I was studying this and looking at how we buy our agricultural, basically our food from around the world, it became pretty clear that there's lots of systems that just keep people in poverty.

Yeah. Systemic brokenness.

Yes. And if you look at coffee, tea industry, cocoa industry, all these things come out of a history of slave labor where indigenous people were forced to work for literally nothing so that other people could profit off of it. And so, you know, that leaves collateral damage. No matter how much you try to turn the table on that, that's going to leave some collateral damage. And so the result is most of the world just doesn't expect to spend much on their food. None of us want to spend a lot of money on our food. And when it's like that's the one that we notice the most, maybe besides gas, but, you know, when food goes up, we're all just at an uproar of why is this happening? This is ridiculous. My food should be cheap. And I say all that because there's just systems that are keeping a lot of farmers in these poverty situations, not because they're not willing to work hard, but because a lot of us just don't care where our stuff comes from as long as it's cheap. And so, thankfully, I would say the coffee industry as a whole has been an incredible pioneer of this for the past few decades. There's two main ways that three Tree does this. One is through Fair Trade usa. They're a separate organization. So they're not three Tree, they're not the coffee farmer, they're a third party organization. And they just certify the farmer, the co op, importing and exporting and the roaster to say, if you're all a part of this organization, we will ensure that this coffee is paying the farmer a minimum price per pound. It's almost like an international minimum wage. So let's say that, you know, the industry standard of what coffee farmers would get paid around the world, which it varies drastically depending on where you are, but it's around 60 cents per pound is what a farmer would see out of for their very hard work. Right. We go and spend 10, 15, $20 per pound. And on average, a farmer seen maybe 60 cents of that. When I was in Indonesia, we saw situations where it was 20 cents, 15 cents. So just low, low representation, low value. And so fair trade comes in and say, okay, for coffee, the fair trade minimum price is $1.80. So if we as Three Tree buy a fair trade coffee, we know the farmer was paid a minimum of $1.80. Could be more. There are some downsides to fair trade. We don't always know who the farmer is. There's not much transparency there. But we know they were paid a minimum that's far better than the, the average standard. That's a little bit about how fair trade works. Direct trade is building some more direct partnerships. Right. Which is so messy, I can't imagine.

And you're talking about direct relationships between you, the roaster and the farmer.

Yes. And that's where you almost always need someone in the middle. Right. When we're talking coffee from Kenya, Brazil, Indonesia, I don't know all the languages, I don't know all the cultures, I don't know how to get it through imports and exports. So there's always going to be people helping with these relationships. But it's about trying to find the right partners that have similar vision and are willing to be very transparent on who was paid what and when so that we know that the value is very clean across the board and it's not exploiting value off the farmer so that other people can have high gain. And so an example of this would be, actually, I will use the Honduras Copan coffee that you drank today. So that comes from a farm called Finca Terrorito. Leticia Lopez. Actually, this is a great situation where we do know the farm owner. Her name's Leticia Lopez. We saw her at a conference last week. So we're, we're connected with her. We know her. It's paying far better prices than the fair trade minimums. It has higher potential for impact, a lot more difficult to coordinate and set up, and a lot riskier, but much higher potential for impact.

Okay, so this has got to be way more expensive. Right. And probably why I hear a lot about fair trade coffee and direct trade was kind of a new term to me. Right. It's gotta be way more difficult, way riskier, way more expensive. Talk more about that impact that you're trying to have and how your faith compels you to do the more expensive, more sacrificial thing.

Absolutely. Oh, gosh, it is more expensive. And I remember during the pandemic, right, when the world shut down, we saw sales drop by 74% over one month. I mean, it was just like the world's falling apart. We're trying to figure out what the heck is going on and how do we keep this business going. I remember thinking at one point, and it wasn't like a thought like, we will do this. It was just a thought of, I know, we could get coffee for half the costs right now. It would be that simple. And I don't think anyone would even be mad. We do, right? No one will notice and no one would be upset because we're just doing what we need to do to survive. And yet if we compromise our values in those moments, then we're never going to live up to those values when it's good. Right. And so, once again, it was never an actual thought of consideration, but absolutely, we could get coffee cheaper. It would be easier. But I don't think that's glorifying God and reflecting his character. As I mentioned, if you were to look at where the absolute poor are in the world, not relative poor, but the absolute poor, they are huddled around agrarian economies. It is centered around food being the major or just some sort of ag crop being the major export or economic driver. Jesus has a heart for the poor. You look at his ministry and he has a huge heart for the poor. So God cares about the poor. James 5.

