because we couldn't get the screen to work.
Well, good morning everyone. Thanks for coming out this morning.
The title of my presentation is going to be
Competent Person Training, How to Serve the Human Community.
And kind of this part that I was going to talk about
is being competent in your work and things of that nature.
And if I would have did some proper planning this morning,
I would have figured out that the stuff wasn't working and we would get here.
But I'm a construction manager.
We think on our feet and we just kind of keep things moving.
So in every good endeavor,
Tim Keller gets into this section called
Work as Ministry of Competence.
And he starts that off this way.
One of the main ways you love others in your work
is through the ministry of competence.
If God's purpose for your job is that you serve the human community,
then the way to serve God best is to do the job
as well as it can be done.
So this section really, really struck me.
And I feel like it really sums up
how God has called me to serve in this job.
And Keller in this section,
he puts it a little bit differently than we would define,
like competent person in construction.
We kind of use that as it relates to like safety
and having somebody with like the authority
and the skill to identify like unsafe things on site
and the ability to change those things.
But Keller defines it a little bit differently
as he talks about doing work well
and having this mindset of being competent in your work
is something to satisfy you
in a way to love others through your work.
And in my role, I don't always have the time to be on site
and supervise every nail that's driven.
But I do have the ability to kind of set the toll
in the way that we build our homes
and the way we treat our volunteers
and the way we serve our homeowners.
And a little while ago,
Hurricane Michael happened in Florida.
And then this article came out in the Washington Post.
There's this picture of these five houses
in the middle of this picture still standing
and the rest of the neighborhood
is kind of demolished by the storm
and they've stuffed with heavy damage.
But the five houses in the middle of this picture
are five habitat homes that were built.
You kind of see these five metal roofs
in the middle of this kind of scene
that you're going to kind of see
when the handouts get here
of these five houses still standing
suffered only minor damage.
I know a lot of people,
when you put the word affordable in things,
they think that it's cheap,
but that's not really the way we operate a habitat.
Cheap doesn't really factor into
what we call affordable housing and affordable homes.
And those kind of go around.
You kind of see that picture as well.
And just kind of reading this book
and thinking about work and the way I work,
kind of a bit of my origin.
I started working at eight.
I was put on the riding lawnmower.
And I was mooring about six acres of grass a week
at that point.
So starting at a very young age,
getting out and working and growing up on a farm.
I guess some of my aspirations were going up.
Maybe I saw a movie once,
like in elementary school,
I said I wanted to be a stockbroker
because I wanted to make a lot of money.
And then I started kind of drawing a bit in middle school.
I wanted to be an artist or architect
and going into high school
and being kind of mechanically inclined,
wanting to be either like an engineer
or a custom car builder,
those type of things.
I really didn't consider construction
until I got to college,
which at that time is where I met Christ.
And I was also considering full-time ministry as well.
And even along that process,
kind of picking up some other jobs,
I worked in the brake manufacturing plant one summer.
I detailed boats another summer.
I worked at Target for a couple years
when I was in college,
waking up at 3.30 in the morning
to go stock shelves there
and then go into class.
So just from that young age of like working
and always having a job,
I think it's kind of affected the way
I kind of approach work now
and the effort and ethic I put into that as well.
So yeah, so when I got to college,
I started to seriously consider construction.
I went there thinking I was going to be a civil engineer
or some type of engineer,
got put on the wait list,
had time on my hands to kind of think about
what I wanted to do,
what major I wanted to end up in.
And as I talked to my advisor,
she introduced me to the building construction program there.
And as I just started to look through the courses,
it seemed to kind of line up to
where I wanted to be in life.
And then also around that time is
I met four guys who introduced me to Christ
and seeing them live out their salvation
also changed the way,
started to change my worldview
and changed the way I started to think about work
during that time.
So over the course of my college career,
like becoming a Christian
and learning more about service
and how that impacts our lives
and the people around us
and going to a college whose motto is
ut prosum that I may serve.
So all those factors kind of feel like
I've been being pushed along this journey
into a life where I'm serving people
through this nonprofit.
So probably around my senior year,
I really need to start considering some things,
looking at a few other nonprofits,
looking at Habitat.
