Over the last two-and-a-half years we (CCV) developed our own ChMS system called Solomon. Like Jon mentioned, we were getting a lot of interest from other churches, and after seeing Solomon, churches usually asked what our plans were for releasing the product. After a lot of thought and discussion, CCV decided the best way to accomplish this was to partner with an existing software vendor. The vendor could provide support, documentation, enhancements, etc, and we could continue to focus on meeting the ministry needs of CCV.

Having worked with Shelby, they were our first choice. We talked to other vendors who expressed interest, but we were impressed by Shelby’s integrity and vision for the product. The agreement was finally signed last month. Shelby renamed the product to Arena ChMS and quickly formed a new division to support it.

Whats nice about the partnership with Shelby is that its exactly that… a partnership. Even though the agreements signed and Shelby owns all source code, CCV is continuing to work with Shelby to make sure Arena is successful.

Jon and I continue to share the same code-base and source control as the Arena developers. We’re all working together on the product. Shelby gets the ehancements we make as a large innovative church and we get the changes Shelby makes as they prepare for and experience the mass market. And, of course, the Arena customers benefit as they get even more improvements and enhancements. I like it!

I started at CCV about two-and-a-half years ago. Jon hired me to help develop a custom small groups application. CCV was using Shelby V5 at the time. Jon looked at Shelby’s small group application along with some other applications and decided that CCV needed a custom application and a full-time application developer.

I was hired and over the last couple years, that Small Group application evolved into a full fledged member management system that we called Solomon. It is now known as “Arena ChMS” through the partnership that CCV has with the new Arena division of Shelby Systems. I’ll share more of how that came about in my next post.

The details of how I ended up at CCV is really a God thing for me, so I feel compelled to share that also. It’s lengthy, and if this doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip to the next post

For those still with me, lets step back in time a few years. My family and I had been attending CCV for several years, and my wife (Jan) would always keep an eye on the job postings section of the CCV website. She called me one day and mentioned that CCV was looking for a .NET developer. I read the job description and it seemed like a perfect fit, but I told her there’s no way we could afford for me to work at the church (I’m sure you’re all surprised to hear that for some reason churches just don’t seem to pay the going market rate). She understood, and life went on. A month later she informed me that the posting was still on the website, and that I should at least apply and “see what happens.” Well, mostly to appease her, I applied. Even as I was filling out the online application I turned to my friend and co-worker sitting next to me and mentioned “I don’t know why I’m doing this.” The next day I got a call from Jon. We met, talked a bit, and then he made me an offer… half what I was currently making. As much as I wanted to work for CCV, there just wasn’t any way we could afford that, so I told him “sorry, can’t do it”.

At the same time, Jan was working as a reservations agent for an airline. I would go to work early in the morning, and she was working evenings and weekends. Our kids were in daycare for a couple hours each day when our shifts overlapped. I was alone with the kids in the evenings making dinner, putting the kids to bed etc., and Jan and I didn’t see much of each other. About a week after turning down Jon, I had the realization that a reservations agent made even less than a programmer working part-time at a church. I also realized that I could get out of having to cook dinner every night and the bedtime routine if I worked part-time and Jan was able to quit. I immediately called Jon back and asked “how about part-time.” He agreed, my wife quit, and I was now working part-time at CCV while contining to work full-time at my existing job. Life was much better.

After about six months, we were able to trim some expenses and decided that we could afford to switch to working full-time for CCV as long as my other employer would let me switch to part-time. As much as I wanted to do that, I didn’t believe my employer would go for this. There were no part-time salaried employees and it just wasn’t done. Jan encouraged me again to at least ask, so I did. What I didn’t know until asking was that my department was getting pressure to reduce some of their overhead. My boss agreed, which was a very pleasant surprise.

I continued to work both jobs for several more months. By this time, our small group application was done and it had evolved into more of a complete membership system. Another church got wind of what we were doing (my brother worked for them). They proposed helping with my expenses if CCV would let them use the software. CCV agreed, and this allowed me to finally commit full-time to just CCV.

As you can see, God was really at work in getting me to CCV. There were so many steps along the way that I didn’t think there were even any doors to be opened. Faith has never been my strongest spiritual gift, but hopefully it’s getting stronger. Thanks for reading.