There we go. I was just about to go there.

James 5, I feel like is the small business owner passage. It's a warning. It's a warning and an encouragement.

It's a terrifying. Let me pull it up and read it so we all know what we're talking about. James 5, verse 1. Now listen, you rich people weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded, their corrosion will testify against you, etc. Etc. Etc. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look, the wages you failed to pay. The workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self indulgence. You have fat yourselves in the day of slaughter. Okay, Happy, pick me up. The mic is yours, Philip. Keep going.

And I think the NASB translation, I think it says something like. It says, your gold and silver will rust and it will consume your flesh like fire. I mean, some of the imagery is.

Intense and it's talking about agricultural workers.

It is, exactly. And so, you know, it's interesting. God cares about laborers. He cares about the people working. There's a phrase that comes up frequently, and Paul uses it to talk about people in ministry, but it applies across the board. The laborer is worthy of his wages. Right? And so what's scary about this is I think a lot of us in the west don't even realize what we're supporting when we buy certain things. And that's scary. I'll give you an example. The cocoa industry was kind of on high alert about five or six years ago because as a lot of research was done, they were finding that there was a lot of child labor, very harsh child labor happening on these cacao farms. Working long hours, not getting paid anything, terrible sleeping quarters, really, really bad stuff. And this is where Hershey's and Nestle were sourcing most of their chocolate from. And if you were to go into the boardroom of Hershey's and Nestle and say, hey, who supports child labor? You know, terrible child conditions, no one wants that. They just weren't paying attention. And that's what's scary to me as a business owner, as a consumer, what are we supporting? Just because we aren't paying attention and just because we can't see them doesn't mean they're not our neighbor. I don't think Jesus is going to give a pass there. It matters where we buy our stuff. It matters how we treat everyone around us, including where we're buying our things from. And so I think this is something that's important to God and I think it reflects him well to say, hey, let's be ethical with how we buy our things. Things.

Can I push back on this for a second?

Yeah, please.

I agree with everything you just said, but man, if I were to pay attention to where everything was sourced, that that's a full time job. So I'm pushing. I'm not really pushing back. I am pleading for somebody, maybe a believer who's listening to this episode right now to make that easier for me to see where every, how everything I'm buying is being sourced. Are you aware of a tool that can help me and other consumers buy better and buy from distributors and manufacturers that are not exploiting the poor?

Yeah, so, and I think you bring up a great point, something we talk a lot about with our team, our staff members, our customers, because it's overwhelming. When we first train our staff members, we go through this mission step by step and a lot of times we get to the end of it and it's like, goodness gracious, what do I do? You know, and the encouragement is just take your next step. Once again, God is patient and he wants to work with us in this journey. And so do I source everything perfect 100% of the time? No. I really don't even know if that's possible in this day and age. I do think there's some encouragements on next steps. One is consuming less probably helps. And I know that's a little bit of a different take on this, but I think a lot of this is because we just like a lot of stuff and we want more and we want more and we want more. And it's just kind of that rampant nature of more and more and more that usually fuels a lot of these situations. And it'll cause us to, in a way compromise. Right. Because we don't have time. We need more. We need more. I don't have time to look into this. So I think one simple way is just consuming less. And then the second thing would be, absolutely, I agree with you. If someone is out there in the tech industry and can really streamline this, it would be wonderful. But thankfully with Google and with searching and with, I mean there's just so many ways to find these things now and it's as simple as what I encourage my team is instead of just Googling backpack or cool backpack, Google ethically sourced cool backpack. And you'll be surprised at how many businesses you can start to find on your own. I was at Costco the other day and I'm not thinking, where did every single product come from? I'm being honest. Right. Once again, it's just, it doesn't happen 24 7. And yet as I was at the grapes. The grapes, I saw three different types of grapes and one of them had the Fair Trade logo. And I said, oh, no way. Fair Trade grapes. And I bought them and they were more expensive. But how simple was that? So I think Fair Trade's doing a lot to help that as well.

