Dynamic Church 07 - phenomenal!

Jeff Hook — Thu, 24 May 2007 18:12:00 GMT

It has been a week now since the Dynamic Church 07 conference commenced. What a great time! I want to publicly thank the Fellowship Technologies staff for all the hard work they put into making this conference better than I could ever imagine. The energy and sense of cooperation from everyone was fantastic! And the attendees from our church partners were outstanding! If you get the sense that I was happy with how it all turned out, you would be correct.

We had 330 attendees including folks from either partner churches or prospective churches, plus our staff and guests – in total around 400 people. Some people enjoyed the breakout tracks that dealt with strategic issues while others enjoyed the hands-on training classes. The feedback was positive from both; yet I agree with some comments I heard, so next year we will have both beginner and advanced tracks for training.

I sat in on several of the strategic breakouts and was very impressed with how some of our partner churches are addressing areas like volunteer management, change management and Fellowship One champion teams. I hope it came out in my keynote, I really have a passion for the local church and it warms my heart to see church staff members and volunteers serving others and “passionately attacking” how to help people learn to live fuller lives. See John 10:10.

Tony Morgan’s keynote was on target (he blogged about it on May 19th). Although I think one of the missing items on the list could have been "a church writing their own ChMS system." To dovetail it with my presentation, developing complex computer applications are typically not one of a church’s “core competencies.” I actually told Ed Young this several years ago not knowing I was actually commenting on the development of a system that eventually became Fellowship One. Terry Storch can vouch for the fact that I caused him and his team some heartaches around trying to justify the development of the system. In the end, I think Terry would agree that if possible "buy versus build" unless it is strategic to your mission and the end result offers a competitive advantage to attracting or serving your customers, or in churches' cases your congregation. This is rare in the church market that the ChMS system provides such.

This does not mean it cannot be done. It just takes a lot of time, energy and money to accomplish the full breadth of what a church management system needs to do. The first several features and functions are easy and there can be some quick wins. But the maintenance of the system as complexity of integration is added begins to bog down the progress of additional functionality. When looking at the stewardship of resources, custom development is probably the most costly alternative there is; perhaps not in the short run, but definitely in the long run - requirements and technology simply change too quickly for a small staff to keep up with and large staffs are expensive.

If you were in attendance at Dynamic Church 07, thank you for making our first conference successful – it is all about helping you be better at helping the church and your community! If you did not make it, we welcome you to join us next May when we all get together again for Dynamic Church 08! I have heard several people say that next year they are bringing even more of their staff. So make plans, set aside your budgets because we are already working on what should be another great conference!

Grace to you,

Jhook

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

Accelerating the Dynamic Church : Dynamic Church Conference

Dynamic Church 07 - phenomenal!

Dynamic Church 07 is almost here!