Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Leaving Everything to Follow God | Nick & Jessica Norring

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Leaving Everything to Follow God | Nick & Jessica Norring · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast, o ur goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times, and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:26
  Ellen Krause: This is Ellen, your host.
• 1:29
  Ellen Krause: Do you struggle living out your faith at work, whatever kind of work that may be, from staying home with the kids, being a teacher, or maybe you're a business owner?
• 1:40
  Ellen Krause: Well, faith-based businesses often struggle with finding the right balance between their spiritual mission and the practical demands of running a company.
• 1:51
  Ellen Krause: It's easy to get overwhelmed by the challenges, leaving the mission diluted or even abandoned.
• 1:59
  Ellen Krause: Well, in this episode, Nick and Jessica Norring, two of the founders of Bold3 Coffee, are going to share their story of successfully blending their Christian faith with a thriving coffee business that makes a real difference in communities by delivering God's word into the hands of children.
• 2:21
  Ellen Krause: They are going to walk us through their journey, showing how we can also overcome these challenges and stay true to our own missions.
• 2:30
  Ellen Krause: So when businesses lose sight of their mission, not only do they fail to make a positive impact, but they risk becoming just another entity missing out on the opportunity to become a beacon of hope and change for people.
• 2:46
  Ellen Krause: So today we will reflect on how we can align our own work with our faith and values.
• 2:55
  Ellen Krause: Nick and Jessica Norring live in Minnesota with their two children and have been married for eight years.
• 3:02
  Ellen Krause: They are passionate about encouraging others to grow in their relationship with Jesus.
• 3:08
  Ellen Krause: They love spending time with family, adventuring outdoors, camping, exploring new coffee shops and playing pickleball.
• 3:17
  Ellen Krause: Together they started their non nonprofit Christian ministry, Bold 3 Coffee, after experiencing the daily joy of spending time with Jesus in God's word over a good cup of coffee.
• 3:30
  Ellen Krause: Bold 3 exists to empower others to do the same and be bold through a whole lot of Jesus and a good old cup of joe.
• 3:39
  Ellen Krause: Please welcome Nick and Jessica.
• 3:44
  Jessica Norring: Hello.
• 3:44
  Jessica Norring: Hi Thanks so much for having us on today.
• 3:47
  Nick Norring: Great to be here.
• 3:48
  Ellen Krause: You are welcome.
• 3:49
  Ellen Krause: You know I actually reached out to you guys because I really wanted to have you guys on our podcast, because it's been such a joy for us to sort of partner with you over the last several years.
• 4:03
  Ellen Krause: I just love your mission.
• 4:06
  Ellen Krause: I thought it would just be so encouraging for our listeners to hear what it's like in the life of some entrepreneurs that are balancing all of that.
• 4:20
  Ellen Krause: So why don't you start out by just sharing the story of how you got started in coffee roasting and what inspired you to combine this passion with your faith and mission to help the underprivileged?
• 4:35
  Nick Norring: Sure, yeah, thanks for having us on.
• 4:37
  Nick Norring: It's great to be here and it's exciting, so I can start us off.
• 4:41
  Nick Norring: We will start when we started dating about 12 years ago now, and both of us at the time were really at a point in our lives where we were searching.
• 4:52
  Nick Norring: We grew up in more traditional religious type of a church background where we believed in God but we had no idea about a relationship with Jesus.
• 5:05
  Nick Norring: We didn't read the Bible or anything like that.
• 5:08
  Nick Norring: And it was after about a year of dating that Jessica's brother, Joe, invited us to a church service, and this was unlike any church service that we had ever been a part of before we walked in the doors.
• 5:22
  Nick Norring: I remember the music was phenomenal.
• 5:26
  Nick Norring: I was a really musical type person and it was worship music, but I had never heard worship music like that before, praising Jesus.
• 5:34
  Nick Norring: And there was something different right away.
• 5:38
  Nick Norring: I mean, I personally was crying the minute I walked in the door until we left that day, and I wasn't a crying type of guy at the time.
• 5:47
  Nick Norring: You can ask Jessica loves us, that he came to forgive us of our sins and that we are sinners.
• 6:05
  Nick Norring: You know, I thought I was a pretty good person at the time.
• 6:06
  Nick Norring: But it hit me like a ton of bricks when we listened to that message.
• 6:09
  Nick Norring: It was like my whole life flashed before my eyes and I heard that I need a savior.
• 6:14
  Nick Norring: And we broke down and I remember surrendering our lives to Christ, saying the salvation prayer at the end, and looking up and looking over at Jessica and the tears are pouring down, and we just knew that that was the day.
• 6:29
  Nick Norring: That was a major changing day.
