RX2018 SpeakersThe brightest leaders in
the Rock community and beyond
RX2018: Keynote Speakers
Don Wilson
Accelerate.Group
RX2018: Speakers
Teresa Bice
Southeast Christian Church
Chuck Bump
Southeast Christian Church
Taylor Cavaletto
BEMA Information Technologies
Greg Davis
Southeast Christian Church
Frank Grand
NewSpring Church
Jason Hamrock
Missional Marketing
Daniel Hazelbaker
Shepherd Church
Jeremy Hoff
Shepherd Church
Eddie Holeman
Fellowship Greenville
Kenny Jahng
Church Butler
Gunnar Johnson
MortarStone
Shayla Kenworthy
Fishhook
Michael Kramer
Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company
Mark Lee
Southeast Christian Church
Tim Lemons
Highlands Fellowship
Van McNeece
Hillside Christian Church
Michael Mullikin
NewSpring Church
Doug Parks
Intentional Churches
Jesse Pearson
Emmanuel Church
Lee Peterson
Flatirons Community Church
Tom Powers
Southeast Christian Church
Tommy Prater
Church on the Rock
Steven Schulte
Southeast Christian Church
Nils Smith
Dunham+Company
Eric Swanson
Leadership Network
Luke Taylor
Highlands Church
Debbie Thurston
Fellowship Greenville
Matthew White
NewSpring Church
Greg Wiens
Healthy Growing Leaders
Morgan Woods
Willamette Christian Church
Aimee Cottle
Director of Marketing Fishhook
Aimee is a Millennial mom, wife and coffee-lover. She’s passionate about helping churches share the Gospel and tell their story in an authentic way. Aimee’s calling is to help every church realize that they are capable of harnessing the power of technology to build relationships.
Amber Smart
Certified Tableau Professional SmartMetrix
Amber Smart is a Tableau Certified Professional who has created over 4,000 dashboards during her career. Amber received the recognition of Tableau Ambassador by Tableau in 2015 for her demonstration of leadership, respect, and collaborative spirit in the Tableau community. Amber believes that helping teams see and understand their data is one of the most important missions of our time.
Arran France
Developer Spark!
Arran is a Software Engineering graduate and a core team member based in the UK. He's been a part of the Rock community since before its initial release and is an author of several popular Rock plugins.
Chuck Bump
Programmer/Analyst Southeast Christian Church
Chuck has been a Programmer/Analyst at Southeast Christian Church since 2015. He has a background in web application development and is familiar with an assortment of languages including PHP, Java, and C#. He spends his time away from the office with his wife and four kids and loves camping and snowboarding.
Daniel Hazelbaker
Information Systems Developer Shepherd Church
Daniel has served at churches, working in various fields as part of Information Systems, for over 15 years. Currently working as a Software Developer designing community and custom functionality to Rock RMS. He enjoys using his gifts and talents to bring technology to ministries in ways that help them reach the unchurched more efficiently. Daniel spends his off time destroying the opposition in Blizzard’s Overwatch game.
David Turner
Owner/Consultant Pillars
David is the founder of Pillars and works directly with churches to help them realize the full potential of Rock at their organization. Before starting Pillars, he spent almost 15 years developing church management systems that are in use at hundreds of churches. He also was one of the original core developers of Rock at Spark Development Network. An avid family man, he spends his free time in the great outdoors with his wife, kids and extended family, and working on many DIY projects.
Debbie Thurston
IT Trainer & Project Manager Fellowship Greenville
Serving as the IT Trainer and Project Manager at Fellowship Greenville, Debbie has the joy of working with end users, super users and developers. Beginning with FG right at the time Rock was launched, Debbie soon learned the benefit of Master Class, online documentation, SLACK and Rock U. When not working with Rock or ensuring she is current in HR and project management, Debbie and her husband Bob travel to spend time with their children and four grandchildren.
Derek Maxson
Co-Founder Front Porch
Derek Maxson co-founded Front Porch, a leading provider of Wi-Fi solutions for cable and telecom companies. As a former Executive Pastor, Derek understands some of the challenges that churches face with tech. Away from work, he’s a guitar strummer, mountain biker, tennis top-spinner, baseball nut with a heart for the Church.
