It must be conference season.
Last week I told you about a trip I took to Brooklyn, NY for React Day 2019. For 3 days this past week I was here in lovely Anderson, SC for RX 2019.
RX is a conference supporting Rock RMS, it’s product and it’s community. For those of you unfamiliar with Rock, according to it’s website:
Rock is an open source church management system that focuses on the heart of ministry - people.
At NewSpring, we manage all of our people and processes inside of the Rock church management system. Our website is run on Rock. And sometime soon, Rock will be the data provider for our new mobile app.
I love Rock. This piece of software was actually the reason that I originally got hired at NewSpring. In my first year or two I worked exclusively on helping get the Rock project launched. I don’t know that I was very effective, but it felt good to be a part of something that has the potential to change churches and how they do ministry around the world.
I haven’t done a lot of work lately on the Rock platform. I’ve been working pretty exclusively on our mobile app the past few years. But Rock has taken off in leaps and bounds. Probably because I’m not working on it any more. 😄
I spent the days of the conference learning about new things that Rock can do and how to help my church leverage the power of Rock. But that wasn’t the best part of the conference. All the things that Rock can do are awesome, but they aren’t the real power of the software.
The true power of Rock is its community. I’m an introvert by nature. People, small talk, and conversations wear me down and exhaust me. But for these 3 days, I caught up with old friends from churches around the country, met some amazing new people, and generally came away with a new found respect and admiration for all the people that are a part of this.
I got to meet a guy named Scott from a church in Washington. He is a volunteer with a full-time job and family responsibilities. Here he was, taking vacation time to come to this conference to learn how he can help his church implement Rock so that they can do ministry better.
I talked to people working at churches in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, South Carolina and plenty of other places. All of these people are working hard to reach people for Jesus with technology.
These are my people.
If you are in ministry, particularly if you are on the tech side of ministry, I think today I just want to try to encourage you.
You are doing an important work. No matter if you are one of 20 people on your team that focuses on just one product or if you are the 1 lone person at your church that takes care of everything, you are doing an important work. You are doing THE most important work. It’s tiring. It’s often thankless. But that’s okay right? We don’t do this job for the accolades. We do it because it’s our calling. It’s what we’re meant to be doing.
As the world leans more and more into technology it’s our job to try to keep up or surpass what the world is doing. There are big problems to solve and they are put squarely upon our shoulders. You, we, need to figure them out.
From the little things to help your church better shepherd the people in their care (“I just need this report to run”), to the giant issues of how to spread the Gospel to the world using technology, we are on the front lines. There is no problem too big or task too small.
I don’t have all the answers. Neither do you. Together though, through community and team, we can figure them out. “We” is always better than “Me”. One hundred percent of the time.
I’m proud of you and all the work you do. I’m super excited to be on this journey with you. Guys and gals, together we can change the world. Let’s go get after it.
Godspeed.