• 6:32
  Nick Norring: That was about oh, when was that?
• 6:37
  Nick Norring: That was about in 2013,.
• 6:39
  Nick Norring: January 2013 is when that day happened.
• 6:43
  Nick Norring: So that's really where it got started.
• 6:48
  Nick Norring: And we, shortly after that, we were very intimidated by the church community.
• 6:52
  Nick Norring: We didn't know what to do, really, where to go.
• 6:55
  Nick Norring: We were intimidated to read the Bible or join a church group or anything.
• 6:59
  Nick Norring: And a friend of mine from work sat down.
• 7:01
  Nick Norring: He's like, hey, man, you're reading the Bible and I go, I don't know.
• 7:04
  Nick Norring: Yeah, I'm trying a little bit, I'm getting through like Leviticus and Numbers, and I don't understand what's going on.
• 7:10
  Nick Norring: So he gave us a one year Bible reading plan, a devotional plan, and Jessica and I started doing that every day over a cup of coffee.
• 7:20
  Nick Norring: And when we sat down and we talked about Jesus.
• 7:23
  Nick Norring: We talked about what we were learning, we wrestled through it over coffee and praying together.
• 7:29
  Nick Norring: Our lives were completely transformed as we started doing that, inviting him in every day.
• 7:34
  Nick Norring: So that's when we knew that God was calling us to do something, combining that of his word and coffee.
• 7:41
  Nick Norring: And maybe you can pick it up from there, Jessica, just like what happened as we were going through that part of the journey.
• 7:50
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:51
  Jessica Norring: I think the biggest thing for us was, as we were doing that, spending time with Jesus and his word over coffee.
• 7:56
  Jessica Norring: We really I think it was a few years into that we're like we want everyone to experience this life-changing experience.
• 8:04
  Jessica Norring: When you spend time first thing in the morning with him and you let him speak to you, you learn more about his character and who you are in him.
• 8:12
  Jessica Norring: And so that is where I think both three really started to kind of spring up in our spirit of.
• 8:19
  Jessica Norring: Obviously, Jesus is the one who originated all of it.
• 8:22
  Jessica Norring: And so just for us, it was really that experiencing it ourselves and then wanting other people to experience it, the joy of doing that every single day, and what God can do when you give him that space and time.
• 8:34
  Jessica Norring: And then we're also just really passionate about kids.
• 8:37
  Jessica Norring: We always have been.
• 8:38
  Jessica Norring: We have two of our own, a lot of nieces and nephews, but that was very quickly on our hearts, as well as to how can we get the younger generation to know this amazing truth that there is a God who loves them and wants a relationship with them.
• 8:52
  Jessica Norring: And so that is where we also had the cause portion behind it, to get God's word into the hands of children.
• 9:01
  Ellen Krause: That's so such a beautiful story of God's faithfulness, right Even when we're not following him, he is there, just his grace and mercy.
• 9:12
  Ellen Krause: Well, tell us then, how did you get this whole coffee business going?
• 9:27
  Nick Norring: Yeah, so it was.
• 9:28
  Nick Norring: It was quite the journey there.
• 9:29
  Nick Norring: Jessica and I were both in technology sales jobs at the time when he called us and it was like my entire life had been working up until that point like the American dream, right, I was like, okay, I need to go to college, go to business school, so I can make a bunch of money and everything will be good and you'll be happy.
• 9:48
  Nick Norring: So in that career I was doing that.
• 9:51
  Nick Norring: I was there for about three or four years winning all these sales awards and things, and I should have been on top of the world and just like, great, you know, everything's going well and buying all the stuff that I had dreamed of my whole life.
• 10:03
  Nick Norring: And it was just.
• 10:05
  Nick Norring: I was depressed, and that was right along that time when we were invited to church and where we knew that we were searching for Jesus.
• 10:12
  Nick Norring: So where the coffee came in is, you know, we started doing that every morning over coffee.
• 10:19
  Nick Norring: We knew every morning we needed to pray about this because there was the stirring of God you have to do something about this, you have to tell people about this.
• 10:27
  Nick Norring: And it just kept coming up at every single morning in the quiet time and finally God said I just want you to leave, I want you to walk away from everything that you have worked so hard for.
• 10:38
  Nick Norring: And we didn't have a really clear plan.
• 10:40
  Nick Norring: He wasn't like you're going to start this ministry, this is exactly how it's going to look.
• 10:44
  Nick Norring: He just, he first just said leave, like kind of to Peter, you know, like just step out of the boat and walk away.
• 10:50
  Nick Norring: And I said, okay, I remember going in and telling my boss I have to leave.
