Interview With The Founders

1. What is "Let's do Lunch" and how did you get the inspiration?

Years ago, my husband and I found ourselves living on this crazy hamster wheel of a life. Our schedules were overrun with things we weren’t choosing, yet were allowing. When we sat down and evaluated our calendars, many events were things we couldn’t or didn’t want to let go of. So how could we make time for us in the middle of it all? 

We carved out time in our schedule to intentionally connect with one another. We planned for it by adding it to our calendar well in advance. This has been how we’ve structured our social lives as well. We pursue relationally to invest in and to receive from. As kids, your friends are usually the most important thing in your life. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost track of the importance of friendship as we’ve accepted the weight of what the world says we should focus on as an adult. We believe that you can really have your cake and eat it too...you just need to plan for it.

2. Tell us about your background? Who are you? What do you do in your free time? Tell us about your family.

Kara: I’m a Colorado girl at heart. I love the mountains and all that it has to offer. It is the place that continues to teach me to embrace a slower rhythm and experience the grandness of a good God! It is the place I feel most alive! And while I love the solitude and peace Colorado gives me, I also love people...a lot! This would probably explain my years in client care and customer satisfaction while in the business world and community engagement through gatherings and event planning in my years of ministry. We all have problems, which means we all need healthy spaces & places to be able to dissect and learn. I love sitting in these moments with others while we learn more about who we are and how connected we are to one another as human beings.

The human experience is linked by our emotions. Our circumstances aren’t usually the same, but we can connect with one another based on what we feel and this forms a bond. The human condition is doomed if we continue to resist the opportunity to welcome one another into our stories of life and all that comes with it. This really is what I’m about - openness with a genuine desire to show others that we’re more alike than we think. 

When not serving our clients, I am more than likely responding to “Moooooooom” by one of our four greatest blessings. We spend a lot of time together, riding bikes, kayaking, hanging out at the beach and playing games. I love that my children have inherited my affinity for a great game of Uno! 

I’ve learned in these past few years to embrace more time alone for what refuels me. I enjoy walking through art galleries and museums, experiencing new restaurants and have learned to enjoy reading. My high school English teachers are finally cheering...

JT: I am a fierce hearted explorer who loves Jesus, my wife, our children and every moment I can get in the mountains. Colorado will always be “back home” for me. The mountains, pretty much any mountains, are the places I’m in search of. I like finding new places, going further than I have before and I’m always up for a challenge. You don’t really want to get me started on a conversation about cars unless you really want to talk about cars and then talk about cars some more. And to answer questions you might already be wondering, yes to German, especially Porsche, and trucks are meant to be 4x4 not 4x2. Big engines are great, big power is even better. For a person who really enjoys going fast, discovery, the outdoors and even solitude I am also a lover of people. God broke my heart for people when I was really young and I’ve committed my life to serving others.  Nothing satisfies the soul like helping someone else, especially when it comes to the important things in life. 

3. Who is "Let's do Lunch" for? 

It’s for those who desire more out of their lives. More fun, more face to face connection, more intention, more real life. It’s for the busy, burnt out, exhausted, and depleted. You still have to keep going, still show up, but deep down you hope there’s something more. All the things on the calendar are things you love or things that you know are priorities and that you need to continue to show up for. But, how do you create healthy rhythms for yourself to enjoy your life in a schedule that has snuffed your needs out? Let’s do Lunch is a service for those that refuse to sacrifice themselves on the altar of busy-ness. It’s for the people who choose to say yes to their most treasured relationships without suffering silently any longer. 

4. What is one thing you hope clients will take away from this service? 

While we aim to remove the stress and to-do’s from our clients plate, it is all in an effort to help bring forth a greater social awareness and social health for our clients. Culturally, we focus on our physical health and thankfully, more on mental health than in years past. But more often than not, we still don’t consider a social life as something that can be healthy or dysfunctional. At Let’s do Lunch, our hope is to help our clients find a new-found rhythm for their lives that includes a stress-free social life. 

5. What is your secret to cultivating meaningful relationships?

Show up. That’s it, really. Show up with all of you. 

We often compartmentalize parts of our lives and not one person on earth is ever welcomed into all of the parts. How heartbreaking it is to think that there are people that never experience meaningful relationships in their fullness because of this. Many times it’s done out of protection; protection of our egos and pride. And listen, we’ve been there! No one likes to be rejected! 

But by choosing to put it all out there, we quickly learn who “our people” are. We quickly realize who is with us to the end, the tribe that will march into battle with us. And they do so willingly, knowing the good, bad and ugly. This type of intimate relationship is only cultivated by showing up and taking the risk of being known. And yes, it is a risk. But remember the old adage, “with great risk, comes great reward.” 

6. What are your hopes for Let's do Lunch in the future? 

We see Let’s do Lunch being used as a catalyst to help shift more busy individuals from burnt out and complacency to engaged and healthy. To free up families to connect with one another in the time they do have together and to see friends walk with one another through every season, not just the convenient ones. We look forward to watching Let’s do Lunch continue to be the solution for those desiring more than the status quo from their lives. 

To our social health,

Kara + JT