That's really good, man. I love that. It's super practical and helpful for me and hopefully our listeners. Hey, so you sent me this message before our interview and you said, quote, I wouldn't call us a Christian coffee shop, but we do want to be a light on the hill and a light for our communities, end quote. And I love what you said there for two reasons. First, because coffee shops don't have souls, right? Like, there's no such thing as a Christian coffee shop or a Christian business, only Christians who own and work in coffee shops and businesses. And I do think that's more important than semantics. Right? But second, because I think by not, not leading with your why, by not making all the T's in your logo crosses, right? You probably reach more lost people than you would otherwise. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, I would. You know, it's interesting. It's very easy to get caught up in cultural Christianity that maybe does or maybe does not have much depth or relationship with Christ or relationship with others. It's kind of more of just a slap a label on me. This is what I am. Deal with it. And I think it can sometimes have almost more selfish motives even. Tell me more about that of almost identity, right? This is who I am. And if you can't deal with it, just walk away. I don't want your business. I don't want what you have. And it's worth mentioning, I actually know some people that integrate the branding, I'll call it the branding of Christ crosses fish Bible verses right into their business branding. And it's great because the heart is there behind it, right? They're deep in relationship. It's not just a sign to slap on. But even so, I do think that by not branding ourselves as Christian, we have opportunities to connect with more people because A lot of people would just see that and immediately write us off, which I don't think is fair. I think that's sad about our community.

But I think that's real.

It's real. Exactly. People will just look at it and say, especially non believers or people who don't know Christ and just say, nope, I want nothing to do with them. And that's unfortunate, but it's true. And this is where, as you said, the business can't be saved. It can't be saved. Am I a Christian? Absolutely. Do I follow Christ? Absolutely does my business? It can't. But I run the business in a way that glorifies him. I definitely want all people to be drawn to it. And my hope is that God uses this business to reach nonbelievers. Sometimes that's my staff, sometimes that's customers. I want to use this to bless people. And if there's any roadblock in the way, I don't want that.

Here's the wild thing, Philip. Not only are you reaching more non believers through the business by not being overt and leading with your why on the front end. And by the way, to be clear, we're not saying you never mentioned your why. I'm just saying not leading with it. Here's what's interesting, though. You're also able to recruit more believers and non believers alike into God's mission of justice for farmers and those being trafficked. Right. Like you're donating a lot of money to human trafficking. You're doing justice in a really practical way for farmers. And by not leading with your why, you're getting a bunch of non believers to join you in God's work in the world. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. We've had so many amazing people come to this organization. I know some were believers, I know some were not believers. I don't know where some of them stood. But at the same time, we all do want to see the things that God's heart beats for. And yeah, maybe some of our staff who don't even know that that's the why, the real heartbeat. Even though we're pretty open about this stuff. Yeah, they're participating in this mission as well. And I've seen God do some incredible things with our staff. Right. Throughout the years. And I just want to be faithful to serving them and serving them well. I want us to serve our customers well. And absolutely. It's inviting them into this kingdom work as well.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And through God's common grace, Right. We could find common ground with non Believers if we're not slapping Jesus onto every single thing we do publicly. Hey, when I asked in the pre interview how the gospel shapes how you do what you do, you pointed to the fact that you try to model Jesus example of servant leadership, which I love. Man. I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever said this on the podcast before, so I might get some hate mail here. I have a love hate relationship with this term because it's become such a buzzword in Christian communities that few people are ever explicit about what it means practically to be a servant leader. But based on your response, I could tell that you've thought about this deeply. You've got some meat on the bone of this idea. So I want to hear from you. What does it look like practically to be a servant leader at Three Tree? How does that take shape within your day to day of running this business?

Oh, such a great question. I think of a lot of things how to condense this. So I think we have to look practically at Jesus. If he is the exact representation of God and his character, then I think we need to look at Jesus. What did he practically do to serve one? He did things that were below his title for the sake of his followers. So what does that mean for me? Sometimes that means I get down and do the dirty work. I get in the trenches. I still, it doesn't happen much because we have, we have three locations. We've got a mobile trolley, coffee trolley, we've got wholesale roasting to lots of businesses. But I still try to take the time every once in a while to just go do a couple of dishes, just, just get in, do it, make a drink, help out here. And there's. I just, I'm happy to get involved. And it's a reminder for myself of kind of where we've come. But more importantly, I think it reflects Jesus being willing to lay himself low and not think too highly. Right. And to lift those up around him. So I think that's one way that it looks like to practically serve. Is Jesus practically served by. By lowering himself for his people? Jesus also served by modeling and coaching, right? Here's Jesus who is like the master prayer. Is anyone better than praying than Jesus? I mean, he's got to be the most amazing prayer person in the world, right? And he never prayed. If you look at him praying, read John, what, 13, 14, 15, 16. He rarely prayed the same thing twice or maybe did, but he prayed a lot of things. And yet when his disciples said teach us how to pray, he Gave them a model, and he led by example. So he's coaching, he's teaching, he's leading by example. I think that's a way that we. That I can be a servant leader in my organization as well. Maybe that means that one of my managers is going through a really tough HR situation and they need my help. I want to be accessible to them. Accessibility, goodness. That's another thing that we see in Jesus, right? He was accessible to his team, to his crew. I want to be accessible to my team. So if they call me, I'm going to answer and I'm going to do everything I can to coach them through this scenario. Maybe it's helping coordinate events with my team because this is new for them. They're struggling with it. Let me show you how. Let me coach you. Let me model this. Of course, the way this works in a business model kind of looks like a discipleship model if you think of it, is if I'm serving my managers well, I'm asking them to serve the baristas well. Right? All right. Now you need to go serve them, model for them, coach for them, get down in the trenches with them. And then what are we asking the baristas to do? Do that for the customers. Go serve the customers so well. Right. But lift them up. See, their interest is bigger than your interests and you're covered on the back end. We're going to care about you as well. So that's what I see as a healthy servant leadership model.

