Appendix E-J

As part of celebrating our 5th anniversary, someone who is part of Everyday Joe’s will write something about it each month. Anything from essays to sonnets to interpretive dance. How interpretive dance would translate to this blog, I’m not sure…but it’d be interesting.

Whatever is written, it will come from the life that is in this building. 144 S. Mason seems to be alive and breathing…and it is something you can’t ignore when you walk in. Our first installment comes from Suzanne Vigil, Everyday Joe’s original manager and visionary.

It was just a tiny cloud on a vast horizon. So simple, so vulnerable to any kind of wind.
That was 1998 when a small hand scribbled down on a fragile idea on a regular piece of lined note book paper.

It read: “Coffee House Ministry?”

That vast horizon was the heart where a dream was being conceived and that dream became a prayer of faith that withstood the winds of uncertainty for 5 years. Today, you are part of that dream…Everyday Joe’s Coffee House. Every time you come into 144 S. Mason you make the dream materialize from a thought to a living reality. Thank you.

2008 marks our 5 year anniversary, as with any locally owned business this is a milestone. As one of the co-founders, I thought it might be interesting to take a stroll down memory lane….

2002: a small congregation of faith named Joshua’s Crossing stepped into a permanent residence-144 S. Mason. Major renovations began on this 1920′s warehouse that had always been used as a garage until now. Two pastors worked day and night 6-7 days a week learning the skills of renovation. Skilled professionals began poking their
heads in and offering themselves in the processes of drywalling, electrical work and construction.

Coffee House Ministry was discussed and a hospitality counter area was built in the renovation. Coffee service began on Sunday nights before and after church.
The building’s inner beauty made us want to share it with more people, more often.
So, we started working towards an actual Business/Ministry model.

On June 16th, 2003 our doors opened without fanfare as Everyday Joe’s Coffee House.
I was 27 years old, and left my position as a floral manager to manage Everyday Joe’s. No paycheck. I lived with my parents to avoid rent and God took care of the rest. My financial obligations were paid every month in a different way.

Please don’t ever think you cannot do something because of money alone. I will testify to the incredibility of faith that bypasses personal income. And I believe that faith is very contagious. It is now 2008, and there are over 30 people who volunteer to serve coffee, run the sound for concerts, hang art, do bookkeeping, etc. Believe it or not, it started with two of us. Myself and our unsung hero-Tim Kuhlman.

Tim left his well paying computer job and did everything from making and folding church bulletins to serving coffee at Everyday Joe’s till midnight for 2 years. Thanks Tim. And thank you all who are willing to humble yourselves and work for free.

So here we are, 5 years old. As I look back, a consistent idea keeps appearing….Faith.
The ability to believe in a reality that is unseen. When all our logic and calculations based on what we know don’t seem to stretch as far as our imaginations can dream, we need this vital ingredient….Faith.

I have found it to be true here at Everyday Joe’s. People said we’d never make it downtown without a liquor license or by acknowledging we’re a church based ministry. But look at us now. Now you can see it with your own human eyes.

But what will the next 5 years bring into vein? Where is your faith? And where will it take us? How will God inspire our imaginations to dream towards 2013 and beyond?

“(God) creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, The good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2 (The message). “Jesus answered, ‘the work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.” John 6:29 (NIV).

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