Schuber Mitchell Homes

So in 2011, May 22nd, 2011, there was a

tornado devastated Joplin. Up to 200 mph

winds, ripping a 4m path, destroying 75%

of Joplin,

Missouri in just 10 minutes.

Leaving miles of brace.

You ready?

Okay, let’s go.

I’m Jennifer Little. I’m the senior

director of human resources and

ministry. Oscar Antion. I’m currently

the vice president of new business and

development.

My name is Daman Schuber, co-founder of

Schuber Mitchell Homes. Steven Jennings

and I am the construction manager for

the Tulsa market.

I’m Joe Harris and I’m CEO of Schuber

Mitchell Homes.

So my name is Adam Scooty and I’m a

service manager in Northwest Arkansas.

All right, so from the very beginning.

So we started in June of 2011 coming up

on 14 years.

I was working at a Fortune 500 company

doing business development for about two

billion in revenue and then

simultaneously my wife and I had started

Harris Homes and so I wanted to grow

that business and I kept running into

these Schuber Mitchell guys. I called

Daman what I call we dated for probably

a year and a half. Eventually we just

said what if we joined forces

God and his divine power crossed our

paths with Shubber Mitchell’s first

employee ever. We sat down,

spontaneously, shared dinner with

perfect strangers, and became instant

friends. And that was kind of the

beginning of that journey.

Daman came to me and said, “Hey, we’re

starting a home building company, and

you do great work. What do you think

about coming on the team?” You know, and

I’m just kind of like rolling my eyes.

I’m like, “You guys have built five

homes. I have nine employees. You have

zero. You don’t know anything about home

building. And you want me to come to

work for you?” like come on man. But

then all of a sudden they shared the

main goal. We want to build a

marketplace ministry. And when they said

that to me, I knew I was in trouble.

First and foremost, to honor God with

the resources that he’s entrusted us

with. The second thing is we’re here to

enrich the lives of others, which means

we’re going to serve others through this

place of business that God has entrusted

us with. And the third element of our

vision is to make home ownership

attainable for as many families as we

can come in contact with.

I like a lot of us when we’re young and

ambitious just want to accomplish a lot

and just take the world by storm. We

have a lot of desires and things we want

to get done and and mountains we want to

take. At the time I was selling cars at

a Toyota dealership and I did not like

that. And when my friend said, “Hey, you

want to build skatep parks with me?” I

was like, “Yeah, let’s do that.” We

started building skate parks and we

started having some success.

We were doing well and I guess in the

eyes of the world, we are Christian

business owners.

On our website, we had ramps about us

and a big tag that said Jesus. Give your

life to Jesus. You know, you skaters. We

were Christians that own a business.

Paid our taxes, debits on the left,

credits on the right, and and we tried

to just grow the business. Not until I

met Rick.

Beautiful home. The way they built up

all these all these

one. I’ve always loved real estate. I

love to talk to Rick about that. And at

the same time as he was talking about

business, he would also talk about the

kingdom integrated in his business and

what that looked like.

The kingdom was baked into the DNA in

and not a forced way. It was just a

really natural way that was just lived

out.

This morning, the aftermath. The storm

destroyed more than 2,000 buildings in

this city, leaving miles of brick and

wood where there were once homes.

It was probably a couple weeks after the

tornado that I think the Lord put on my

heart to call Rick.

You should come up to Joplain. I think

you guys should think about building

some homes in Joplain.

Well, I remember engaging with Dan and

Daman and we all caught a vision from

them to rebuild Joplin, right? Then it

was a matter of how I feel like we

should help. So, what should we do,

Lord? What what is outcome of this? And

and I just got quiet and sat down and

the Lord clearly said to me, “Oh, I

thought this was my business, Rick.

Well, then give everything I’ve freely

given to you to my servants.

Me and Dan are on the phone, have it on

speaker phone. We’re going to fund the

first uh 10 homes for you. I was like,

“What’s a what kind of interest rate are

you thinking about?” He’s like, “Well,

no interest on that.” He’s like, “We’re

just going to give you the company. You

know, we’re going to give you everything

we know and you guys can just we’re just

support you in building homes.”