Don Wilson
Founder Accelerate.Group
As an engaging leader and speaker, Don has held several pastoral and leadership positions. In 1982, he and his wife Sue started Christ’s Church of the Valley in his living room, and it expanded to include eight campuses in the greater Phoenix area with attendance over 27,000 and a 300-person staff.
In addition Don has conducted leadership training for over 7,000 pastors and leaders internationally. He has a special ability to relate to all age groups and demographics as well as corporate leaders.
Don & Sue recently launched Accelerate.Group with a primary purpose to address the challenges of pastors and wives across the US and beyond. Some statistics indicate an 80%+ dropout rate of pastors within the first five years of ministry due to the demands of the job. Accelerate.Group also focuses on leadership selection and transition, governance and role definitions to enable organizations to function more effectively.
Doug Parks
Co-Founder and CEO Intentional Churches
Doug served for seventeen years as the Executive Pastor at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas, NV. Prior to Canyon Ridge, Doug was a Chick-fil-a owner/operator in Cincinnati, OH where he won the coveted Symbol of Success award. Doug’s dream is to help local churches develop a plan to grow and reach people for Christ. This conviction comes from his own experience of being eternally impacted as a teenager by a committed church leader in southeastern Ohio. The story of the Gospel’s impact in his life is profound. Doug lives in Las Vegas and remains connected to Canyon Ridge. He is married to Jennifer with two children and finds time to occasionally follow sports including his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes.
Eddie Holeman
IT Director Fellowship Greenville
Eddie has served as the IT Director for Fellowship Greenville for 17 years where he is the proud “owner” of Rock. He is passionate about technology and how it can help the church do ministry better. Fellowship Greeneville went live with Rock on June 1, 2017, and Eddie has been active in the community, learning as much as he can. He’s attended three Rock conferences. He coached high school fastpitch softball for 15 years, and before coming to Greenville, served alongside his wife as a missionary in Bolivia. His favorite food is Silpancho, a dish of rice and potatoes covered in a beaten, breaded steak with an egg on top. He occasionally makes the dish at home. What does he use to beat the steak? A rock, of course.
Eric Swanson
Missional Specialist Leadership Network
Eric has a passion for engaging churches worldwide in the needs and dreams of their communities toward the end of spiritual and societal transformation. Eric is co-author of four books including The Externally Focused Church and To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City along with numerous articles on churches that are transforming their communities. Eric has been married to Liz for 41 years, has three married children, eight grandchildren and resides in Longmont, Colorado.
Ethan Drotning
Senior Developer Spark!
Ethan Drotning is a full stack developer with nine years development experience in all application layers. He loves being an engineer and creating things that make life and work easier for others. He spends his spare time having fun with his wife and kids.
Frank Grand
Web Director NewSpring Church
Frank is a military brat who claims Louisiana as his home state. He and his wife, Meagan, live in Anderson, SC and love spending time with their 4 kids. Frank is an avid home brewer, loves reading, and thinks he’s a better golfer than he really is.
Garrett Johnson
Web Designer Spark!
Garrett serves as a user interface and user experience designer with Spark. Originally from California, where he worked as a church graphic designer & web developer, Garrett brings clarity and craft to complex communication problems. He's been enamored with experience design since he first visited Disneyland. Garrett's life mission is to help churches build systems so that people are cared for and the Gospel is advanced.
Greg Davis
IT Project Manager Southeast Christian Church
Originally from Lost Creek West Virginia, Greg joined the Southeast Christian Church staff in August of 2017 after spending twelve years working in local government. His greatest honor has been serving the last eight years with his wife and five children as a foster family. They have had the pleasure of welcoming over forty different children into their home. Reunifying multiple children with their biological families, and adopting three as forever Davises. Their family’s mission is to love with a reckless abandon.