It's really good, man. Thank you for having something to back up what you mean by servant leader. Something that goes deeper and draws out some distinctions between conventional business wisdom that Christians and non Christians can get behind. For example, doing work that's beneath your title and station. That's craziness to the world.

Right?

The world says delegate everything that you know you shouldn't be doing. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, Jesus didn't delegate all those things. Right? He did delegate. He did delegate his authority. Right. But he also got down on his hands and knees and did the dirty work. So, man, that's really, really good. All right, so beyond servant leadership, what do you think would be different about you and how you personally lead the business if you are not an apprentice of Jesus Christ?

This one hits a little bit more emotionally. You know, I could not be a business leader without being an apprentice of Jesus Christ. And this is very much tied into my testimony. And so, you know, growing up, it's funny because now in my role, I'm in front of people A lot. And we have a podcast and I do some speaking stuff. And I never liked that or wanted that growing up. And honestly, I still don't really like it sometimes. I was not outgoing growing up. I was not enthusiastic. And I actually had a lot of anxiety growing up. And there's reasons for that that I don't want to share on the other recording. But I grew up with lots of anxiety and I grew up in a great home, but there was just. I just had a lot of anxiety. I just think it's a. It's a journey that Christ had me on and I get into college and I just. I'm always nervous, I'm always fearful. I mean, it just ruled my life. And I remember I was actually at this worship gathering one evening, and the person who was kind of putting on this worship time said, someone is dealing with anxiety here. It's ruling your life. If you don't want to drool your life anymore, I want you to meet me in this corner and I want to pray for you. And I just knew it was for me. I was like, oh my gosh, it rules my life. And so I went and I prayed. He prayed with me. I felt like this tingling sensation in my stomach, which is getting very sensational, you know, emotional and everything and. But I think God uses emotions. He uses these things. He created them. And I mean, it was a 180 turn. And I remember the next day I was talking with this guy who prayed for me and he said, God's going to use you to teach and lead. And I literally told him, you have the wrong guy. Like, you have the wrong guy. That's not me. And I think a better way I should have said it is that wasn't who I was. But I think I'm someone else now. I mean, God equipped me for ministry in that moment. And I don't know how else to better explain it, because he's used me to teach and preach in my church. He's used me in this business to lead. He gets all the glory.

Jordan.

Philip could not have done this on his own. He gets all the glory. And so what does it look like apart from him? It doesn't happen. I'm not a leader and I'm probably riddled with anxiety and fear trying to figure out how to please everyone.

Praise God. There are few things I respect more than people boasting in their weaknesses like this, because it is when we do that that Christ is the hero and Christ gets greater glory. And talk about an otherworldly quality to promote our flaws and our weaknesses to the world. That's so countercultural. And I love that you're willing to do that. Hey, Philip, you know the drill. We wrap up every episode with the same three questions. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others? Like, if we opened your Amazon order history, what is showing up over and over and over again?

Yeah, well, I. I love missionary biographies. Once again, I just, you know, Jesus came in the flesh, right? And he said, I'm sending you as I was sent. And so I just. I really, I. When I meet missionaries, I'm just so honored and grateful for them literally laying down their life to go out from their culture to another culture for the sake of glorifying God. And so that, to me, just always inspires me and is amazing to me. And so the book that I would recommend, it's called Evidence Not Seen. It's a book about Darlene Rose. She was a prisoner of war During World War II in New guinea, and it's honestly not a very easy read. She goes through lots of difficult circumstances, but her constant faithfulness is just so inspiring to me. And we actually named one of our daughters, the middle name is Rose, based on of Darlene Rose, just because of this book. And so her story just absolutely moves me. And I would encourage everyone to read Evidence Not Seen, given the name of the company.

