Alright guys, welcome to this episode of Technically Short.
Yeah, this episode, this is a special episode because, I don't know, Sean has it.
We have a special guest!
We have a special guest. This episode in particular has been influenced, for me, was influenced by a podcast I very much enjoy called The Mirror Christian's Podcast.
We're doing a Raider Records. Record, uh, he records a, uh, Andrew's making me laugh.
I was trying so hard not to laugh either.
But he interviews mirror Christians and how their work, uh, how their work, even if they aren't necessarily working in ministry, as a priest, as a pastor, anything like that, how their work is still for the kingdom.
So, Andrew, and Andrew here, you can introduce yourself.
Hi, I'm Andrew. Here.
Yes, Andrew is here. And, Andrew, why don't you just tell the people a little bit about what you do in your work.
Oh gosh. So, uh, I'm Andrew Vergato. I also go to Amplify with these two fine gentlemen here.
Uh, I work as the facility manager for the East Campus, uh, in Plumboro, and I pretty much just make sure the building is cleaned, make sure the grass is cut, make sure that when things break down that they, uh, get back up and running.
Nice. Nice.
And I'm gonna say, like, I want to know, and I think, I want to know your perspective, I guess Sean and I both want to know, your perspective about, like, how your work as the facility manager of a church, but not the person, like, the person, not the person that's up on stage, the person that's, like, the most behind this, one of the people that are most behind the scenes doing the things that people don't realize that you do.
How is that work for the kingdom? How is that work in the church important?
Well, the, um, yeah, you're completely right. It's very much behind the scenes. And in fact, the better you do your job, the more behind the scenes it is. Um, uh, theoretically and ideally, you don't want anyone to know that you're there. You don't want the people to see the mopping. You don't want people to see the cleaning.
You want them to have the smooth experience. And that's exactly how it is, um, work for the kingdom is that, um, when people come into the building that they can see, um, the beautiful things that we have in the lobby, the so love sign, the welcome desk and all the plants and everything that is in there.
And it just looks beautiful because the plants are taken care of. Um, the things are wiped down. The trash is empty. They don't see things lying around the floor.
Um, the way that, um, facility management works is that, um, people don't see the facility management unless it's not happening.
Uh, if they see the stuff on the floor, if they see the garbage, if they see the dirty spots here and there, then they'll start to notice and they'll take away from them coming into the building and seeing, um, God, um, without hindrance.
Um, pretty much the point of city management is to make sure the building is there and functioning, but also that people can, um, enjoy the whole thing without any distractions.
So, um, what made you want to do this?
Oh, goodness. Uh, that goes back, um, a far, far, uh, time, a long time ago in galaxy far, far away. Uh, I was just graduating high school and I was, um, given an opportunity by, um, my former boss, uh, shout out to April Barnes.
Um, she wanted me to start volunteering Sunday mornings, um, just vacuuming and wiping windows, um, in the morning on the ops team. Um, so I decided to start doing that and she, uh, really enjoyed my work. She said that I always had a good heart with it and, uh, I really enjoyed it. It was fun.
Uh, and she eventually for the summer and, um, asked me if I wanted to start doing some part time landscaping. I said, okay, sure. Why not? Let's start doing that. Let's, uh, get it going. So I started weed whacking for the church and I started mowing.
And, um, in the winter time, they were like, okay, well, we really like what you continue to do. Let's get you inside cleaning.
And at that time I was probably, uh, 19, uh, by the time I started doing inside work and I was like, okay, I don't know exactly what I want to do with my life. I don't know where I want to go. I was thinking maybe I want to be a chef. Maybe I want to do something else. I'm not quite sure.
Um, but then I, um, realized that I really love the work like a lot. Like, uh, I found great energy in it. I loved all the people I was working with. Um, great chemistry. I mean, just working at a church full of amazing people, amplifiers, just full of great people left and right everywhere.
So just getting to interact with them day in and day out, um, helped build me spiritually, but also, uh, grew me in my capacity in so many different ways. So I was like, okay, I really love this. And, um, I started, um, getting more and more into it.