Greg Wiens
Creative Assessment Architect Healthy Growing Leaders
Greg has been a creative assessment architect for over 30 years, working with organizations ranging in size and interest from Fortune 100 companies and public schools to non-profits. His passion is helping leaders understand how their unique wiring contributes to their productivity and sense of fulfillment which ultimately leads healthy and increased productivity through synergy. Greg is a pastor, planter, coach, mentor, and engineer that has Ph.D. in Psychometrics (statistics specifically in the area of testing, measurement and assessment). This interesting combination of education and experience enables Greg to relate to individuals while helping organizations understand behaviors of individuals and especially they effect on teams and group dynamics.
Gunnar Johnson
EVP / Sr Partner MortarStone
Gunnar Johnson has been in stewardship and generosity ministry since 1999 starting on staff with Crown Financial Ministry. Since 2001, Gunnar has been involved with Dave Ramsey as a financial coach and class leader. While serving as Executive Pastor of Financial Stewardship at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, Gunnar helped to architect one of the largest stewardship ministries in the country with more than 150 volunteers serving thousands of people per year.
Gunnar is the author of Generous Life Journey, Financial Freedom course, Delete Debt course and The Generous Church Journey. Gunnar served as a board member for the Christian Stewardship Network for over ten years and ministers to people across Europe with Genistar Financial using his co-authored Financial Freedom International curriculum.
Jason Hamrock
CEO Missional Marketing
Jason has been involved in the church world for 15 years, serving on the leadership team with a mega-church and as a consultant with dozens of churches around the country. These days, as he leads Missional Marketing, the team works with over 250 churches around the country with their digital ads, SEO, and communications.
Jeremy Hoff
Administrative Pastor Shepherd Church
As the Administrative Pastor at Shepherd Church, Jeremy has a true passion for building the crossroad of technology and ministry. Being in ministry for the past 18 years has brought many great experiences that he is now enjoys being able to pass on and share with other churches and Christian organizations. When not at Shepherd Church you can always find Jeremy at Disneyland with his family; something Jeremy never grows tired of.
Jesse Pearson
IT Director Emmanuel Church
I am the IT Director for Emmanuel Church in the south Indianapolis area. I have the best team of forward thinking, motivated, and in general awesome people, be jealous. My goal is to bring the best of what technology can offer to help people come to Christ and grow in Christ. We also love to go around the church during the week and shoot other staff members with our nerf guns…
Jim Michael
IT Manager The Crossing
Jim is the IT Manager at The Crossing, a multi-site church in the St. Louis area. He has been involved in the Rock community for 4+ years and has led his church team in running Rock in production for the past two. Jim is a community “Rock Star” and was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2017 for his community contributions.
Jon Edmiston
Executive Director Spark!
Jon Edmiston is a senior leader of Spark, one of the core and original developers of Rock RMS, the technical architect, Rock community leader, and founding vision-caster of the Rock project. He approaches life with curiosity and a determination to deliver excellence. Connecting people through technology is just one of his passions, and he also carves out time to pursue karate and adventures with his family.
Kenny Jahng
Founder Church Butler
Kenny Jahng is founder of Church Butler, a social media graphics & training resources for churches. He is also CEO of Big Click Syndicate which helps nonprofits, cause-driven and faith-based organizations with strategic positioning, content marketing and digital engagement campaigns. You can connect with him on Twitter @KennyJahng or follow his vlogging at www.KennyJahng.com
Lee Peterson
Volunteer Check-In Manager Flatirons Community Church
Lee has served in many roles as a 15-year volunteer at Flatirons Community Church, most recently configuring and implementing Rock Check-in. He had a 25-year career as owner and operator of an auto repair shop, as well as serving in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve as a tactical intelligence officer and imagery interpreter; more recently he classically homeschooled his two kids through high school. He loves helping the Rock community further the Kingdom by assisting in troubleshooting and solving problems, as well as helping to perfect their check-in systems.
Linda Bork
Lead Champion Success Advocate Gloo
Linda helps coordinate Gloo's Church team to bring data analytics and insights to ministry leaders to make more informed decisions and strategic approaches to their churches and organizations. Linda’s background is in higher education, helping educators and administrators “know and match” prospective and current students to the right programs, classes, and resources depending on their unique backgrounds and abilities. Those capabilities are now being brought to the church arena, where we can become intentional about messaging, programmatic offerings, and unique missional direction based on what analytics can tell us about our congregation and community.