I'm assuming you know this little kids book, the Tale of Three Trees.

Yes, I have. I have that book. Our kids love it.

It's a great little book. You guys should check it out. Listeners. Hey, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith shapes the work they do in the world?

Well, you know, I threw this out at the beginning. I am a UGA graduate, and so I'm a fan the Georgia Bulldogs. And, man, and I was in school when Mark Richt was the head coach, and I literally saw tangibly the way he was leading that football team. Pay dividends for the kingdom of God, draw people in to the kingdom of God. I mean, I would meet football players that came to Christ and were baptized because of him. Man, I would love to see Mark Richt on this podcast sharing more about how he integrated his faith into college sports, which has to be. I mean, it's such a cutthroat industry. I would love to hear more from him.

So Mark and I share an agent, and Mark had agreed maybe, I don't know, maybe six months ago or something like that to come on the show and I don't know where that's at. So I'm committing to following up on Mark Recht just for you.

Yes, Philip. Oh, I love it. I'll be super excited. Do it. Mark, if you're listening.

Hey. All right, Philip, what's one thing you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off today? This is a global audience of mere Christians, very diverse vocationally. What they share is a desire to follow Jesus fully, and that includes their work. What's one thing you want to leave them with before we sign off?

Yeah, so I think I just want to reiterate what you brought up earlier, Jordan, and that's that man, God is in our work. And I think that speaks even deeper to how he wants to be involved in our life. Now. The apostle John references all the time how Jesus came in the flesh. He came in the flesh. He came in the flesh. He talks about it in John first John. I think he's emphasizing a point here. He dwelt among us. He came and he was with us. And I think it's easy to look ahead, like you said, to look ahead. And of course we should hope in the kingdom to come. Of course we should hope for face to face. Of course we should hope for every tear being wiped from our eyes. We should hope for these things. But man, God wants to come into our lives now. He wants to be in our work now. What an amazing God we serve that he would come join us in our midst.

Eternity is now in session right now. The kingdom of God is at hand right now, right? This is not some. Yes, the consummation of it comes in full later, right? The full experience of it comes at later, but it's starting right now. And that includes in our work that will continue on for eternity. Philip, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do every day for the glory of God and the good of others. Man, you're such a great reminder that while all good God glorifying work matters for eternity, man, not all work matters equally for eternity. And so thank you for spending this life in this business in service of others, of your team, your community, but especially the least of these in this world, the poor, those being trafficked around the world. You're such a great example of what this looks like. Guys, I'm serious. I love this cup of coffee. I'm brewing it again tomorrow morning. It's called Three Tree Coffee. You can, but you guys ship all over the place, right, Philip?

Yep, that's right. All over the US and we've even shipped around the world as well.

There you go. Three Tree Coffee.com Philip thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

Jordan, thank you so much for all you do and I appreciate you having me on, man.

I love that episode. Anytime you could pull open scripture and just, you know, read a passage and dive deep into it, I'm all about it. Hey, if you're enjoying the Mere Christians Podcast, do me a huge favor. Take 10 seconds right now and rate this show on a scale of 1 to 5 stars on Apple, on Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. Hey friends, this is your last chance to claim all the amazing pre order bonuses for five mere Christians before they go away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9. I've never offered this many pre order bonuses on a book before, so when you fill out the form@5merechristians.com Number one, you're going to be entered to win an incredible trip for you and a friend to tour CS Lewis's favorite spots in Oxford, explore Olay Kirk Christiansen's former stomping grounds at Lego headquarters in Denmark, and much more. Number two, you'll be invited to join my first ever interactive reading, culminating in a zoom call with me and my co author on this book, Kaylee Cox. Number three, you're going to be getting a money back guarantee to try the book risk free. And number four, you'll also get access to a free course I'm not selling anywhere called how to write a book 10x faster and better with an affordable co author. You can claim all these bonuses in just two simple steps. Step 1 Pre order 5 mere Christians in any format you want. It can be hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever and you can order it from wherever. Doesn't matter to me. Step 2 Go to 5meerchristians.com and fill out the form of that page. And that's it. I'll send you all those bonuses. You'll be entered into the sweepstakes with one simple form submission. But hey, don't wait all of these off. All of these offers, all these bonuses. They're going away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9th. So visit 5merechristians.com right now to claim your bonuses.