Daily Concerns : Fellowship Technologies

Top 10 Reasons to attend Dynamic Chuch 07

csimmons — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:45:00 GMT

Here are the top 10 reason to join us at our first annual Dynamic Church User and Developer Conference that will be held May 17 – 19th, 2007.

Meet the entire Fellowship Technologies staff; Interact with the awesome people we have on staff behind the scenes in our Data Center, Development, Support, Reporting, and other departments
Interact with staff from some of the fastest growing and most dynamic churches in the country such as Mariners Church, Prestonwood, Southeast Christian, Newspring, Grange Community, New Birth MBC, and many, many more!
Attend one of 18 of our most requested training classes available in an instructor led, hands-on environment
Yours truly, Curtis Simmons, will speak about Fellowship Technologies product announcements and roadmap
Select from 6 targeted tracks covering 46 different sessions where dynamic speakers from Fellowship Technologies, partner churches, and industry experts will share their stories, thoughts and best practices
Meet and learn about other churches in your geographic region and how to form a Regional User Group
Special keynote from Tony Morgan of Newspring Church; Tony will challenge us to consider the foundations for innovation in the local church
Attend one of 12 unconference sessions where you get the pick the topic
Jeff Hook, CEO and President of Fellowship Technologies, will address some of the challenges faced by Dynamic Churches today
Learn how to MAXIMIZE the full potential of Fellowship One at your church!
And don't forget the unique things that define Texas... Big Tex, Big Cars, BBQ, and Shopping!

Early bird pricing for the conference and the hotel ends April 16th so make plans now to attend this exciting event. Registration details, full conference schedule, and hotel information are available at http://www.FellowshipTech.com/Conference/

At your service... 3 years and counting!

csimmons — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:37:00 GMT

It is an exciting time to work in the church software business and I can think of no greater place to work than here at Fellowship Technologies (FT). The leading-edge technologies, the daily challenges, our partner churches whom we willfully serve, the lives impacted positively by our efforts, and most of all the awesome collective of 50+ individuals (friends, partners, brothers-in-Christ) that collectively form FT. Each person is unique; they each came from different places with different backgrounds and different experiences. Yet, God led each of them here to utilize their God-given talents for His purpose to serve the local church.

We are grateful for His many blessing these past three years and none more so than the relationships we've formed along the way. I want to take a moment to recognize some of the individuals who recently celebrated their 3^rd anniversary with FT.

Jeff Hook, CEO and President
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Jeff's leadership and vision for FT has led us to the heights of where we are today. We are thankful that Jeff was obedient to God's calling for his life in 2003... to form Fellowship Technologies.

Rick Chatham, Founder / Director of Strategic Initiatives
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually several years prior to launch)
Thankfully Rick felt led to resign from his corporate job and join the staff of Fellowship Church in 2001 to embark on an ambitious development project along with Terry Storch called "Switch". Without Rick's initial leap of faith the company may never have been born. Rick now leads a number of strategic projects for FT such as Data Warehouse reporting and the Dynamic Church User and Developer Conference.

Curtis Harris, Director of Product Management
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Curtis joined the staff of Fellowship Church to redesign and launch their new website leading some to call Fellowship Church the "dot-com" church. Curtis eventually lent his skills to the "Switch" team (the original name of Fellowship One) and joined their efforts full-time. Curtis now leads the Fellowship One product strategy and design.

Daniel Reznicek, Senior Network Engineer
Anniversary date: Jan 1, 2004 (Actually many months prior to launch)
Daniel is one of the smartest people I've ever worked with. It was through his herculean efforts and considerable skill that we moved into our current data center, ThePlanet.com, in early 2004. Daniel continues to play a significant role in the daily management and monitoring of our production and development infrastructure.

