Accelerating the Dynamic Church : Breaking News

Dynamic Church 07 is almost here!

Jeff Hook — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:56:00 GMT

Are you a Fellowship One customer, but you ask yourself whether your church is really using the system to its full potential? Have I got a deal for you!

Many of our customers have been asking us to sponsor a users’ and developers’ conference and so this year we are. It is being held May 17-19 in Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas). We are calling it Dynamic Church 07 and it is really going to be worth your while.

I will be speaking about how information technology plays an important role in the Dynamic Church. This is not fluff. After 3 years of observing how some churches succeed wildly with Fellowship One while others underachieve, I will provide in my keynote what it takes to be one of the former and how to avoid the latter.

I will also address how to increase giving without focusing on giving. The lessons to learn from that alone are worth the price of admission! We are talking a definite Return on Ministry for this conference compared to other conferences in that what you learn here will be implementable at your church using Fellowship One.

But there is more! Education tracks from the professionals at Fellowship Technologies who are in the trenches everyday, as well as customer presentations about how they made it work for them. We will also have “hands-on” training and partner exhibits from some companies that can help take your Fellowship One experience to that next level.

And to top it all off, Tony Morgan – you know him as one of the Simply Strategic guys - is the Saturday morning keynote. Tony recently left Granger Community Church, (a Dynamic Church in Southbend, IN), and is now with Newspring (a Dynamic Church in Anderson, SC) – both Fellowship One customers! I consider Tony one of the rock stars of the industry. If you want to understand how to do church better, he can help you understand what is possible. Come see for yourself.

But you better register now, the early discounts are going away soon. The fee for the conference goes up next week. The cheap hotel rates are only guaranteed until then as well. Don’t miss this opportunity to work face-to-face with your favorite voice on the other end of the Technical Support line, or to ask the developer of Data Exchange how to use our API to its fullest, or to ask Product Management about where the product will end up three years from now (if they won’t tell you, I will). All the right people will be there. Don’t delay, register now! I cannot think of a better way to get free consulting.

I hope to see you there! Believe me, it will be worth it!

Grace to you,

jhook

Fellowship Technologies – three years old!

Jeff Hook — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:37:00 GMT

Three years, over 500 customers and counting! This week Fellowship Technologies is celebrating a milestone – completing our third year in business. We use this time to reflect on how far we have come - to celebrate our many successes, and also to introspect in order to learn from our occasional failures. But, wow, over 500 churches; 20 of which are large enough to be considered in the top 100 largest churches in America – that is quite an achievement for such a young company! But what I am most proud of is our people and their constant efforts to improve the level of customer service to our church partners.

I believe 2007 will be even better for us. We are no longer “the new kid on the block.” We have established ourselves as a proven thought leader in the church software market, one that offers a quality service for a reasonable cost that in turn provides a superior value. The processes we have in place and are always refining will help us implement customers more quickly and the product features that will be released will offer churches some exciting capabilities that they have not had in the past. We employ 52 people; about 1 person for every 10 churches. Is there another services vendor in the industry that is providing that level of support?

For those of you keeping a box score at home, as of this month, we are averaging the following processing volumes per week:

Check-in transactions - 171,000 +
Check scans - 112,000 +
Connection items / contacts - 154,000 +
Staff users of Fellowship One - 17,000 +
Church web users - 107,000 +
Reports - 16,000 +

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our church partners for helping us get to where we are today. Your desire to do more for Christ’s church is what drives us to be better. Thank you! I look forward to seeing you at the Dynamic Church 07 conference in May.

Grace to you,

jhook

We interrupt this blog for some breaking news . . .

Jeff Hook — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:00:00 GMT

New Customer Announcement – Prestonwood Baptist Church and Northland Community Church

I thought I would use this forum (after the proper permissions were granted, of course) to issue an informal press release about a couple of significant contracts we signed last month.

Fellowship Technologies is pleased to announce that it has recently signed contracts with Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas to implement its Fellowship One – Enterprise Edition. Prestonwood Baptist is number 13 on the Top 100 Largest Churches as reported by Outreach Magazine in its July/August 2005 issue. Prestonwood Baptist is a top-tier organization that raises the bar in many aspects of the Church. The initial implementation efforts were started today with a series of demonstrations to the staff, introducing the theme for the system implementation - AIM: Accelerating in Ministry. Welcome aboard!

Fellowship Technologies is also pleased to announce that it has recently signed contracts with Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida to upgrade to Fellowship One – Enterprise Edition. Earlier in the year, Northland began implementing our “Check-in Only” solution. Just as it was about to “go live” with Check-in, the decision was made to implement the additional functionality available with Enterprise Edition. Northland Community Church is number 42 on that same list of Top 100 Largest Churches. During the initial sales cycle I had the privilege to worship with them at one of their Monday night worship services. Let me tell you, the worship singers there know how to stir the Spirit in you! If you and your family are ever in Orlando to visit Mickey and friends, it is well worth it to take the trip just North of town to worship with the folks at Northland. You will be truly blessed.

We now return you to your original blogging experience.