Faith and Fraser Firs: When Pursuing Jesus Looks Like Selling Christmas Trees
For Mt. Bethel Church members Ryan and Caitlin Jones, trading the pursuit of more for a life worth pursuing in Jesus Christ looks like selling Christmas trees.
“It’s a side business, but it’s our mission,” Caitlin said. “It’s taking the resources God has given us and giving Him an opportunity to bless it even more.”
Ryan, an officer with the Atlanta Police Department, grew up raising Christmas trees. His parents and extended family own farms in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and for years he traveled north each winter to help work the farm and sell trees.
Peace Christmas Trees—the business Ryan and Caitlin own and operate in the Atlanta area—began in 2013, the first year of their marriage. At the time, Ryan was working an extra shift as a security detail for the CEO of a local nonprofit.
“Her organization provided education and childcare for single-working mothers living in housing projects,” he explained. “She knew about my family’s farm up north and she was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you bring a bunch of trees to our Christmas party?’”
As newlyweds expecting their first child, Ryan and Caitlin could barely afford to cover their own bills, let alone the cost of shipping 30 trees to Atlanta. When Ryan explained this, the CEO suggested he sell some trees to fund the rest.
“She said, ‘Well, sell some trees and then with the money you make, buy trees for us to give to the families we serve.’ And so, I decided to do a tree for a tree.”
The first trees they sold went mostly to neighbors at the apartment complex where they were living.
“We posted flyers at our complex,” Caitlin recalled. “I fumbled my way through creating a tiny website. Then it turned into a delivery business; word spread and it just snowballed from year after year...God allowed it to happen and it worked out.”
That first year, they sold 30 trees and provided 30 trees to families in Section-8 housing—trees Ryan and several fellow police officers delivered on top of patrol cars. Each holiday season since, their business has continued to grow, along with their commitment to supporting local nonprofits meeting critical needs in the metro-Atlanta area.
Sometimes that support looks like providing Christmas trees for families who can’t afford their own, just as it did that first year. Other times, it includes donating a portion of their sales to gospel-centered organizations doing compassion work.
“We support MUST Ministries and a battered women’s shelter near Delk Road,” Caitlin explained. “This year (2025) we were able to give a thousand dollars to a ministry that helps veterans using the proceeds from our deliveries alone.”
In October of this year, they launched the Peace Christmas Trees Foundation to formalize those efforts. The foundation’s mission is “to provide resources to locally underserved families, individuals, and veterans, to spread God’s love, to improve quality of life, and to enhance community well-being.”
“We love giving back to the community because we see it as our family’s mission,” Ryan commented.
“It’s so much fun and so much work, but our kids know no different,” Caitlin added. “They know we work hard for three weeks out of the year, just crushing it living out of a trailer in a parking lot every day after work, but that we do it for others.”
“We’re teaching them work ethic and teaching them giving,” she continued. Their eldest son, Cole (10), often joins them on deliveries. “We try to use Christmas trees as a way to help our kids understand how to trust God with their resources and to love others.”
All members of the Jones family—including their daughter Caroline (6) and youngest son Conner (3)—pray over every Christmas tree they sell, specifically asking that each home the trees enter will be blessed.
The most rewarding part of their holiday mission has been the relationships God has formed through their seasonal lot in the back corner of Mt. Bethel Church’s west parking lot.
“As our delivery business grew, Ryan wanted to do a lot because that’s what he grew up with,” Caitlin explained. “So three years ago, we decided to take that leap of faith. The church was amazing to support us and allow us to try it out here. And it was hard, because Christmas trees are an emotional purchase and people don’t like to go where they don’t know, but now, we have people say ‘I come to Mt. Bethel Church for my Christmas tree.’”
The lot allows the Joneses to offer more than just a transaction. Families can pick out a Fraser Fir and make Christmas memories together.
God has also intervened through the tree lot in deeply personal ways. After meeting a young single mother through a chance interaction at a hair salon, Caitlin felt the Holy Spirit prompt her to offer the woman a job at the tree lot.
“Her working with us opened the opportunity to learn she’s in the midst of so much strife in her life. She’s being uprooted from her home. She can barely pay her bills.”
Ryan and Caitlin have since been able to walk alongside her—providing not only a job and a Christmas tree, but connection to resources, encouragement, and Christ-centered friendship.
“We’ve invited her to spend Christmas morning with us,” Caitlin said, adding that they’ve committed to providing Christmas presents for the woman’s son.
“It’s just been a special, tangible way we’ve seen God intervene in someone’s life through Christmas trees. If we didn’t have this business, we wouldn’t have been able to provide for her like this.”
This year, God multiplied their impact even further.
“A couple weeks ago, I got a random phone call from Mark Spain Real Estate,” Ryan shared. “They said they had heard about our Christmas tree lot and wanted to know if they could partner with us to give away 300 trees for free to families in need.”
On Saturday, December 13, the Jones family and the Mark Spain team hosted a first-come, first-served Christmas tree giveaway for the East Cobb community out of Mt. Bethel Church’s parking lot.
“We know it’s been a tough economic cycle for a lot of families. We know a lot of people are struggling, and we wanted to provide some holiday cheer for the community,” said David Zanaty, CEO of Mark Spain Real Estate.
“We’ve never been able to give away near that many trees before,” Ryan explained. “We’ve given away 50, but this was just next level. It’s just another example of when you’re faithful, God will multiply.”
Faithful stewardship and simple obedience are what Ryan and Caitlin hope other believers take away from their story.
As their own pursuit of Jesus has led them to pursue people, it’s also led them to invite others into their calling. In recent years, Ryan and Caitlin’s Sunday School Class has decorated and delivered wreaths from Peace Christmas Trees to some of Mt. Bethel Church’s shut-ins and families who’ve lost loved ones throughout the year.
“We’re just a means for Him to work through us in other people,” Caitlin remarked. “It can be hard to think, ‘How can giving a Christmas tree or wreath to someone bless their life and turn into all these other things?’ But we don’t have to figure that out. Just be faithful and open to letting God work through you as a vessel.”
Ryan and Caitlin's story is an example of Mt. Bethel Church's mission statement to lead people to trade the pursuit of more for a life worth living in Jesus Christ. To read more inspirational stories like theirs, click here.