And I decided, okay, I want to really start pursuing this a little bit more. And, um, eventually the facility manager at the time ended up leaving and the next one, um, came in, but I was like, okay, this is something I want to work towards. So they started giving me some more, um, positional, um, opportunities.
They started giving me opportunities to interact with the contractors. They started giving me opportunities to, um, handle the facility when the facility manager was gone on vacation. And I was like, okay, I'm actually really, really enjoying this. So pretty much it just snowballed over time from, okay, this is something that someone gave me an opportunity to try to do to fall in love with it to, uh, where I am now, where the, that facility manager ended up leaving and, um, they passed the position to me.
And I love your servant part. What a, what a blessing you are. You truly are. Um, Thomas, you got another question.
Yeah, I think like, I want to know like,
what about this? Uh, I had a question of like, this feels like a calling to you. So where do you see this? Do you see this taking you in any particular way? Are you, are you, what are you, uh, what are you looking for in this position?
So there's a lot of things I'm looking for in this position. Um, there's, let's see, where do I start with it? Oh, goodness. Um, I'd say one of the first things for me personally, there's a couple of things for me personally. So I'll start with that. Um, is a lot of opportunity for growth. I mean, for anyone who's worked with facilities, anybody who's a facility manager or knows anything about facility management, um, pretty much you need to be a jack of all trades. And I've always been that in my life, but there's so many different things.
As a facility manager that I'm learning to do that I have no idea how to do. Um, when it comes to like literally electrician work, uh, plumbing, um, you name it. So many different things. Um, I literally, uh, a couple of weeks ago had to take apart a water fountain machine that was having issues. And I learned every single thing about the water fountain. And now I know everything. Now I know what a solenoid valve is, which is part of the, of the, um, machine sound.
Okay. It was great. Um, I love learning. I love learning so much. I love, um, diving into things and becoming better, um, for a lot of different reasons. One, because that's, um, what I like to do in life. That's how I grow is like, I love finding little things here and there, figuring them out. Uh, the same that I would use to say I figured it out. I still say it occasionally. Um, it just like, it drives me in life. Like if I feel like I'm not growing, if I feel like I'm not, um, learning something new, if I feel like I'm learning something new, um, I'm learning something new.
If, um, I'm staying stagnant, I feel like I'm actually dying. I feel like I'm not going to be moving in a good direction. And there's a lot of reasons why facility management is so beneficial for me specifically. Excuse me. Um, because one of the things I want to do in life is like have my own house and have it be like a nice big healthy home. And oh my goodness, I can't tell you how many things a facility manager can, uh, take to his house and do. Like I don't have to call 12 different people.
To do 12 different things in my house. I'm like, oh yeah, I can do like nine of those things on my own with the tools I have. So it's like, it makes it so much better and so much simpler for me. So that's some of the personal stuff that, um, that's helped me a lot with, um, another thing that I'm like, another reason why I love being there.
And the thing that I want to do is cause I want to improve the church. There's so many things in the church that are so amazing and so spectacular. I'm really in love with the house. I'm really in love with the vision. Uh, and I just want to see it grow. And in my ministry, which is the facility management, um, there's a lot of ways that it is already excellent. And there's so many people who will constantly come up to me and be like, Andrew, this place is amazing. It's beautiful. Thank you for what you do. I'm like, thank you. I really appreciate that. But I'm standing on the shoulder of giants. I'm standing on people.
Those who have taught me these things. And I'm like, but there's so many more things that can be done. There's so many more things, um, in terms of, um, getting better schedules for cleaning from the terms of making sure everything has an order in that.
Um, so that in the future, whenever I move on from this position, the next facility manager will have an easy job of like, oh, the next, um, 10 years of, um, things that need replaced is already budgeted out and ready to go. And everything's already. And, um, I mean, this, like I said, sorry, it's so amazing, but there's so much more that can grow. And I'm, and I love it so much. It amplifies ports so much into me. I can't help, but one to pour out everything that I have for, um, for the church.
One to pour out everything that I have for God's church, for the local church because of how much it's done for me.