• 10:54
  Nick Norring: God told me to leave and kind of just looked at me like oh, okay, and a lot of you know our friends and things were kind of looking at us like have these guys fell off the rocker or what's going?
• 11:06
  Nick Norring: on here and so we left and we ended up selling a house and becoming a carpenter.
• 11:14
  Nick Norring: Basically, we bought an old fixer upper and every day we'd go over there and remodel and read the Bible and slowly he started to form all these ideas of like I'm going to combine coffee and reaching children and community, and it was always around the three C's.
• 11:29
  Nick Norring: We call it Christ, coffee and community.
• 11:32
  Nick Norring: And so he led us to a ministry partner down in Florida called One Hope, and we'll probably talk a little bit more about that in the future.
• 11:41
  Nick Norring: But that's how it all started.
• 11:43
  Nick Norring: It was very simple and we kept coming back to bold.
• 11:47
  Nick Norring: We were in the book of Acts a lot where the word bold is used in the book of Acts many times, and he kept showing us that it's about taking bold next steps.
• 11:56
  Nick Norring: And he kept telling, kept having us take one bold next step at a time.
• 12:00
  Nick Norring: So I want you to encourage others and empower other people to do this as well, and we're going to use Christ, coffee and community to do that, and that's just where it all began and started to eventually come together.
• 12:12
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well said.
• 12:16
  Ellen Krause: That's incredible.
• 12:17
  Ellen Krause: You know we've had somewhat of a similar journey here at Coffee and Bible Time and of course you know coffee and Bible is what we're all about.
• 12:27
  Ellen Krause: But I love that you said everything wasn't clearly laid out, because I think sometimes people think you know, if you go into any type of a Christian work and you know something that you're doing entrepreneurially, or that you know God's told you exactly how to do everything and it's just.
• 12:51
  Ellen Krause: It's not.
• 12:52
  Ellen Krause: It's trusting him for each step of the way and staying like you said you know.
• 12:57
  Ellen Krause: And staying, like you said you know, daily, just seeking his wisdom and his word.
• 13:05
  Ellen Krause: Well, tell us.
• 13:22
  Nick Norring: Yeah, that's a great question and I would say our faith is really integrated into every decision that we make and ever since the beginning, it's always been centered on prayer and inviting Jesus into that conversation.
• 13:34
  Nick Norring: Every day, even in the smallest things, it's like we wake up, we spend time with God and his word and we ask him, like what do you have for us today?
• 13:42
  Nick Norring: What do you want us to know about today?
• 13:45
  Nick Norring: Who do you want us to reach out to?
• 13:47
  Nick Norring: And oftentimes that can look a lot different than what we have on the to-do list.
• 13:51
  Nick Norring: Sometimes it's like turning 180 degrees.
• 13:53
  Nick Norring: It's like no, you're going to go over here, but that's what it's all about.
• 14:06
  Nick Norring: And actually I wanted to share Proverbs 133 and 2.1, where it says but all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm.
• 14:12
  Nick Norring: My child listen to what I say and treasure my commands.
• 14:16
  Nick Norring: And I was reading this morning and I think God said I want you to share that verse because it really has been about listening.
• 14:24
  Nick Norring: And oftentimes we just want to pray and pray and ask God for what we want, but he's taught us so much in the last few years of I want you to sit down and listen and spend time with me, and then I will direct you on my path right.
• 14:40
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, those are powerful words from Proverbs and certainly something that we all need to take to heart for sure.
• 14:54
  Ellen Krause: Well, can you describe, you know, some of the ways that your business has impacted the underprivileged communities that you support?
• 15:01
  Ellen Krause: I know years ago, when you guys first reached out to us.
• 15:06
  Ellen Krause: That's what just touched my heart so much.
• 15:10
  Ellen Krause: Tell us about that side of your business.
• 15:16
  Nick Norring: Sure, so there's really two parts of the ministry and we break it down into globally and locally.
• 15:23
  Nick Norring: Okay, and globally, I mentioned our partnership with One Hope, and if you're not familiar with One Hope, they're an amazing ministry down in Florida.
• 15:34
  Nick Norring: They are well known for producing the Bible app for kids.
• 15:37
  Nick Norring: So if you have a phone and you have kids, you probably have the Bible app for kids on there.
• 15:43
  Nick Norring: They worked with YouVersion to help design that and create it.
• 15:47
  Nick Norring: The way that we work with them is called the Book of Hope, and the Book of Hope is a children's scripture book and it's produced in over 150 different languages.
• 15:56
  Nick Norring: So One Hope has been around for many years I think over 30 years now and they have partnerships all around the world through the local church, through missionaries, through the local church, through missionaries, and they're on the ground distributing these books directly to children, as they are doing the ministry work right on the ground.