I had a friend on the Gulf Coast
who was doing AmeriCorps year
after Katrina with another nonprofit.
He's like, hey, you should check out this program.
Like around that time,
things weren't so well for the construction industry,
2009, 2010.
There weren't a lot of jobs out there.
And I think that's another thing
God kind of used to force me into this path.
But I was still considering
for-profit opportunities.
There was a few companies I was talking to.
And I was pretty deep into talks
with this one company
that I thought I was going to be working for.
And kind of through the interview process,
I kind of emailed them saying like,
it wasn't the right fit.
It wasn't going to work out.
And at that point,
I really hadn't applied for anything else.
So I was just kind of being a bum,
working at Target,
hanging out in Blacksburg with my friends.
But yeah, through that,
God still remained faithful.
I applied for this AmeriCorps position
to come up here and work with Habitat.
Came up in July.
I think I emailed Greg or something like that.
And we kind of met.
I met a few other people around the church at that time.
And then a few months later,
when I was moving up here,
I was called Greg.
I was like, I don't have a place to stay.
And luckily, Susan and Ivor had an extra room
that they so graciously let me stay there
until I found a place.
So that's how I kind of got to New Haven,
got involved with Habitat,
got involved with Trinity.
So kind of seeing like all these things
kind of come together
to bring me to where I'm at today.
So I'm a construction manager.
What is that?
What do we do?
This definition,
organizing, scheduling, mobilizing,
and directing equipment, materials,
and personnel in performance
of a construction contract.
And that word contract
is very big in construction.
All things hinge upon that word
and everything that exists in it.
But that's a talk for another time.
So what I'm doing on an everyday basis
is organizing, scheduling,
mobilizing, and directing.
How those things play out, organizing.
Do I have plans?
Do I have permits?
Do I have subs, materials?
Do I have those things lined up for the project?
Scheduling.
What do I need to do?
What do I need?
Do I need?
When do I need this tub?
When do I need the electrician to show up?
When do I need the plumber to show up?
When do I need the roof on the house?
Trying to coordinate all those things
and get those together.
Mobilizing the site
is when is the portage on showing up?
That's always the first question
that everybody asks,
especially my excavator,
since he's the first one on site.
Temporary power,
getting all those things set up
so the guys can work
and not listen to the generator run all day.
And directing,
delegating tasks,
coordinating volunteers,
all those things
that kind of go into my job.
And I'll kind of elaborate
on some of that
as we kind of move along.
So the thing,
I guess,
the main thing with construction
is we're just trying to,
construction management,
we're trying to make the project
run smoothly from start to finish.
In our world,
we call that mitigating risks,
trying to think of everything
that can go wrong
and mitigate those things
so the project can go smoothly.
And then that kind of next slide
with Bob the Builder
in the middle there in that house,
that's kind of a representation
of kind of how my mind works.
Like I have to take
all these hundreds of tasks
and materials and things
and I have to boil that down
into one cohesive project
in the end.
which takes quite a bit of work.
I think on an average project,
I probably manage
about 3,000 man hours
worth of work.
And we probably have
anywhere from probably
50 to 80 volunteers
out a week
on a regular basis.
Some of the bigger days,
I've had 18 or 20 people out.
So it's quite a job some days.
So what is construction?
There's many different avenues
that I can fall into.
It could be transportation,
petroleum, buildings,
power plants,
water management,
manufacturing,
sewer and waste,
telecom.
All these things
are different parts
of construction
and where you can fall
as a construction manager.
construction in America
employs about
10 million people.
There's a lot of different sectors.
There's a lot of different
places you can fall
and as construction managers,
we make up about
6% of that fill.
And as a habitat
construction manager,
there's maybe
five or six of us
in the whole state.
So the group of people
that do what I do
gets even smaller
as you kind of
dig deeper into it.
And non-profits,
coming across a lot of people,
a lot of people have
a lot of different ideas
of what non-profits do
or what non-profits
look like.
I'll put a definition
there for you.
Pretty much,
non-profits,
they're dedicated
to a mission.
All the revenue
and all the money
comes in,
we usually try
and push out
into the programs
or the missions
that we're aiming towards.