Yeah. And you said, you mentioned like how your ministry of being the facility manager, uh, you want to use that ministry to contribute to the vision of the church.
Yeah.
How did, how does that do that?
So, oh goodness, I keep on saying of goodness.
Don't worry about it.
Um, that's a good question. It's, it's complicated, but also very simple.
Um, like I was saying earlier, um, there can't really be, um, a functioning service without a functioning venue.
I mean, you could have services outside, but when you have kids men, when you have, um, worship, when you have all these different things that are running, you need a proper functioning venue.
And, um, it starts with that. You need to have the base foundation of the church to have everything functioning and working.
And if the stage isn't cleaned on a Sunday, like what are we going to do when everyone notices all the scuff marks and all the dirty marks and they're all coming in, like getting this nasty feeling.
Why is this place not taken care of?
Because this is, um, one of our, the parts of our church is this is the gateway to heaven.
And the gateway to heaven is not going to be dirty and disgusting and ugly looking.
It's going to be beautiful and lavish and well maintained.
And in order for that to happen, there needs to be proper management of the facility.
And, um, that's really where I come in.
And that's really what a facility manager is there for, is for, um, making sure everything is properly taken care of so people can have that good experience without distraction.
Wow. Yeah, I know that was, that's a really good answer.
Thank you.
I think my next question kind of goes along the lines of you with your particular faith.
You found this position, you believe God guided you to this position for a very particular reason, for a very particular calling.
And you know, God's preparing you for something that you don't know what he's preparing you for yet.
But you know that there are so many good things that can come out of this current calling that would contribute to a larger calling later down the road.
What, what is something that you believe God is calling you towards in the future if there is something right now?
So, um, I touched on a little bit earlier, um, having a healthy home.
Yeah.
That's another one of our, um, another part of what we say is a healthy homes in many places where Jesus is experienced and known lives are made whole.
Um, I want so desperately to have a healthy home.
I want to have a home where people can come in and feel loved and welcomed and taken care of.
And that I don't need to know how many people are going to be under my roof.
I just need a head count so I can see how many people I should be preparing dinner for and making sure that everything is ready for everybody who wants to come in and out of my doors.
And that really, I feel like that is my biggest calling in my life right now is that I just want to serve people out of a place of a healthy home.
I want to serve people out of, um, building a place where Jesus experienced just by people walking in the door, that, um, his presence is just constantly there that my kids are growing in faith.
And just by being there and, um, that you don't have to preach the gospel with your words to, in order for people to experience him.
But just the, just the presence is there just in how everyone acts and how generous everyone is.
And that's really what my life has been going towards.
And I feel like facility management is a really vital part of that because of the way it grows me in knowledge of how to build a house.
Um, maybe not literally from the ground up, but like how to maintain a house, how to keep it beautiful and looking good.
And, and, um, and then it's also grown me in the sense of this position has grown me towards that in the sense of like, um, personal integrity.
I mean, it is a nonstop, um, that I'm never going to run out of work to do.
I'm never going to run out of things to do at the church.
And, um, that has made me grow exponentially, not just in like, oh, I'm learning how to do things, but like, I'm learning how to grow my integrity through being like.
If it's not one thing, it's another thing.
If, um, if the building doesn't have a gas leak, uh, or bees or, um, a fridge, a freezer breaking down all in one day, um, then it's going to be something else happening.
It's going to be a leak in the roof.
It's going to be, um, horrible stains in the carpets.
It's going to be something happening.
Um, and that's just helped me have a greater, um, stamp stamina for life is how me be like, okay, it doesn't matter what's coming at me.
It doesn't matter what I'm going through.
I can rely on God through that.
And that's really probably one of the greatest ways that I've grown is that, um, there's been so many challenges that I feel completely unequipped for personally, like out of my own strength.
There's so many things that I've run into that I'm like, man, I do not know how to deal with this.
I can only be relying on God.
I'm forced to rely on God because like, I literally don't know what's happening.
And then by the end of it, I'm like, man, God is so good because I made it through it.
