We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Thomas Berry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Thomas below.
Thomas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I am a believer in the power of prayer. Years ago, I was extremely sick. Family, friends, and even strangers lifted me up to God in prayer as I went through many surgeries and treatments.
One day, I was again amazed by Christ showing His love through others: a woman named Angie whom I had never met before told me that she had prayed daily for me for a year. She went on to share that she kept a prayer bowl, and each day, she’d ask the Lord’s blessing on the people who were in need at that time. I loved the idea so much that I quickly decided to create a distinctive prayer bowl for myself and a few others, and with that, PrayerBowls were born.
So many times we hear of a prayer request at church, Bible study, or even through email, and we pray for that person at that time. Often, we quickly forget to offer a prayer again while we shuffle back into our daily routine, but God tells us to pray continuously. So, simply place your prayer bowl where you sit daily, and jot down the names of those who you’re praying for on a slip of paper. Then, each day, alone or with your family, lift up those friends in need to the Lord.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My wife Karen was a teacher when we first started the business and I owned a residential cleaning company and built a home a year. Karen was painting bowls and gifting to friends and family. One night she brought 20 hand-painted PrayerBowls to a home party and sold them all. Word spread and Karen was getting orders from the women in our area. I came home one day and there were a half dozen bowls in gift bags on our front porch for pick-up. I immediately went inside our home, purchased URL’s and formed an LLC. We then decided to put two PrayerBowls into production and chose Portugal to make them.
All of our PrayerBowls are handmade by skilled artisans. They are made in the USA, Portugal, Poland, Italy, & Mexico. We currently have a dozen ceramic PrayerBowls, 10 wood PrayerBowls & 12 plus wooden dough PrayerBowls. We continue to add quality Christian products every month. We have PrayerCandles, PrayerBoards, hand-carved Angels, Hymnal Art and cozy Wrapped in Truth scripture blankets. We take great pride in our products and customer service.
We are honored to be affiliated with Compassion International, Mary Lee’s House, A21 & YoungLife. We contribute to them financially, include a prayer for them in our bundles of PrayerCards and share their cause with our PrayerBowl Community. We also feel privileged to share fellowship with 50,000 email subscribers every Monday morning at 5AM. We share a prayer & scripture , as well as, write a blog every 3rd Monday of the month. We have recently added a prayer wall to pray for others.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
We were having a lot of success with less than a dozen sku’s until Covid halted product production. This did however fast track us to look for new quality handmade Christian products to add to our PrayerBowl line to help increase revenue. We believe we can go beyond the niche of just PrayerBowls, but offer an extensive catalogue of quality Christian gifts. There is no company like this today. Most of the big Christian stores get everything made in China and products are $20 or less. People want to give high quality gifts.
Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?
We were going to strictly sell on our Shopify site, but are selling on Etsy/Amazon to protect our brand from the many new companies selling PrayerBowls. They have so much power in search that you really are forced to use them.
Contact Info:
- Website: PrayerBowls.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prayerbowls/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prayerbowls
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/prayerbowls/