Luke Taylor
Tech / IT Director Highlands Church
Luke Taylor is the Tech/IT Director at Highlands Church where they’ve had Rock in production for six months. Back in the day, Luke followed the work the developers at CCV (Jon and David) did on Arena, and some of his friends were early partners in third party cloud-based Rock hosting. He is a graduate of the Rock Master Class, and regularly uses his knowledge and experience to help other Rock users on Slack.
Mark Lee
Programmer/Analyst Southeast Christian Church
Originally from Missouri, Mark Lee has spent the last two half years developing Rock related solutions for Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky. Before working as a programmer, Mark spent a decade as a family minister. He is married with four children, and has a passion for tinkering in everything from woodworking to electronics.
Matt Engel
Director Gloo
Matt Engel, married to his bride Denise, and blessed with their two children; serves as the Ministry Solutions Lead for Gloo, LLC. by providing operational and data understanding, application, integration, and strategic design elements using meta data, engagement platform and operational alignment. Formerly, he was a Senior Director and Adjunct Faculty Member at Arizona State University, both teaching within Enrollment Management and serving in that department. Success at ASU led to an invitation by Mission Community Church to Pastor and shepherd the rethinking and reshaping of approaches to ministry engagement and outreach using data and analytics to increase participation and engagement within and throughout the church for external outcomes and impact.
Matthew White
Web Operations Director NewSpring Church
Matthew lives in Williamston, SC with his wife Kristine, his 2-year old daughter Abbye, and his 8-month old daughter Alston. He loves the Atlanta Braves and the Florida Gators, and also cutting his grass! He's been on staff at NewSpring Church going on 7 years, and has a passion for helping people find their identity in Jesus!
Michael Garrison
Spark!
Michael is a newcomer to the Spark Core team, but you may know him from the community where he's been a volunteer for a number of years. Many of his indoor free hours are spent either playing through a respectable (but growing) board game library with his wife and two kids, or helping his church and other nonprofits, both with Rock and other tech-heavy areas like marketing. His outdoor free hours tend to be spent in the forest.
Michael Kramer
Casualty Claims Department Manager Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company
Michael Kramer, AIC, AIS, CISR, is a Manager in the Casualty Claims Department at Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. He has handled more than 4,000 claims involving serious bodily injury, safety and security, traumatic incidents, and sexual misconduct. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in education and is a former history teacher at a Christian middle school. He has presented on the topic of safety and security at many large events including Dr. David Fletcher’s XPastor® conference.
Michael Mullikin
Lead Pastor of Operations NewSpring Church
Michael oversees the church’s finance, human resources, IT, web development, new construction, facilities, missions, and Campus Safety teams.
Michael and his wife, Lori, have three children. Michael loves spending time with his family, camping, and hiking. He is passionate about using technology, innovation, and efficient systems to help people meet Jesus and grow in their relationship with Him.
Mike Peterson
Senior Developer Spark!
Mike Peterson has been working on Rock since 2012, when he was part of the development team at CCV. In 2017, he joined the Sparkability Group as a full-time Senior Developer. He lives in Peoria, AZ with his wife of 24 years, their three kids and three cats.
Morgan Woods
Systems Coordinator Willamette Christian Church
Morgan is a 24 year old, self-taught Rock nerd, working at the multi-campus Willamette Christian Church in Portland, Oregon. After getting a degree in Business Marketing at Pacific Lutheran University and serving for a year on the World Race, Morgan joined the Willamette team to learn the ropes of Rock and migrate the campuses from Fellowship One and Shelby to Rock. If Morgan isn’t working on new workflows and playing with new features of Rock, she’s probably hosting dinner parties for friends or she’s at the movies.
Nick Airdo
Project Manager Spark!
Nick, the Commissioner (or ‘Commish’) of the Rock Community, has been with the Rock team since before there was a Rock. Recently transitioned to the Rock core team, he was previously developing and managing projects at Central Christian Church in Arizona.
Nils Smith
Chief Strategist Social Media+Innovation Dunham+Company
Nils Smith is the Chief Strategist of Social Media and Innovation at Dunham+Company with offices in Dallas, Texas and Sydney, Australia. Dunham+Company serves Christian ministries around marketing, communications, and fundraising.