• 16:16
  Nick Norring: And the cool thing about the book is it's contextualized for whatever region they're distributing it in.
• 16:22
  Nick Norring: So if they're in South America, there's a lot of characters with soccer players and the kids really connect with these books, and they're handed out in undeveloped countries.
• 16:31
  Nick Norring: So when a child receives a gift like this.
• 16:33
  Nick Norring: It's a treasure.
• 16:35
  Nick Norring: A lot of them haven't received something for free like that and they end up bringing it home.
• 16:40
  Nick Norring: And it presents the entire gospel message too.
• 16:44
  Nick Norring: It gives a synopsis of the whole Bible and then the salvation message at the end, and it gives them an opportunity to put their faith in Christ if they'd like to.
• 16:53
  Nick Norring: And we'll hear stories many times from One Hope where an entire family will come to know the Lord through these books just by having one child receive one and bring it home, and their whole family will read it, because they've never heard about Jesus in a lot of these countries, so we get excited about that.
• 17:10
  Jessica Norring: Yeah absolutely.
• 17:12
  Ellen Krause: That's beautiful.
• 17:13
  Ellen Krause: Do you have any particular stories or individuals that stand out to you?
• 17:19
  Ellen Krause: One of the things I love that you do is when you send out the coffee includes a little card with one particular story.
• 17:28
  Ellen Krause: So is there any story that stands out to you that you'd like to share?
• 17:34
  Nick Norring: Yeah, there.
• 17:35
  Nick Norring: We feature a different story on those postcards every couple months and you know we have one currently there.
• 17:43
  Nick Norring: One that comes to mind was we had this one probably oh I don't know six months to a year ago.
• 17:50
  Nick Norring: The boy's name was Carlos and he was from Mexico and there was a team from One Hope there that were visiting and there was some type of stomach ailment that he had.
• 18:04
  Nick Norring: He was sick and the team ended up praying for him and I believe there was a miraculous form of healing that happened and his family witnessed this and I think part or some of his family ended up coming to the Lord through this type of healing that happened and then they gave them the book of hope.
• 18:25
  Nick Norring: And so it was just a seed that started and so, yeah, we like to have those postcards featured so that when someone receives their coffee, they can reflect on that story and have encouragement from it too, because that's the whole other part that I didn't mention was like the local part of the cause too, and the local part is really about the website that God had us put together.
• 18:48
  Nick Norring: He had us put our testimony on the Bold 3 Coffee website and pray over that, for I mean, I think it took around a year just to put that website together, and we asked the Lord so many times like what do you want on this website?
• 19:02
  Nick Norring: So when someone sees Bold 3 Coffee, what story do you want them to hear?
• 19:06
  Nick Norring: We want you to be glorified, and I think a lot of times we're praying over all the bags of coffee that are going out, not only for the children who receive the Book of Hope, for the people that are drinking the coffee, and then a lot of times people will give it as a gift.
• 19:24
  Nick Norring: So for every touch point, we're hoping that someone might go to the website, they might watch the story and they might be motivated to take a bold next step.
• 19:29
  Nick Norring: So we don't know the whole picture and I think someday maybe God will show us a spreadsheet of like.
• 19:35
  Nick Norring: Here's all the people that were impacted.
• 19:38
  Jessica Norring: Nick is a finance guy.
• 19:39
  Jessica Norring: If you can't tell.
• 19:41
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, I love that.
• 19:42
  Ellen Krause: The spreadsheet Right yeah, right, yeah.
• 19:48
  Ellen Krause: Oh.
• 19:56
  Ellen Krause: That's just so heartwarming to know that you're contributing towards these life-changing events, especially in children at such a young age.
• 19:59
  Ellen Krause: What have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced in balancing business, faith and charitable work?
• 20:09
  Jessica Norring: For me, I think it is the priorities.
• 20:12
  Jessica Norring: So I think the first thing that came to my mind when you said that was just, it's very easy to put ministry as your identity, and so I think early on, god taught us so much about this isn't who you are.
• 20:26
  Jessica Norring: You work on this, it's wonderful, but we are sons and daughters of the Most High God first and foremost.
• 20:33
  Jessica Norring: So I think that is a constant check for us to be making sure that we're not putting our identity in the ministry and what we do versus who we are in Christ.
• 20:43
  Jessica Norring: And then also just the challenge it has put on our marriage at times and our family has been something that God is continuing to teach us, continuing to refine us in, because also that priority of putting the ministry above that and when that happens, how to repent of it, to make sure we're aware of it, because that is not God's intention and really lately, the message he's been giving us over and over is just the most important work that you'll do is within the walls of your home and really being intentional about our own personal walk with the Lord and then also with our marriage and then our kids, to make sure that we're investing in that, that we're putting that in the right priority has been, I think, the biggest challenge for us, at least for me.
