How and why was Have a God Time born? Since what year have you been working on this project?
-Have a God Time is born of an encounter with the Lord. From a precious path of personal transformation. In 2011 we did the course Alpha and there we discovered the Holy Spirit and our parish. We discovered a community of people transformed and united in Christ and in a joy that was not normal. We wanted to be part of it.
That same year Pope Benedict XVI came and, on the way to Cuatro Vientos, among the crowd excited to meet the Pope and carrying the pilgrim's backpack, the idea of creating Christian products for everyday use came up. We realized that only in those moments, and as a group, we Catholics were brave enough to show our faith. Why not show our faith on a daily basis with current items that can be used every day? Why not show what we are? With joy and simplicity.
We are publicists and we have been working for 10 years in our own communication studio, we decided in our spare time to start sketching and designing Christian products to evangelize. From mugs, aprons, baby baskets, all with a different and modern style. More and more free time we had, and our heart wanted more and more. We felt that this filled us much more than the work we had and at a certain point we decided to put our vocation at the service of the Lord and bet for Have a God Time. In 2015 we launched the website www.haveagodtime.es.
In addition to a "sales channel", HGT launches daily phrases of saints, short resources for prayer or reflection, how do you combine this double aspect of product and "spiritual tips"?
–Have a God time is not just an online store, it is a project to evangelize. When you have an encounter with the Lord, everything changes, your life is transformed, how can you not want to share this with the rest of the world?
In November 2013 Pope Francis published the Evangeli Gaudium and said: "I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the objectives, style and methods of evangelization. Let us be 'street people of the faith', happy to take Jesus Christ to every corner, to every square, to every corner of the earth.". He was confirming our project: We want to take Jesus Christ to every house, to the whole world. It is not only the idea of selling a product, which we also want to be able to make a living from it, but also the message we want to transmit.
The message of a living Jesus Christ who died for us to save us. Every morning we post an inspirational phrase on social media: Instagram, etc. We believe it is a very effective tool to reach everyone. In fact we post more phrases than product. Many people don't know that we are an online store.
HGT not only sells "religious products" but also articles for daily use: bread baskets, notebooks... with phrases of saints, snippets of prayers... Do these little things help to make the Christian life of families more natural?
-Of course, we want God to be present at every moment of the day. This helps us to keep him present, to bear witness to him as well. Not only for those at home, but for those who come and see that in our house the Lord occupies the first place.
God has been taken out of the houses. Nobody hangs a crucifix anymore, nobody talks about God. We Christians have to be witnesses and show our faith without complexes or fears.
A breadbasket Give us today our daily bread to remember who it is that provides for us and to be thankful, an apron of God is poutinga breakfast mug that says FAITH AND COFFEE...Now that Christmas is coming and it seems that only Santa Claus is on the market, to re-enter into the mystery of the child who is born, selling Baby Jesus painted by some nuns... ornaments that they put up God is born... It is important to focus and be consistent with who we are and what we celebrate.
One of the lines you work on is to help cloistered monasteries with the sale of their products. How do they thank you? Which ones do you like the most?
-We would love to collaborate with more convents and nuns because their prayer sustains the world. How important it is! And we are Church, so we have to help them sustain themselves too. They do beautiful work. Some paint, some sew..... People love to know that some of our products are made by them. The ones they like the most are the cloth crosses, to hang, and the little Jesus in his manger.
Do you make packs suitable for Christmas or gifts for new marriages, communions... Do they help to recover the true meaning of Christian celebrations, even for people who are a little more detached from religious practice?
-We want to be consistent with our beliefs. Therefore, when a baby is born, we thank God for the gift of life; when a baby is baptized, we give a gift to welcome him or her into the Church. First Communions, celebration of marriages... what better gift than something that is consistent with that important moment? Even for people who are more distant from the faith or who only fulfill the sacraments for cultural or traditional reasons, we can give testimony of the importance of the moment and help them to reflect on the gift when they have an apron or a mystery or a pencil with a Christian phrase in their home and make it an instrument for God to act.
What feedback do you receive?
-The feedback is incredible! The first thing that surprises us is that people think we are a bigger company, maybe because we take great care of our brand image and we are only 3 people doing everything: design, production, administration, management, customer service, order preparation.
When we tell them who we are, they are surprised; they ask us about our business plan, and we have never made one. The most beautiful thing is the many messages we receive every week, of gratitude, of testimonials for a sentence posted, read, for a gift received at a given moment.
Also, the number of visits we have in the studio from people who come to meet us. As a result of this project we have come to know the diversity of the Church, so many wonderful charisms, so much spiritual richness. We have an open house for those who want to come and chat and listen to our testimony, we pray together. We have made great friends. We thank God for this journey.
In this link you can visit their website: https://www.haveagodtime.es/