Before partnering with Dunham+Company, Nils worked as the Innovation Pastor at Community Bible Church in San Antonio, Texas, one of the largest and fastest growing churches in the country. While there, Nils led a talented team that grew their church’s online engagement. He pioneered their use of mobile apps and TV apps, and built the online church platform that now reaches 12,000 people in 400 cities each week.
He is the author of The Social Media Guide for Ministry, and his work has been featured in a wide range of publications. Nils is regarded as a world-leading expert at the crossroads of social media and nonprofit strategy, and his expertise serves our clients every day. Nils also co-founded TVApp.Church helping churches build applications for Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV as well as Alexa Skills.
Nils has a Business Management degree from Texas State University and holds a Masters in Ministry Leadership from Rockbridge Seminary.
Nils lives in New York City with wife, Katie and 2 daughters, Emery and Shelby.
Shayla Kenworthy
Director of Business Development Fishhook
Shayla serves as Director of Business Development. She joined the Fishhook team because she saw the crucial importance of helping churches become more effective in their communications. Shayla loves meeting with churches, hearing their challenges and helping them flourish.
Steven Schulte
Programmer/Analyst Southeast Christian Church
Originally from Longmont, Colorado, Steven Schulte has spent the last two years working for Southeast Christian Church as a full-stack web developer with a focus on UI/UX. When he isn't making web pages look beautiful, he enjoys spending time with his wife Kayla. Steven is also an internationally ranked pinball player, and loves the great outdoors.
Taylor Cavaletto
Software Developer BEMA Information Technologies
Taylor Cavaletto has been working on Rock since August of 2014 when he was still a student at Arizona State University. In 2015 he was hired by Central Christian Church AZ as a full time developer where he worked on Rock until his recent move joining BEMA Information Technologies as a software developer.
Teresa Bice
Database Team Manager Southeast Christian Church
Teresa has been on staff as the Database Team Manager for over 12 years at Southeast Christian Church. She has a passion for good coffee, data integrity, security, and helping staff members and other churches use Rock to make their lives and ministries easier. She lives with her husband Anthony in Florida where they enjoy spending free time at the beach, fishing, snorkeling, or really any outdoor water-related activities (what do you expect for a couple of Navy Veterans!).
Terry Storch
Digerati Pastor at Life.Church Life.Church
Terry is the Digerati pastor at Life.Church and co-founder of YouVersion. Meeting in multiple locations around the United States, and globally at Church Online, Life.Church is known for the innovative use of technology to spread the Gospel. All dynamic areas of digital ministry and technology reside under Terry’s leadership at Life.Church, including YouVersion, Bible Labs, Church Online, IT, Interactive, and Open Network teams.
Tim Lemons
Communications Pastor Highlands Fellowship
Tim is an Apple fanatic, coffee drinker, and a tech junkie. He is passionate about serving the local church and helping others use technology to make an impact for the kingdom. Tim is currently the Communications Pastor at Highlands Fellowship, a multi-site church located in VA and TN
Tom Powers
IT Applications Team Manager Southeast Christian Church
Tom has been on staff at Southeast for 12 years, and his main responsibilities have centered around systems integration, reporting, database optimization, and church management migrations. He has worked in a variety of different industries including healthcare, logistics, education, and supply chain management. Tom's family of 9 enjoys camping, sporting events, and time on the lake.
Tommy Prater
IT Director Church on the Rock
I love Jesus, my wife, kids, church and just life in general! Thankful for the opportunity to use technology every day, allowing people to know God better, find freedom, discover their purpose and make a difference with their lives. One of my personal phrases I love to say “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”
Van McNeece
Information Services Director Hillside Christian Church
Van has been the Information Services Director at Hillside Christian Church in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico for the last seven years and has almost thirty years of experience in technology. With a background in law enforcement and cyber security, Van has worked for the U.S. Government, the State of Texas and communications carriers helping them to solve and simplify complex issues. He enjoys spending time with his family, Star Wars, hiking and fly fishing.