Our founding started with generosity.

Really, the biggest gift in all that was

not the home building company. It was

not it was not that. was uh just the

example

of obedience.

One of the very first things Rick said

to me was Schubert, don’t focus on

building good homes. He said, “Build

good people and good people will build

good homes.

You know, I had worked my entire life

understanding what makes companies work.

It’s so counterintuitive because, you

know, when you’re running a business,

you’re like, I got a product. I got

strategy. I’ve got to buy and sell and,

you know, do all these things to be

relevant in the marketplace.

We want to build houses and we want to

make a profit and we want to bring home

ownership and make it attainable for

everybody. We want it to be special. We

want them to love their communities that

they’re part of. And we want Jesus to be

known. What does it look like to live a

life for the Lord? Am I being called to

be a pastor? Like, no. Am I being called

to be a worship leader? No.

We’re not all called to go to

international missions. We’re not all

asked to stand up on a Sunday and lead

songs or to preach a a sermon. We are

all called to make a difference in the

relationships that we have in our

immediate surroundings. But it opened up

this whole new world of caring for

people as people.

The culture at Schuber Mitchell is very

unique.

So there’s the practical ways that

people could take and like one two three

we’ll do these things we’ll be a kingdom

company. And there’s certainly fruit

from that. You know we do ministry

meetings. We’ll have one today. I mean

you’ll see people do Bible studies. We

open meetings with prayer. So there’s

these lists of of things that are done

which are almost like easier things

because they’re a checklist. I think the

harder things are the things that are

not seen. you go have a conversation

with somebody that you have hard

feelings towards.

Honoring the hard season by just showing

up and being present and holding the

hand and crying the tears and praying

the prayers.

There was a brickmason that was working

for us that that got arrested. Dan

Mitchell came up and he was like, “Hey,

I heard about so and so. Like, what are

you what are you going to do about that?

I mean, I don’t think that he should

work for us anymore.” And Dan was like,

“Do you have a company credit card?”

Right? I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “We need

to take him out to lunch.” I was like,

“What?”

We got to love people and we got to love

them well. Whenever they’re at their

worst, like that’s when we need to step

in.

Genuinely caring about people and their

families.

None of the builders that I work for

asked me about my family.

How’s home? Is home healthy? Are you

able to show up at home and be a great

dad or mom, brother or sister? What do

those relationships look like outside of

the work environment that we really take

advantage of pouring into in whole

health, not just production and

capability and meeting business

objectives,

the relational capital that is gained

through the time spent. And that’s why

one-on- ones are so important. That’s

why once a month we have a team lunch.

And that’s a huge thing because there’s

no pressure. There’s no like report due

or work that we have to get done. It’s

simply let’s spend some time together.

How’s things going? And that’s amazing.

Being a Kingdom company is not something

you experience. It’s something you do.

The organization isn’t just putting

forth words.

It’s not just on a wall, you know. It’s

it’s something that we live out.

This is who we are. My goodness, you can

make such a difference when you’re

following God’s leadership, not just in

your personal life, but throughout your

entire workday. Everybody that you come

in contact with every single day is the

people the Lord’s put in your path and

the people that you have the opportunity

to minister to.

It’s just such a cool thing to see that

so many people want to work for a

purpose.

To be faithful to God where he has us

planted today is what he asked for us.

When Rick gifted Dan and I this

um thing, he never set any expectations.

I understood in my spirit what the gift

was.

I don’t know the end of it.

But God does. He knows how this story

turns out. He wrote it.

That was one of the greatest blessings

of his life.

You know, Schuber Mitchell has given me

these these brothers and sisters that I

will forever have in the Lord. And I

think if we would allow the Lord to let

us see the everyday opportunities that

we have to bloom where we’re planted and

to impact where he’s rooted us, um it it

would be less about what he’s called us

to and more about stepping into the

calling that we’re we’re rooted in every

single day.

Love people well. Build good people.

Schuber