So trying to keep
staff overhead low,
trying to keep
all that other
miscellaneous stuff low
so we can put
all the money
that people are donating
towards these programs,
into these programs,
so that we're
supporting that
mission and vision.
And the fact
that I've learned
through kind of
doing some research
on this,
non-profits
employ 11 million people,
which is higher
than construction
these days,
which I found surprising.
And Habitat,
the specific non-profit
that I work for,
we're an international
organization
in over 70 countries
and there's 400 affiliates
around the United States,
each focusing
on its own
geographical area.
and that's mainly
to kind of get
the people
in that community,
the businesses
in that community
to feel like
they're investing
in their community.
So we have
several sponsor groups,
one called Sleeping Giant,
which is businesses,
churches,
and individuals
from the Cheshire,
North Haven,
Hamden area
that raise
$50,000,
$50,000 or $60,000
for us per house.
There's another one
on the shoreline
called Raise the Roof.
They raise around
the same amount
and that's Madison,
Branford,
and all those towns
out that way.
They kind of come together
to support
and raise a house
and I guess
raise money
for the house.
And we also have
some bigger sponsors
as well
like Yoling Haven Hospital
who donates property.
They donate $75,000
per house
and we've had
a pretty good run
with them
as being one
of our sponsors.
And since Habitat
was formed
in 1976,
we've served
around 13 million people
and not all that
is home building.
There's other programs
that Habitat does
to get behind people
and get behind
having people
have decent housing
through microfinancing
in certain countries
and haven't really
dug much into that.
I'm not sure
how that looks
but helping people
with financing,
financial education.
We do disaster response,
neighborhood revitalization
which involves
small projects
and fixer uppers
at different people's houses,
a brush with kindness program
where they were
painting people's houses
from time to time
and all these things
are kind of catered
to the community
where that Habitat chapter is.
So they're specifically
like pinpointing
the needs of that community
and going about
learning how to serve those.
So Habitat in New Haven.
We haven't done
any microfinancing
or neighborhood revitalization.
We stick to purely home building.
Over the past decade
most of our construction
has been new construction.
A couple rehabs in there
but we've been buying
vacant lots from the city
at a pretty good price
and building new homes
from the ground up.
been around since 1986.
Over 100 homes.
Like I said before,
50 to 80 volunteers a week
and this year
we're on track
to do about four homes
because we do
a rehab in there
of an 1830s captain's house
that we had to do
some extensive work on
which only has
three foundation walls
right now.
But yeah,
we're getting there
on that one.
So our motto is
a hand up
not a handout.
We look to partner.
Our main goal
is to partner
with these families
not to just build
a house for them
but to partner with them.
So we do that
through the 400 hours
worth of sweat equity
that they do.
They come out,
they work on projects
on houses leading up
to theirs
and on their house.
So they're like
connecting with the
other homeowners
and other volunteers
and you're kind of
building all these
relationships
through that process
and kind of seeing
them kind of grow
and their construction
knowledge
and they're kind of
out there framing
their house,
they're tiling their
floors,
they're painting the walls,
they're kind of doing
all these things
along the process
as well.
And they also have
a mortgage.
It's zero interest
over 25 years
so it's a pretty
good mortgage
I'd say.
And all that money
from that mortgage
kind of goes back
into the program
and building more
homes as well.
Any questions
at this point?
How much does
the average house
cost?
Our average house
is about $95,000.
And that's a
three bedroom?
Three bedroom,
bath and a half,
full basement.
Yeah.
Anybody else?
So after that
overview of
kind of what
construction management
is and
what it
looks like
for Habitat
here in New Haven,
I'll just
come back to
this section
from Tim Keller.
thinking about
what does it
mean to
be competent
in your work?
What does it
mean to
work well
and to
serve others?
So
I'll read
this section
one more time.
It says,
One of the main
ways you love
others in your
work
is through
the ministry
of competence.
If God's
purpose for your
job is to
serve the human
community,
then the way
to serve God
best is to
do the job
well as it
can be done.
And
thinking about
examples of
that,
we have a lot
of figures
in the Bible
of people
who served
and worked
well.
And I
think we
tend to put
them on
pedestals and
kind of
idolize that.