Not only did I make it through it, but, um, I'm prosperous on the other side.
I know more things on the other side.
The things were taken care of well.
Um, and I can't tell you just how many times that's happened throughout the years and especially since I've taken on the facility management role.
Dang.
I feel like I'm rambling.
No, you're good, man.
No, honestly, I think it was really good.
My only question is how do you see yourself as a leader leading to the next gen?
So that actually, um, again, plays a big part into what, um, my vision is for my life building a healthy home and big part of that is children.
Um, but the way I see myself doing that now is, um, through the youth ministry, I get to, um, serve at the East, uh, youth ministry on Thursday night.
Shout out to that.
It's an amazing time there.
Um, it's helped grow me a lot of ways because I actually, um, went through that youth program and like at the beginning of the youth program, this could be, excuse me, a subject for a completely different day.
But like I was in a terrible spot, um, throughout high school, deep depression, wasn't feeling anything.
And it was just like, I was in a horrible spot and youth really kept me alive.
Youth really brought me, um, to a better place.
And, um, that's, um, in no small part because of the youth leaders, especially shout out to Josh Coyne.
I mean, he literally brought me, um, their day in and day out whenever I didn't have a voice.
He was constantly pouring into me and being there for me.
And, um, that helped me out so much that I've gotten to, um, start serving there after I graduated high school.
And, um, it's just such an honor because I know that, um, I'm getting to do for those kids that are growing up now in this generation, um, what Josh Coyne did for me and what all the others did, leaders did for me back then.
So, um, I just get to pour into them, um, with this great smile on my face, I get to listen to their problems.
Not that it's easy, not that there aren't burdens that come with youth ministry.
That doesn't get tiring, but, um, that I get to know that I have the opportunity to do what, um, was done for me.
And I get to see chains fall off of kids.
Uh, and it's such a, it's such a privilege, it's such an honor.
And that's really how I've been seeing God working through me in the next generation.
And I don't want that to stop.
That's a core part of who I am, is leading the next generation.
I don't want to stop that for the rest of my life.
Wow.
Yeah, that was a really good question and a really good answer.
Thanks.
Good stuff.
Yeah.
I think, I don't know where this question will lead us, but I want to ask, it will either be the last question or a series of questions.
Oh, wow.
We'll find out.
Yeah.
Um, so, so for any other, like,
we'll say a janitor or facility manager that is within or without, within a church or is not in a church,
but they're a Christian and they aren't able to see their work as, as ministry.
What would you say to those people?
I would say that you better be careful what you think about that because God came down and served on his hands and feet for everyone else.
He, um, at the podcast that you said this was mentioned on, that was inspired by, like, they were talking a lot about that.
Like, man, God got down and did the dirty work for us.
He did the hard work.
He did the brutal work and facility management is that is getting down on your hands and knees and serving other people.
It might not be like you're not going to get the spotlight.
You're not going to get the attention.
But if you have a smile on your face when someone spill something or walks on your freshly mopped floor, if you tell them a funny joke when they do that,
I mean, I know in some people's circumstances, if you're a facility manager for a school specifically that you can't really talk about religion in school.
And I'm sure there's other workplaces that also don't allow it.
But you don't like I was saying earlier, like you don't have to preach the gospel with your words.
You can preach it with your attitude.
When everyone else around you is cussing and doing bad things and saying mean things to other people, tearing people down, you can be right there building people up.
You can have that smile on your face when you just worked a 14 hour day.
You can have that constantly positive attitude and gratefulness even when everything else is sucking.
When some people are like, well, this power went out and we need to make sure that this is up and running and you can't leave until this is done.
You can either whine and complain about like, man, this is stupid.
I was going to go home. I was going to relax.
Or you can use that time to connect with other people who might still be stuck in the building with you trying to make sure that the building gets up and running.
I mean, there's so many opportunities in what you do.
It doesn't have to be like preaching.
You don't have to preach. You just have to be there and exemplify Jesus through your actions.
And I can't tell you how deep of a connection that actually can connect with someone with that.
