Gospel Story: Joel Love

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hi this is joel rachel and i moved to
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the twin cities about two years ago and
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this is a little bit of the story of
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what brought us
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and what god’s been doing in our lives
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ever since so we came out to the twin
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cities
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in 2017 to start a small business with a
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friend of mine it’s called urban greens
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it’s an indoor hydroponic farm
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which means that we grow leafy greens
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and herbs in a warehouse up at columbia
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heights
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but before becoming a hydroponic farmer
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i was working as a mechanical engineer
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at a company in pittsburgh pennsylvania
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it was a nuclear power plant design
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firm it was a big multinational company
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that was doing
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frankly good work and providing good
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services to society
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but over time it became kind of apparent
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to me that basically nobody at the
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company was flourishing including me
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there was a lot of complaining a lot of
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distrust throughout the organization
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people basically didn’t think the
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leaders had their backs and so over time
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it became a bit of a struggle to work
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there
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and and through that time god started to
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develop in me a
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longing to build my own business from
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the ground up and create that culture
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that i had been craving
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in addition i i’ve always thought that
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business and specifically small business
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is a great opportunity that god gives
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his body to serve our communities
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there are ways that we can offer value
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to our community as well as build really
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meaningful relationships
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with people that we honestly wouldn’t
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have the chance to cross paths with
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otherwise
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so again a couple years ago my friend
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andrew was starting to play around with
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hydroponics he had a small system in his
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basement where he was growing
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some heads of lettuce and some kale
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over time scaling it up and basically
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got to the point where he thought maybe
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it could become a viable business
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uh and given where i was at in
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pittsburgh ready to make a change he
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gave me a call and asked if i’d be
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willing to move out here
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and start urban greens with him so
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rachel and i after having been married
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for
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all of four months packed up everything
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and moved to minnesota
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and so the first thing that any good
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entrepreneur does when starting a
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business is write a mission statement
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and fortunately i had been thinking for
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quite some time about what the mission
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of any business that i would start would
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be and given
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urban greens in the context of food
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production
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this is the mission statement that we
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came up with so our mission at urban
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greens
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is to draw value out of god’s creation
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through innovation and food production
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that contributes to the flourishing of
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our customers
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team members and owners our goal is to
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serve our community with high quality
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food
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that honors the goodness of god’s
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creation and a customer service
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experience
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that honors the dignity of every
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individual we seek to build a business
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that prioritizes justice and its
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encounters with all people related to
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the business
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as well as its encounter with god’s
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creation
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so god has certainly been stretching me
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over the past couple of years
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a couple specifics come to mind one is
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that i’ve never really considered myself
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to be a particularly materialistic
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person
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i live pretty minimalistically i don’t
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really buy
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new things and rachel will tell you that
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i’m just pretty cheap
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and so as an engineer i was living
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considerably below my means
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and so i felt like i wasn’t relying on
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stuff
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for my identity but since
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leaving my job and pouring a bunch of
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money into a new business god’s been
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revealing to me how much
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i had been relying on that as a security
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net
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i knew that even though i didn’t need
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all that money for my day-to-day it was
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always there in case something went
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wrong
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and so now with less of a security net
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god been increasing my faith in his
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provision
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and one of the ways that he’s been
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teaching me over the past couple of
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years that he does that
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is he often does it through his body the
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church
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you do hear stories about god
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mysteriously providing for people
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through anonymous checks in the mail
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stuff like that
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but he’s been teaching me that more
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often than not he’s going to provide for
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us through his body the church
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was a time where i was sharing with our
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community group about
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what i perceived to be the worst case
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scenario for the business which is that
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it saddles rachel and i with a bunch of
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debt
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it then fails spectacularly and we are
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out living on the street
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but i was telling them well god’s been
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teaching me that that’s probably not
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going to be the case
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because he’ll provide for us through the
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church which means one of you is going
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to take us
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in right i look around i’m just waiting
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to hear crickets but
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immediately anna nelson says of course
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we would you could stay in the basement
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and so it’s just again an affirmation
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that god does provide for us and we
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at antioch his body is how he does that
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so a second way that god has been
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stretching me
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over the course of starting this
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business is a growing
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patience and dependence on him in the
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unknown uh
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so here’s a secret about entrepreneurs
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we don’t know what we’re doing
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we got visions we got plans but things
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basically never go
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according to plan and when you’ve built
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your business on something as fickle as
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living plants
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uh growing in a warehouse without soil
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there’s a lot that’s outside of your
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control and then there’s all the
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problems of which direction to take the
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business how to best serve your
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customers how to manage the work between
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you and your partner
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there’s a lot of unknowns fortunately
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god knows everything there is to know
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about his creation and about this
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community and what they need
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and about me and andrew and how we work
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best
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and he has been very eager to lead us
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when i’ve approached him in prayer ready
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to follow