But these
were real
people doing
real work.
people
and the
first example
that came
to mind
when I
thought about
that was
Joseph.
So we'll
go to
Genesis
41.
So in
Genesis 41,
this is where
Joseph interprets
Pharaoh's
dream.
He tells
him about
the years
of plenty
and the
years of
famine.
And then
Pharaoh kind
of sets
them up to
kind of
handle all
of this.
So if I
could get
maybe a
couple people
to read
this.
We'll read
verses 41
through the
end of the
chapter.
Somebody maybe
wants to start
reading and
kind of
somebody else
picks up
after that.
Somebody can
read the
whole thing.
I can start.
Cool.
Let's
read all
of it.
Cool.
41.
And Pharaoh
said to
Joseph,
See, I
have set
you over
all the
land of
Egypt.
And Pharaoh
took his
signet ring
from his
hand and
put it on
Joseph's
hand.
And put a
gold chain
up.
They made
him ride
in his
second chariot.
And they
called out
for him,
bowed
to knee.
Thus he
set him
over all
the land of
Egypt.
Moreover,
Pharaoh
said to
Joseph,
I am
Pharaoh,
and without
your
consent,
no one
shall
lift up
hand or
put it
all the
land of
Egypt.
And Pharaoh
called
Joseph's
name
Zephaniah.
And he
gave him
in marriage
a son,
the daughter
of
a priest
of
mom.
So
Joseph
went out
over all
the land
of Egypt.
Joseph
was 30
years old
when he
entered the
service of
Pharaoh,
king of
Egypt.
And Joseph
went out
from the
presence of
Pharaoh and
went through
all the
land of
Egypt.
During the
seven plentiful
years,
the earth
produced
abundantly.
And he
gathered up
all the
food of
the three
seven years
which
turned in
Egypt and
put the
fruit in
the cities.
He put in
every city
the fruit
and the
fruit of
the
mountains.
And Joseph
stored up
grain in
great abundance
like the sand
of the sea
until he ceased
to measure it
for it could
not be
measured.
Before the
year of famine
came,
two sons
were born
to Joseph.
Asaneth,
the daughter
of Potipha,
priest of
An,
bore them
to him.
Joseph called
the name of
the firstborn
Manasseh.
For even
poor, he
said,
God has made
me forget all
my hardship
in all my
father's house.
The name of the
second he called
Ephraim.
God has made me
fruitful in the
land of my
affliction.
The seven
years of
plenty that
occurred in
the land of
Egypt came
to an end.
And the
seven years
of famine
began to
come.
As Joseph
had said,
there was
famine in
all lands.
In all the
land of
Egypt,
there was
bread.
When all
the land
of Egypt
was famished,
the people
cried to
Pharaoh for
bread.
Pharaoh said
to all the
Egyptians,
go to
Joseph.
What he
says to
you,
do.
So when
the famine
had spread
over all
the land,
Joseph
opened up
all the
storehouses
and sold
the Egyptians.
For the
famine was
severe in
the land
of Egypt.
Moreover,
all the
earth came
to
Joseph
to
buy
rain,
because
the
famine
was
severe
over
all
of
Egypt.
So here,
what do we
see as
Joseph's
work?
He's an
administrator,
basically,
right?
I guess
today you
call him
bureaucrat.
In some
sense,
yeah.
He's like
measuring
grain,
but he
couldn't do
it anymore.
Storing it
competently.
Yeah.
Making
the spoil.
manager.
Yeah,
he was a
bit of a
project
manager here.
He has a
lot of
authority,
but he
has a lot
of
responsibility.
Yeah.
Yeah,
so as
we look
at this,
as we
see,
like,
Joseph
interpreting
Pharaoh's
dream,
like,
that was
only part
of the
work that
God sent
him there
to do.
And as
we see
him after
that,
like,
he gets
all that
responsibility.
He has
to administrate
and manage
all these
things.
We see
him,
he has
to organize,
he has
to schedule,
he has
to mobilize,
he has
to direct,
he has
to do
all these
things to
make this
happen.
Like,
he's,
it says
like several
times here,
he's like
over all
Israel.
So,
so not
only did
God send
him there
and put him
before Pharaoh
for this
dream,
but for
the people
as well.