• 21:28
  Nick Norring: Patience has been a challenge because, especially in the culture that we live in, is so instant, right.
• 21:34
  Nick Norring: We can go on our phone and click something and it shows up tomorrow or even today and it's.
• 21:39
  Nick Norring: God has taught us a lot about patience and trusting.
• 21:42
  Nick Norring: I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's like part of what he's teaching is waiting right and many of the stories in the bible.
• 21:52
  Nick Norring: They waited 40 years, like the israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years before they entered the promised land.
• 21:58
  Nick Norring: Right, and we want everything so quick.
• 22:00
  Nick Norring: And he gave us this big vision when we first started and we thought, oh, bold, three coffee, let's go and open up coffee shops on every street corner in the United States.
• 22:09
  Nick Norring: And he showed us visions like that and we're like oh yeah we'll have this done in like two years.
• 22:13
  Nick Norring: You know like yeah, but now we're eight years down the road and he's taught us so much about patient endurance and a lot of pride as well.
• 22:24
  Nick Norring: A lot of pride had to be rooted out of our hearts from the beginning of just thinking that we could do it all on our own and holding a plan like really tight, like this, and not inviting him in and saying, okay, God, this is yours, we surrender this to you completely.
• 22:39
  Nick Norring: I think right at the beginning, there was a lot of like thinking that we had to have it all figured out and perfect before we could move forward.
• 22:46
  Nick Norring: But now we're learning.
• 22:48
  Nick Norring: Okay, it's in your hands, Lord, Do what you want with this.
• 22:53
  Nick Norring: This is surrendered to you.
• 22:54
  Nick Norring: We're just here to do as you ask and to be used as a tool to shine your light in any way that you see fit.
• 23:04
  Nick Norring: Not what I want to do, necessarily always, but it's, yeah, it so it's.
• 23:09
  Nick Norring: It has been a challenge, but it's been an incredible faith building journey for us.
• 23:15
  Ellen Krause: It's almost like you know God's asking us to um, hold, hold loosely, you know be willing to pivot, be open to however God's working in any particular moment.
• 23:32
  Ellen Krause: And, like you said, you know, there is this balance between wanting to have some plans but yet also being open to what the Holy Spirit is saying each and every day, and that sometimes can be hard to do, especially, you know, if you are a planner and you want to have things all worked out in your mind, and that can be challenging.
• 23:55
  Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely.
• 23:58
  Jessica Norring: That is totally me, so that's been a refining for sure.
• 24:02
  Ellen Krause: Tell us a little bit about the coffee part of having a coffee company.
• 24:09
  Ellen Krause: How did you go about finding your coffee farmers and how do you source the coffee beans?
• 24:18
  Nick Norring: Yep.
• 24:18
  Nick Norring: So right when we started, I wasn't even a coffee drinker when I met Jessica I liked tea.
• 24:27
  Nick Norring: We have some work to do here, so she turned me on to coffee right away when we started reading the Bible and I'm like, oh, this is actually really good and I started to enjoy it.
• 24:37
  Nick Norring: But I noticed that when I was starting to drink the coffee I would get really jittery.
• 24:43
  Nick Norring: And so we we found organic coffee after that and we noticed that, as we were using organic coffee, we didn't have that same jittery feeling and there wasn't a headache after it or something like that.
• 24:58
  Nick Norring: So we knew that we needed to find organic.
• 25:00
  Nick Norring: We were very passionate about finding USDA organic and then also we wanted to make sure that it was fair trade and being sourced in a fair way.
• 25:10
  Nick Norring: So we did a bunch of taste testing with a bunch of different roasters all around and we found some great ones here in Minnesota and they helped us design some custom blends for Bold 3 Coffee.
• 25:24
  Nick Norring: And so we always stick to the Fairtrade certified and the USDA organic.
• 25:31
  Nick Norring: And eventually we have ideas and visions of being able to schedule mission trips through the ministry, where we go to the regions directly, where or where even the farm is, where we're getting a lot of the beans and distributing the book of hope and doing ministry work right there on the ground.
• 25:49
  Nick Norring: We haven't done that yet, but we see that coming in the future as we continue to grow that way.
• 25:58
  Ellen Krause: That's so exciting, you know.
• 25:59
  Ellen Krause: I imagine there's a lot of people out there that maybe would love to, you know, roast their own coffee and start a coffee shop, and there's so many different things to think about.