How deep of a connection you can make with someone through the words that you speak in that time of just joy.
I mean, gosh, I'm going to completely misquote this.
People don't care what you say until they know how much you care.
It's something along those lines.
Like if you start really truly caring and loving for people around you, you're really just going to be able to minister to them so much more.
So it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter if you see people once or twice in a week.
It doesn't matter if you are constantly around the people or in doing a night shift by yourself.
I mean, just whatever you're doing, do it as unto the Lord and God will bless it.
God will work through it.
Yeah. Good stuff.
Yeah, man. I think like honestly, I think you and that goes for anybody that isn't in a church that isn't able to see their work as ministry.
And that I mean, we've both we've heard our friend Chaz talk about his work at Amazon and how he can't talk about Christ.
But he can, you know, but like you said, he can still be the light.
He can still show Christ through his actions and nobody's perfect at doing that.
Sometimes they're going to be in a bad mood.
But at the end of the day, if you know your creator, if you know what you're there for,
if you know that like everything you do will be trained, everything you do should be for the Lord.
It should be for his goodness and grace because all that is then all that grace is like we can give to others and he can give to us.
And everything is turned out for his good.
If everything is used for his good and his glory, the good and the bad,
then all the work that we do, it will be used for his will be used for his good.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think specifically on that point, I was listening to a sermon by Pastor Craig Rochelle Schout and he's amazing.
Love his stuff. Pastor Craig. Pastor Craig.
He was saying that your success is not measured by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you sow.
You don't have to see these great big coming to Christ moments every single day of your life.
You just got to be there and be intentional and whatever you end up doing, as long as you're following the Spirit,
God will put the people in your path that he needs to put there and he will put the success right in front of you.
Whether you see it or not, he's going to make things work out for his good, like you said.
Whether you see the harvest or not, as long as you're there planting the seeds, that is how you measure your success.
Yeah. And I think with you in particular, like with what you can tell, you love your job.
Whenever you see, whenever I see you do it, like whenever Sean destroyed that cup of coffee.
Sorry to the girls in the front row.
And like, you're going to go, you're like, I told you it happened. You're like, you immediately were like, mission.
I need to accomplish. That is me.
Yes.
And like, I think like whenever you're, you said about planting seeds, it's not just like what you say and what you,
not what you say, it's also around what you do when you plant the seeds because like if the bathroom is trash,
and if people walk in, that's the seed that was planted.
And if it was clean, it might not be something they notice. You don't necessarily notice a clean bathroom, but you notice a dirty one.
Exactly.
So like each, each one of those things, each thing that you do is a seed that is planted,
whether the person like is consciously acknowledging it or not.
It's something that like you said in the beginning, whenever people walk into the building
and they see a clean, beautiful building, clean, beautiful facility, then I got so distracted randomly.
I'll choose a different timer next time.
But like such a beautiful building, they walk in, especially if it's their first time,
they walk into the church and they see the smiling faces and then say all of a sudden,
but they see smiling faces, but the windows are all smudged.
Like that's going to be like, oh, that's weird.
They see smiling, they see those smiling faces and people smiling, but like half the lights are out.
People know and so I feel like, and I'm, I don't know if you actually have like,
I feel like this is something you internally would already know because you're you
and you're like one of the most like, like why even though you're decently younger than me,
you're also decently wiser than me.
So like, I think you might have already thought about how everything you do in your own particular thing
and your own particular job as an analyst facility manager, everything you do is a seed.
And it's just like how everything we receive, all our inputs, all the thing that we allow into ourselves
as a seed because then it gets expounded through the mouth, it gets expounded through our actions.
I think I forget where it said, but I forget who says it.
But in the Bible, they talk about whatever,
essentially talking about inputs and outputs with whatever you,
whatever you, whatever intake through your eyes, you output through your mouth.
And so I feel like whenever people, they walk into the building, they see all the good,
they see it with their eyes, that their seeds are being planted in their minds
and that's going to expound through their, that's going to expound through their mouth,
whether it's through worship or how they talk about the church of other people or like what they,
or whatever they do, like, I don't know.