Because when
he comes
to that
verse
55,
when all
of Egypt
was
famished,
the people
cried to
Pharaoh for
bread,
and Pharaoh
said to
all of
Egypt,
go to
Joseph,
what he
says to
you,
do.
So we
see here,
and Tim
Keller says
in this
section about
competence,
it's a form
of love.
Joseph had
to love
his people,
love the
people of
Egypt enough
to think
about their
well-being,
not only
in the
years of
plenty,
where they
could have
ate up
all the
grain they
had,
they could
have
neglected
storing as
much as
they needed,
but through
that,
through his
competent
work,
he was
able to
save for
them for
these next
seven years
that are
going to be
very hard,
and we
see here
at the
end of
that,
because the
famine was
severe over
all the
earth,
all these
people started
coming,
and all
these people
were taken
care of,
because Joseph,
he was
competent in
the work he
did.
It was
more,
and in
the book,
in this
section,
there's
this example
of this
pilot who
has to
land this
badly
damaged
plane,
and in
that we
can really
kind of
grasp,
like,
oh,
he needs
to be
confident,
he needs
to think
about these
things to
land this
plane,
and to
make sure
these people
get down
safely,
that's like
this
immediate
impending
doom,
but we
see Joseph
as more
of a
longer view
of things,
14 years
of him
having to
plan and
care for
and think
about the
needs of
the people
around here.
So with
that,
as I think
about how
that applies
to me,
how am I
competent at
my job,
how am I
displaying this
ministry of
competence,
how am I
being faithful
in the
small things
of my
work,
and how
am I
doing those
things on
a larger
scale as
well to
make sure
and ensure
that we're
building the
best home
that we
can,
we're
serving our
families
in the
best way
that we
can.
And one
of those
comes through
our mission
statement,
decent and
affordable
housing,
making sure
our housings
are sized
properly for
our families,
like not
some big
monstrosity,
not something
too small
and cramped,
but this
three-bedroom
bathroom
half-house
seems to
have worked
for us
over this
past decade
or so,
and it's
allowed us
to house a
lot of
families.
Since I've
been there,
I've built
over 20
or 30
homes in
the last
seven or
so years.
to think
about the
type of
materials
that we
use in
our home
and thinking
about our
homeowners
and how
will they
maintain
those things,
how will
they be
able to
take care
of their
homes.
A lot
of our
homeowners
who qualify
for the
program,
their income
is 50
to 80
percent of
the area
meeting
income,
so they're
not at the
top of the
income
spectrum,
but they're
not at the
lowest level
either.
They're
usually in a
point where
they need
some help
afford
a home
and that's
where we
come in
with this
zero
interest
mortgage.
Also,
our
volunteers
plan it
as well.
All the
free labor
that we
get goes
into keeping
those homes
down and
allows us
to build
in places
around New
Haven where
a for-profit
builder would
lose their
shirt on
a lot of
these houses
and redeveloping
a lot of
these vacant
lots that
have been
around New
Haven.
We also
do that
through
energy
efficiency.
When I
came on
we were
doing a
bit of
that,
but over
the past
few years
we've been
able to
beef up
our energy
efficiency,
apply for
our Energy
Star
certification,
so giving
our homeowners
a home that
they can afford
utility-wise as
well.
We had one
homeowner,
I want to
say this
was four
years ago,
during the
winter,
one winter
he was
paying $800
a month in
utilities,
which he
was living
in some
apartment that
was very
drafty,
terrible
landlord,
ridiculous rent
as well,
that's where
all their
money was
going.
So once
he moved
into his
home,
we got
that down
to under
$200 or
so,
it was him
and his
wife,
and three
kids,
and since
then he's
been able
to take
some of
that money
that he's
been saving,
he's been
sending things
back to his
home country.
He's either
from Sierra
Leone or
the Ivory
Coast,
he's a part
of a group
that came
over the
early 90s,
around that
time,
so think
like blood
diamonds and
all that
stuff,
so him
and a
few of
his friends
have been
able to
get into
habitat
homes,
and we
have been
able to
serve them
in that
way,
and that's
allowed them
to serve
their family
and friends
that they've
left back
home as
well.