• 26:11
  Ellen Krause: But it sounds like from the from the actual coffee bean perspective you've been so careful to, you know, make sure that it's a good quality and it's something that's helping the farmers as well.
• 26:28
  Nick Norring: Absolutely yeah, and that's why we chose the fair trade route, because it ensures that they're getting paid a fair wage and there's, you know, arguments about that in the coffee industry.
• 26:40
  Nick Norring: On, you need to have a direct relationship with a farmer and I think eventually we will have some of those direct relationships, but for now we're sticking with the fair trade route.
• 26:51
  Nick Norring: A lot of churches and things that we work with they're used to drinking like a Folgers type coffee or something.
• 26:56
  Nick Norring: But when they try a more specialty coffee where it's fresh roasted we're all about super fresh coffee and they try it and they're like, oh wow, this is unbelievable, this is way different than we've tried before.
• 27:11
  Nick Norring: So we went down every single little detail in that whole beginning part, down to how fresh the beans are, what percentage they're, if they're specialty grade and it's all done with like meticulous care of the entire process.
• 27:25
  Nick Norring: In the beginning we wanted to do more of a blend.
• 27:26
  Nick Norring: It's all done with like meticulous care of the entire process.
• 27:29
  Jessica Norring: In the beginning we wanted to do more of a blend.
• 27:31
  Jessica Norring: So there's single origin for those who aren't familiar with that, and then there's blends of coffee.
• 27:36
  Jessica Norring: So all of them are blends, because we thought that way we could support more countries and support more farmers.
• 27:41
  Jessica Norring: So right now we currently do have that, but also want to expand into more single origin, direct relationships too, where we're also delivering the gospel to children through that.
• 27:52
  Ellen Krause: And it really is so good.
• 27:53
  Ellen Krause: Last Christmas I got your coffee and gave it to everybody in our small group and they just loved it.
• 28:04
  Ellen Krause: They absolutely loved it, loved it, they absolutely loved it.
• 28:10
  Ellen Krause: And I love that you have the decaf too, because, like if we have our group in the evening, it's so nice to be able to have a good quality, really delicious tasting decaf coffee as well.
• 28:18
  Jessica Norring: So kudos to you guys.
• 28:21
  Ellen Krause: Well, you mentioned that one of the things you want to do to over the next five to 10 years is the missions.
• 28:28
  Ellen Krause: Do you have anything else on the horizon for the future?
• 28:36
  Nick Norring: Yes, so right now we're working with around 15 different churches and coffee shops all around the country, which is, I think, it's amazing because we're such a small ministry where we haven't had the funds or the resources to maybe do this like huge outreach.
• 28:56
  Nick Norring: And it's been God that will send someone to our website from a church down in Florida or wherever, and they'll they'll find the story and they'll be moved by the Holy Spirit to say we would like to work with you, and so that's often how it happens and there's many churches will utilize our wholesale program.
• 29:17
  Nick Norring: That's been growing quite a bit.
• 29:19
  Nick Norring: It's pretty simplified now, where a church can order in five pound bags and we fresh roast them every week in whatever quantity they'd like to order, and then they're shipped out every week, and so every one of those five pound bags that we sell, nine children are reached as well as that, we're praying for the people that are drinking the coffee and the organizations that are using it too.
• 29:42
  Nick Norring: So we're excited about that wholesale side of things, because I don't think it's necessarily a Bold3 coffee house everywhere in the country.
• 29:51
  Nick Norring: It's God's stirring, the same type of vision that we've had of reaching people for Christ, maybe outside the church, in a coffee shop environment, where somebody might never walk into a church but they will walk into a coffee shop and they might see a bold three coffee sign there that they're serving.
• 30:08
  Nick Norring: They say, oh, this is really good coffee, maybe I should go check it out, and then that person might end up finding Christ a different way, like that.
• 30:15
  Nick Norring: So we're excited about the wholesale side of things.
• 30:19
  Nick Norring: And then we have had a stirring and a vision for a long time now about a local space we call it a coffee house community center where people can come outside the church and experience Christ in a loving atmosphere, where we see homeschooling communities meeting their co-ops, moms that are on the journey of that and that need a place to gather.
• 30:45
  Nick Norring: We see, you know potentially different things like pickleball and basketball for the kids, and we see this all being centered around fighting human trafficking.
• 30:58
  Nick Norring: So that's been a cause that's been really close to our hearts and we think that God is calling us in that direction around this coffee house community center.
• 31:06
  Nick Norring: So that's a big vision and we've been talking and praying through that.
• 31:10
  Nick Norring: But I think that's on the horizon, in the next, you know, five years, 10 years, whatever he says, we're really excited about that.