You know, that's really, really good.
And I love what you were saying right there at the beginning of you talking there about no matter what it is
that you're planting, those are seeds that it's not just, oh, you're planting good seeds.
You can plant bad seeds.
You can plant bad seeds when you're lazy.
You can plant bad seeds when you don't take care of things properly is that you're planting those seeds
in those people's minds that are turned into distractions.
I don't know what the exact number is.
I know I've heard this statistic multiple times.
It's like 30 seconds or a couple minutes within the first couple minutes of walking into a church.
People decide whether they're going to stay there or not.
They don't have to be there for the whole service.
They don't have to hear the message in order to figure out whether they're going to be staying at that church or not.
It's when they walk in, the people that they see, the smiles that they see,
the facility that they see.
If people see dead bushes, if they see overgrown mulch beds, they're going to say that they really don't care.
They don't care about this place.
It breaks my heart whenever I see something on a Sunday.
Whenever I'm like, man, that thing has been a constant issue for the last couple weeks.
I haven't been able to get to it or I forgot about it or nothing.
It just makes me feel horrible inside because I'm like, this is not the experience that I want these people to be having.
This is not the thing that they should be having to deal with.
I want to make sure that people walk in and they do not think about the facility at all.
I want them to, the only thing that I want them to see is like, man, this place is beautiful.
And then forget about that and just have their eyes on God so they don't have to think about it.
That was really good.
And I was right. I did go a little bit further than I was expecting it to.
I guess I was expecting it to.
I don't know. Before we close out, any final question, final remarks, Sean?
Honestly, not. Andrew hit every point.
Yeah, I think so.
Should we do something fun though?
Oh, gosh.
Alright, one more small question.
Oh, thank goodness.
Fun. That doesn't sound fun.
Just very small because since you are our first guest, I want to ask you first,
who else would you like to see on this podcast?
Hear or see.
Hear or see. Maybe we'll have a video at some point.
Maybe a video at some point.
I would love to see Pat Williams on the podcast.
I feel like he's a man of great integrity, great wisdom, and could share so much for everybody.
Okay. No, I 100% agree with that.
That's a good stuff.
I think that would be really good.
Get on here, Pat.
I know you're listening.
We want you here, Pat.
Okay, with that, final...
I don't want to steal everything from the other podcast.
But no, I feel like that's a pretty good place to wrap it up.
If Sean, if you have your fun question you want to ask,
we like to try to wrap up every episode with some fun little question.
So, let's see.
You have three foods you'd eat for the rest of your life.
Three foods.
Types of meat.
You can have everything with this type of meat, but you can only choose one of the three.
One of the three, okay.
Will it be chicken?
Chicken.
Will it be steak?
Or will it be fish?
Okay.
Oh, that's deep.
The other questions were...
This one's insane.
What am I supposed to do?
Oh gosh.
Okay, so not fish.
I'm just going to say it's not going to be fish.
I'm not going to be eating fish for the rest of my life.
That sounds...
So many cuts of fish though.
Yeah, there is a lot of fish, but there's also a lot of...
Never mind, there's not a lot of chicken or steak.
I feel like there's so much more you can do with chicken or steak.
Like, you can do...
Like, it pairs with so many other things.
This is difficult because I feel that if I were to get tired of one before the other,
I'd probably get tired of chicken first.
So I'd go with steak.
Good answer.
All right.
All right, guys.
That's going to wrap up this episode.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for listening through the whole entire way.
If you haven't already...
Subscribe.
If you haven't already, do subscribe.
You should like this episode.
Follow.
Follow whatever you do on whatever platform you're listening on.
And if you liked it and you feel like this will help somebody, if you feel like this
can start a conversation or you just want to share it because you really liked it,
you should share it out on your social medias, on your Instagrams and Facebooks and whatever.
And I think that... yeah, I made sure I covered all the bases there.
So...
We love you, technically sure you do.
Oh, yeah.
Also, give us a five-star review.
Five-star review.
All right, guys.
We'll see you next time.
Peace.