And kind
of talked
about site
selection,
like where
we build.
We have
homeowners who
come from
some of
these
neighborhoods,
they have
family in
these
neighborhoods,
and they
want to
kind of stay
there and
build there
and continue
to live
there,
so I'm
thinking about
that through
the way we
select our
sites and
where we
build and
how many
houses we're
able to
build in
the area.
There's one
neighborhood where
we built
eight houses
on one
street,
so it
kind of
helped turn
those things
around,
having those
homeowners there
who are
invested in
their homes
and able to
kind of relate
to one
another,
keep their
yards clean,
and that
kind of reflects
on the other
neighbors as
well.
when we
move into
the neighborhood
you see
them kind
of painting
their houses
or planting
flowers in
the front
yard because
they see
this nice
house next
to them and
they don't
want to be
outdone.
What I
referred to
earlier,
the piece
about resilient
building in
those houses
after Hurricane
Michael,
we were able
to kind of
get in on a
pallet program
with this
about three
years ago
with the
Institute for
Business and
Home Safety
and Travelers
Insurance to
build these,
I guess this
program is
called Fortify
to build
homes that
are like
high wind and
hurricane
resistant.
So learning
from that
program and
kind of taking
some of those
techniques and
putting them
in our home
and kind of
help them to
resist these
storms and
weather conditions
a lot better
and add that
value for our
home,
knowing they're
going to have
a home that
lasts as
well.
Question back
there?
Yeah,
I was going to
say you
talk about
making the
neighborhood
homes,
I've done
construction
on the
family.
We had a
vinyl siding,
a window
door,
and gutters,
and roof
roof business.
We noticed
every time we
went to a
nice table
room,
we'd do a
house.
These three
or four
other people
come to us
and do
a house,
and that's
where we
got a lot
of our
work.
So doing
like that,
I remember
doing five
houses in
a row
off the
neighborhood,
you know,
when they
do good.
But you're
right about
that,
because people
start working,
someone puts
on the side
it's a
facial,
beautiful house
now,
and now
the neighbors
see that,
and they
start going
fixing something,
but we used
to laugh about
them,
and we were
like,
watch,
and that
used to
happen all
the time,
when things
were good,
in the early
80s.
Yeah,
I know.
Yeah,
so you
kind of,
yeah,
like one
new house
in the
neighborhood
could change
the whole
neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah,
so,
kind of
thinking about
these ways
in which
that,
as a
construction
manager
and kind
of
leading
this
process,
I can
kind of
affect
the
direction
that we're
going,
and the
way that we
do this,
kind of
feeling like
Joseph as
well,
like I have
the ability
to kind
of steward
this,
and shepherd
this,
and care
for people,
not just
kind of
getting them
into the
home,
but trying
to think
about them
over the
life of
the home.
Well,
we have
an amazing
selection
committee,
it's made
up of
volunteers
as well,
so,
when we
have
property
that we
have
coming up,
we usually
have an
application
meeting,
the last
one,
it wasn't,
I think it
was last
summer or
spring,
there was
about 150
people that
came out to
that meeting,
80 or so
submitted
applications,
they narrowed
that down
to 18,
and they
selected seven
families out
of that group,
so they're
checking like
credit history,
work history,
like these
families,
like community
involvement,
and all those
things as
well,
they're trying
to make
sure that
they're in
a place
to actually
afford the
home and
afford the
mortgage,
as well as
be a positive
impact on
their community.
We had one
lady who,
she was an
older lady,
she was single,
and her goal
was to foster
kids,
so once she
moved in,
she was able
to foster a
few kids
while she
was living
there as
well,
but yeah,
it's a pretty
extensive process
that they go
through,
there's a first
application,
a second
application,
and then as
a part of
the application
process,
they come
out and
volunteer for
400 hours as
well.
I mean,
14 hours with
the application,
then they do
their 400
hours.
Are they
free to sell
their home
at some
point?
The equity
works out
up to a
certain point,
like some
of the equity
comes back
to Habitat
up until
whatever year
that's kind
of dictated
in their
closing documents,
but after
that,
they're kind
of free
and clear
too.
do a
state,
please.
Any other
questions?
All right,
thanks,
guys.
Thank you.