• 31:19
  Ellen Krause: Those are beautiful sort of long term goals to be looking forward to, and it is interesting just to see how God will play that out in the years to come.
• 31:31
  Ellen Krause: For sure, well, as we start to kind of wrap things up here, what advice would you give to other Christians who might be interested in starting a business with a strong social and charitable mission tied to it?
• 31:54
  Jessica Norring: I would say keep Jesus first.
• 31:56
  Jessica Norring: I know I talked about priorities earlier, but just making sure that you're having that personal relationship with him, seeking him and his word through prayer and listening.
• 32:06
  Jessica Norring: I think for me it's been really the last two years the Lord has been speaking to me a lot about listening.
• 32:09
  Jessica Norring: I think for me it's been really the last two years the Lord has been speaking to me a lot about listening.
• 32:12
  Jessica Norring: I like to talk a lot and tell my to-do list and all the different things I want to pray about, but I'm just really taking that time to listen.
• 32:20
  Jessica Norring: I think as a mom can be challenging, but I've really tried to just set aside that time to really listen and hear what he has to say to us too.
• 32:28
  Jessica Norring: So I think that's a big thing is doing that quiet time, but also that listening portion, to be hearing his voice and to be in step with him and then just depending on him.
• 32:41
  Jessica Norring: It really is step-by-step how God leads us and so he doesn't give us this grandiose like vision for our whole lives.
• 32:46
  Jessica Norring: Necessarily it's really he wants us to grandiose vision for our whole lives.
• 32:48
  Jessica Norring: Necessarily it's really he wants us to depend on him for the daily bread.
• 32:53
  Jessica Norring: I think that was a message at church this last weekend.
• 32:55
  Jessica Norring: Actually was that give us this day our daily bread, and the manna expired after a day as well.
• 33:01
  Jessica Norring: So he really does want us to depend on him, and I think that's the biggest advice I would give is to put him first and to seek him above all else.
• 33:10
  Jessica Norring: Seek first the kingdom of God, and everything else will be added.
• 33:14
  Nick Norring: And I think, as we're listening, asking him who he has created us in his image, like, ask him like Jesus, who am I to you?
• 33:24
  Nick Norring: And when we start to understand our identity in Christ, that's when our gifts will really come alive.
• 33:31
  Nick Norring: And I think for the first part of my journey, for many of the first few years, it was just not really inviting him in and asking him who I am, who he created me to be, and we've really been the last couple of years just learning a lot about our identity in Christ.
• 33:49
  Nick Norring: And then it's stirring this whole new side of creativity in how we can use those gifts in our identity in Christ and really live that out.
• 33:59
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, yeah, because I think when we experience the love of God, then we're able to love others, and so that's been a huge thing for us is letting him fill us up first, so that we can overflow that into others, and if we're not doing that.
• 34:12
  Jessica Norring: It's really difficult to do.
• 34:14
  Ellen Krause: So, yes, yes, that's excellent, excellent advice.
• 34:18
  Ellen Krause: It all starts there, for sure.
• 34:20
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, all right.
• 34:22
  Ellen Krause: Well, how can people find out more information about you, your podcast and, of course, Bold3 Coffee.
• 34:31
  Nick Norring: Yep, so Bold3.org is the website, bold3coffee, jessica handles the podcast, and we would like to spend a little bit more time doing that getting some more episodes on there.
• 34:44
  Jessica Norring: That's been a little more difficult with kids, but yes, we are working on trying to make that more of a routine.
• 34:49
  Nick Norring: Yeah, yes, it has been a challenge when you know the kids are three and six now.
• 35:01
  Ellen Krause: So it's a wild time and we're balancing all that.
• 35:02
  Nick Norring: But yeah, and we're also on Amazon.
• 35:03
  Nick Norring: com, we're trying to shine the light of Christ on Amazon.
• 35:06
  Nick Norring: So we have two, you know the one pound bags are on Amazon as well.
• 35:11
  Nick Norring: So either any of those places.
• 35:15
  Ellen Krause: Fantastic, okay, well, we will make sure that we include all of those links in our show notes as well.
• 35:21
  Ellen Krause: Before we go, though, we have to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions what Bible is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?
• 35:33
  Nick Norring: Mine was the first Bible that we started with right at the beginning of our journey.
• 35:39
  Nick Norring: It's called the Jesus Centered Bible and it's in NLT and it points to the messianic part of Jesus in all of the Old Testament.
• 35:50
  Nick Norring: So we really liked that we were handed a.
• 35:52
  Nick Norring: That one-year Bible reading plan was called Discovering the Bible by Gordon Addington, and it has you work through the whole Old Testament and the new.
