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"For me, Technology on a Mission is the combination of radical innovation and practical application for the glory of Christ built on a legacy of over 30 years of service and partnership. That’s what I see as the future of Shelby Systems and what I see as Technology on a Mission."

"I’ll be talking about Modeling Ministry Leadership in Tough Financial Times. These are days when non-profits have a lot of uncertainties, and we can either focus on those uncertainties or we can focus on modeling ministry leadership. We can focus on vision, simplicity, and flexibility. I simply think it is a time to focus on our strengths and model for other organizations how Christian ministries should lead."

"A big part of what I’m going to talk about is: how do you engage an online audience? How do you engage a movement, if you will? How do you make something go viral? My hope, and I feel like my responsibility, is to share what I have learned with other leaders and to say these aren’t theories, this is what the reality of the Internet is like. Let me share that. Let me tell you what I’ve learned."

"What I really want to say is: What If? What if God has something big planned for you at this conference? What if there are connections you need to make while you are here? What if there are new ideas for your church just waiting to be found? What I want to do is just challenge people to really take this conference seriously. Maybe God has something planned. Maybe it has nothing to do with Shelby. Maybe they are going to meet their future mate or maybe they are going to find a new idea for something totally unrelated in their church. I want to challenge you with What If? What if God really wants you here, and he has a purpose for you being here."

"I have a personal mission when it comes to technology in ministry that’s two-fold. One is to connect education and technology to people in need. The other part is the concept of charging technology leaders, in particular those who call Jesus Lord and who follow God, with a special mission of taking integrity and technology to a new level and a new standard."

"This ministry came out of the story we just told. And you would think, that’s odd. How could a ministry come out of a weakness like that? But that’s, I’m finding, how God works through real life situations. So, we just go into marriage events, seminars, conferences and church services around the country and tell our story and say look what God did in our marriage. If God did it for Clay and Renee, he can do it for your family as well."
~Clay Crosse

"We find from couples all over the country that our story resonates with them. They get it when we say that church was something we did on Sunday, but it was like we could have checked our Bible in at the office when we left the door. So, it’s hitting home that maybe I need to be in the word of God every day or maybe we should pray together as a family. With Holy Homes we just offer some basic tips on how to get a family started off right walking with God."
~Renee Crosse

"Last week we took a road trip to Atlanta. We love the hotel. The Omni Hotel at CNN Center is amazing. They’re very proud of their rating as being a four diamond and they continue to earn it. My room looked out over centennial park. There’s just so much to do. There is an excitement and an energy in that downtown area!"

"We are reimbursing $25 per room per night at the time of checkout for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Omni Hotel. We feel like the conference hotel is vital to the enjoyment of the conference and getting the most from the connection with other people and with the Shelby staff. We also have an Early Bird rate right now that’s available through February 15. This is the lowest rate for the conference that we will offer."

"Our tips today focus on the financial side of the software. Let me summarize our advice this way: have a plan, backup your data frequently during your transition to the new year, and take the process one step at a time. If you do that, your year-end procedure should go smoothly."

"If there is one feature of the Christmas holiday that is true in almost every household that celebrates it from the most conservative Christian home to the most secular home, it’s exchanging gifts. I guess it was the gifts of gold frankincense, and myrrh that inspired the tradition. But I am also reminded of Paul when he wrote to the Corinthian church about their gifts. He did say to earnestly desire the greater gifts (which I daresay could make a great Christmas advertising tagline). But he also said that the gifts themselves are worthless without love. Without love even the biggest high def television is just a gizmo that can’t bring joy to anyone, but with love anything including a hand-written coupon for a hug can be a treasure. So, whatever gifts you put under the tree, just make sure love is there too."

"As Geoff Surratt at Seacoast Church has said in his book, there is definitely a multi-site church revolution going on. There are more multi-campus churches popping up every day, and they need a way to manage the church both as individual sites and also as a consolidated church. This application gives them that ability. It allows them to manage the operations of the church from a central location, but also allows the individual sites to perform the necessary functions that they need individually."

"This application is great for organizations of all size. It could be a mega-church with ten or twenty different locations. It could be a small organization with just one or two different sites. All the way up to a major headquarters with four or five hundred different locations."

"General Ledger Plus allows you to consolidate reporting across multiple companies and funds. It creates a master chart of accounts. Basically you are linking account numbers for each separate company’s chart of accounts to the master chart of accounts."

"Most lenders require consolidated balance sheets and income statements which General Ledger Plus does for you without having to export to Excel to massage the data."

"The two top selling integration tools are Check-In hardware and Time Clock. They are very, very popular items. I think a lot of it has to do with wanting to save time and therefore save money. They both do that for the churches, and it’s all taken care of within the Shelby System. They are tested, tried and true."

"I’ll mention just some of the major enhancements on the v5.9 upgrade. First of all, Shelby Systems is now compatible with Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Second, the ability has been added in Accounts Payable to maintain a separate check design for each company. Next, one of the biggest enhancements is that General Ledger Plus is now available. And there are several other enhancements as well."