Tara Coulson, Education Services
Anniversary date: Jan 19, 2004 (A few days prior to launch)
Tara joined the company just a few days prior to the company's launch to author the product help files and associated documentation. Tara developed 90% or more of the product documentation that exists today. She also assists in the development of release notes, product demos, training videos, online training classes, on-site training and consulting, and assisted with our website and many of our marketing materials. We are thankful for her incredible talents and commitment to FT. Also, Tara and her husband were recently blessed by a new addition to their family; they formally adopted a baby girl aptly named "Grace" on March 14th. Congratulations Tara!

Nick Floyd, Product Development
Anniversary date: Feb 2, 2004
Nick is as talented of a developer as you'll ever find and an emerging leader within FT. You would be hard pressed to find someone more passionate than Nick about the Lord, his family, and his work. Nick is the embodiment of Colossians 3:23, he is a daily inspiration to us all.

Lance Dacy, Manager, Support and Reporting Services
Anniversary date: Feb 9, 2004
Lance joined FT as a report developer and has never looked back. He has served FT in just about as many different roles as Tara. Lance's servant leadership is his greatest strength and asset. Lance currently leads our Support Central and Report Central departments.

Matt McMaster, Delivery Services
Anniversary date: Mar 16, 2004
Matt is what some might consider the ideal new hire, he initially joined FT without even taking a salary! Thankfully for him we soon began to pay his salary and he's been a blessing to us and our partner churches ever since. Matt is a training video waiting to happen. If something odd or unusual ever happens while on the road serving a church then it has happened to Matt. He not only makes us laugh but he has made us and our partner churches more successful.

Chad Meyer, Product Development
Anniversary date: April 7, 2004
Chad quietly comes to work each day and lends his considerable programming talents to our product. However, we all know Chad is not always so quiet, he is an awesome musician (plays lead guitar in a local band), he is an avid online gamer, and he beats us all at foosball any time he wants. An awesome attribute of Chad is his humbleness, I honestly do not believe he realizes how talented he truly is.

Fellowship Technologies now relies upon many, many others in addition to these nine individuals but without the faith, vision, and services of this initial group none of this would have been possible.

Curtis S

A strange new world

csimmons — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:51:00 GMT

While the primary focus of my blog will be on best practices, I want to share some insight into the environment where I work.... Fellowship Technologies. God blessed me with the opportunity to leave my IT Consulting work and join FT in May of 2004. I noticed an immediate difference in just about every aspect of my work. I was surrounded by Christians that shared my passion for both technology and the Lord. Prayer was, and still is, a regular and very visible part of the culture. I didn't find co-workers, I found a group of highly intelligent Christian brothers and sisters that relied heavily upon their faith and each other. Although I have many, many interesting stories there are two events that stick out in my mind.

About six months after I joined FT I was in my office and one of our application developers came in and shut the door. I had seen this situation before, I figured he was going to tell me about a big issue or even possibly resign. Neither happened. He simply looked me in the eye and said "I was praying this morning and felt like the Lord had something to say to me through you". I was blown away. I looked behind me and under my desk to make sure he wasn't talking to someone else. I wish I could say I imparted some biblical wisdom to him that day, I'm not sure whether I did or not. In retrospect, I believe the Lord had more to say to me through that that person than the other way around.

The second event is also relatively small but had a huge impact on me. I was out of town visiting a client and hadn't had a particularly good day. I was at the airport making my way through security and my cell phone rang, I could see the number was from our corporate office and I assumed it was just another issue I would have to deal with. I decided not to answer it. After I got settled into my seat I checked my voicemail. It was a call from the office but it wasn't an issue. In fact it was the furthest thing from it. It was a person that worked for me; he was calling to tell me he was praying for me.

To some of you these events may seem like a small thing, but to someone accustomed to the "corporate" world I felt like I was in a strange new world. Now with time to reflect on these and countless other similar events I realize the corporate world was what was "strange"; Where I'm at now is how "work" is meant to be.

Thanks to everyone at Fellowship Technologies for giving their ALL each and every day, they each exhibit a Colossians 3:23 attitude on a daily basis.

Curtis S