• 36:01
  Nick Norring: Every day you read part of it and so you start to connect the dots of here's Jesus in the old, here how he is in the new and when.
• 36:09
  Nick Norring: That logically made sense to me and really helped us a lot in our faith journey, as we would do that every day.
• 36:16
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, absolutely I love the Life Application Study Bible.
• 36:20
  Jessica Norring: I am a very, like, deep thinker.
• 36:21
  Jessica Norring: I like to know all the details, like I said earlier, and so I love the Study Bible.
• 36:26
  Jessica Norring: I have it in NLT, but I also love NIV and ESV as well have different ones in that, but I love the study Bible.
• 36:29
  Jessica Norring: I have it in NLT, but I also love NIV and ESV as well.
• 36:31
  Jessica Norring: I have different ones in that, but I love the life application study Bible.
• 36:35
  Jessica Norring: It really helps me put it into practice.
• 36:47
  Ellen Krause: Yes, it sure does, Okay, excellent suggestions.
• 36:48
  Jessica Norring: Okay, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything you like to use to enhance your Bible study time?
• 36:50
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, I, it's called.
• 36:51
  Jessica Norring: Is it the one line a day?
• 36:52
  Jessica Norring: So the one line a day Nick and I both started doing five years ago.
• 36:56
  Jessica Norring: It has a spot for five years so you get to see how the Lord has been faithful and what he has been doing in your life.
• 37:04
  Jessica Norring: And so it literally is.
• 37:06
  Jessica Norring: Even if it's just a one line a day, I love it, cause sometimes it's like I just have a quick second to write it in there.
• 37:11
  Jessica Norring: Um, that's been huge.
• 37:12
  Jessica Norring: I also am a highlighter.
• 37:14
  Jessica Norring: I love highlighters Um, ask anyone about that with me and so I love that.
• 37:19
  Jessica Norring: And just a simple pen and notepad to write down things quickly, um, is my jam.
• 37:24
  Nick Norring: So yeah, I echo the one line a day thing for the five years.
• 37:29
  Nick Norring: And you know you can do it with just a simple notebook.
• 37:31
  Jessica Norring: You just get out a notebook, yeah.
• 37:33
  Nick Norring: Right.
• 37:33
  Nick Norring: Write down the verse that stood out to you that day and what God spoke to you from that verse.
• 37:39
  Nick Norring: Meditate on it, and sometimes you're going to write for two pages.
• 37:42
  Nick Norring: Sometimes it's just a little bit, but he's going to say something when we sit down and spend time with him, but he's going to say something when we sit down and spend time with him.
• 37:49
  Nick Norring: In his words, so I love that.
• 37:51
  Ellen Krause: That's a great, great, excellent, excellent tool Okay.
• 38:01
  Nick Norring: Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 38:04
  Nick Norring: I mentioned that book.
• 38:06
  Nick Norring: I like physical books, so I'm in that, discovering the Bible one year devotional and then we use the.
• 38:12
  Nick Norring: I like the YouVersion Bible app as well, that I can just quickly pull up a verse when I need to, and then I like to compare across the different translations on there.
• 38:22
  Nick Norring: So when God speaks to me and has me meditate on one, I like to compare the different translations and then ask him what he wants me to know about that.
• 38:30
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, mine would be the same.
• 38:31
  Jessica Norring: Yeah, we use very similar tools together.
• 38:33
  Jessica Norring: So Excellent.
• 38:35
  Ellen Krause: Okay, those are great, great suggestions, all right.
• 38:38
  Ellen Krause: Well, nick and Jessica, thank you so much for being willing to join us today, for sharing your story of how you have merged faith and your business and how it is just helping so many children.
• 38:54
  Ellen Krause: We just appreciate you so much.
• 38:57
  Jessica Norring: We appreciate you.
• 38:58
  Jessica Norring: Thank you so much, it's been wonderful.
• 39:00
  Nick Norring: Yeah, thank you, ellen.
• 39:01
  Nick Norring: Really appreciate you and all the work that you guys are doing for the Lord.
• 39:06
  Ellen Krause: Alrighty.
• 39:07
  Ellen Krause: Thank you and for our listeners, definitely check out Bold 3 Coffee.
• 39:12
  Ellen Krause: You really must.
• 39:13
  Ellen Krause: You can learn more about their mission and I highly recommend grabbing some coffee while you are there on their website.
• 39:23
  Ellen Krause: It is delicious.
• 39:24
  Ellen Krause: All right, we will provide a link to all of those in our show notes.
• 39:29
  Ellen Krause: We love you all.
• 39:31
  Ellen Krause: We appreciate you listening.
• 39:32
  Ellen Krause: Have a blessed day.