"They say old Sam got religion. No Sam didn’t get religion. I tried religion. It about wore me out. God doesn’t care about how long your hair is, how loud you shout, or how high you jump. It’s how we walk when we land. I tell folks that I don’t follow him because I’m good. I follow him because I don’t like what I used to be. I’m a work in progress."

"They said now Zig we know you are a Christian, but let me tell you something. If you talk about it from the platform, it will absolutely destroy your career. Well, the Holy Spirit interceded instantly and said that's the worst advice you'll ever get. I've never spoken that I did not make it crystal clear not only who I was but whose I was. And the good news and the bottom line is and the thing that thrills me the most because it proves a very important point, I've never had to solicit a speaking engagement in many years. God's way is still the best way and always will be."

"The biggest thing this year is cloud computing. We are going to see more and more of that. Cloud computing is like the Google apps we’re seeing where you can use a spreadsheet that is not on your computer. It’s actually on a cloud in the Internet. Microsoft has made the claim now that in the next five years Office products will be completely in cloud. That is the direction that computing is going to be heading."

"There will be a major upgrade to the Arena program in July that will include our new social networking and small group networking feature. There will also be a prayer wall where you can enter concerns for members of your group to pray over. You will be able to bring in your Twitter feed and Flickr photos. In addition, you will be able to see user-specific information like contributions, the mission trips you signed up for and the events you are going on. All of these will be aggregated into one screen that you can log into."

"I always like to talk about that home court advantage. In athletics they do that a lot. What happens at home is so important. I start every day telling my wife how pretty she is and how much she has meant to me. Make certain that you have the home court advantage. Treat your family right and do the right thing in the community and you have a much better chance of having a significantly successful life."

"Singing your own song means being who God created you to be and doing what you are supposed to do and being authentic. My voice is to be out motivating and inspiring and speaking to people and telling them my story. I want people to find who they are supposed to be in this world. Every individual has unique talents and things only they can do."

"This year we invited Zig Ziglar to come and speak at our closing session. He’s worked with youth and the war on drugs. He has shared the platform with many American presidents as well as congressmen and governors. We feel so privileged and blessed to have him with us. And I really think that everyone will benefit greatly from his message."

"LaDonna Gatlin will be with us on Thursday night. She is sister of the legendary Gatlin Brothers. She encourages people to live from the inside out through her songs and her messages. I think LaDonna Gatlin is going to be a big hit."

"I remember, at the beginning, sitting in the office and everything was always so quiet that I used to beg for the phone to ring. God has answered that prayer. The Lord has given us a very busy, dynamic congregation. We have grown from 300 to over 3000 members now, and it has been a delight to see God’s hand during those days."

"As I talk to our customers, it seems like they are trying to do more with what they already have. We find that training is very beneficial to the ministry of our customers. Training and learning helps build self-confidence in employees and creates positive peer pressure. We also believe that it enhances the levels of jobs and builds team work. The value of the training is justifiable for both the attendee and the organization."

"The Webinar is called: Best Practices for a Successful Financial Year End. It’s a refresher to say that these are the things that you need to cover. Also, it will be a great tool for the person who is going through the year end for the first time. It will give you a heads up so that you remember everything that you need to do."

"The Christmas story is not about Santa and his reindeer and it’s not about Ralphie and his bb gun. It’s about God and his Son who loved us enough to become one of us and show us the full extent of his love sacrificing everything to redeem us from sin. That is the Christmas story, and that is worth celebrating."

"We have used Shelby for all of the large outreach projects that we have implemented: Corner Prayer where we put church members on 816 city blocks and prayed with neighborhood families, our Bible Distribution program where we gave a Bible to every home in 60628, and at the Illinois Department of Correction where every inmate was given a Bible on Cassette"

"It’s all about productivity. Efficiency and Accuracy are improved. There is quite a bit of flexibility as to when checks are scanned and when they are imported into Shelby and when the money is actually deposited into the bank."

"This is the end of the second quarter of this year, and in the first quarter of this year one area of technology was so huge that it actually doubled all previous sales."

"I’m taking my family on an incredible journey. We are heading to Beijing China to attend the Olympics. We adopted our daughter from China, and we are going to go back to enjoy her home country and to learn about the culture there."

"We do have a Shelby System up in heaven. We’ve tweaked it a little bit, but of course you can’t know everything we know. But y’all are getting there."

"...so I really designed a talk here for the Shelby folks to build a ladder to your dreams... and then we put ten rungs in that ladder so that people could climb it successfully."

"We are here to serve you and your ministry and the new Shelby World Headquarters building is a part of that pledge."

"Shelby customers have been telling us that they want a better interface tying the modules together. We've been listening to them and have written a new feature called Navigator."

"We have 19 children, and yes there was one year when 16 of the children were teenagers at the same time. That includes 14 adopted from four nations."

"The advantages of taking a course online are numerous. You can sign up at anytime, it's all web-based, and take the course at your leisure. It's also more economical."

"Thanks for inviting me to talk about something I am very passionate about. I believe that every Shelby customer should be reading the SSTips newsletter."

"Shelby Systems is poised to grow and innovate. I believe the best days are ahead."