Pete Leonard founded a coffee roasting company that employs ex-felons. His instigating insight was seeing all people as equal regardless of their past, as explained in Romans 3:23.

Transcript:

Whether they’re Christians or not, they are still felons. And the world doesn’t care what your belief system is – they look at what your past is. What’s the most heinous thing that you’ve done? That’s what you get labeled with.

Well I don’t want that in my company. These are people! They’re not a label. They’re not felons. They’re people. They have histories. They have hopes, dreams, families, skills, talent. And they are God’s creatures in the same way that I am. They have no less value than I do, or my wife does, or anybody else that I know simply because of their past.

The fact is: my past isn’t clean either. No one’s is. We’re human. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Some of us go to prison for it. Others don’t. That’s Man’s rules, not God’s.

So being able to see these men as people is really the underlying kind of transformation in my heart that said: this is an issue, and you can impact people’s lives by doing something.

Watch the full The Top 1% from the Faith & Co. film series from Seattle Pacific University.

This video serves as an illustration to the TOW Bible Commentary All Have Sinned (Romans 2-3).