John Bunyan’s famous Christian allegory is coming to theaters Easter weekend as an animated feature film. (more…)
The Most Popular Christian Novel of All Time—Animated (Watch Trailer)
7 Reasons Church Websites Are Better Than Church Apps
As a church, your priority is to reach people, but you also want to be financially prudent.
So you may be wondering, “Does our church need an app, and is a church app worth the money?”
In this article, I compare the two in hopes to help you arrive at a decision you can feel confident about. [Read more…]
5 Ways to Engage Your Church Online
With how much of our interactions happen online now, more and more churches are using technology to encourage spiritual growth and fellowship throughout the week.
This is not to replace face-to-face teaching and fellowship, but to reinforce it, providing opportunities to learn and build relationships in addition to the few times a week people can get together. [Read more…]
4 Ways to Encourage Your Church Administrator
When you walk into church this weekend, consider what it would be like without an administrator making sure everything works behind the scenes.
Who would make sure coffee was ready? Would the church building be clean? Would the bulletins be accurate?
Your church needs people gifted in administration, yet their work is easy to overlook. With that in mind, here are a few simple ways to encourage church admins as they faithfully serve the church: [Read more…]
Bellingham’s Spin on Bike to Work Day
Every year, Bellingham participates in Bike to Work Day. Last Friday, hundreds of people throughout the city celebrated alternative transportation together and bonded over snacks when they arrive at one of the 24 stations set up for anyone who biked, walked, carpooled, or took the bus to work. The event is open to anyone, whether you bike to work every day, or you’re just getting your rusty wheels out of the shed.
The annual community event is hosted by Whatcom Smart Trips—a partnership between local government, public agencies, employers, and schools to promote alternative transportation.
Local businesses rally together and set up stations throughout the city to encourage those who participate with treats and applause.
Glenn Gervais, a developer at Faithlife, has participated in Bike to Work Day since 2006. He usually bikes to work two or three times a week during the summer. Glenn races year round—from triathlons to cyclocross to mountain biking, there’s always something to do with a bike in Bellingham.
“I love that within a 5–10 minute ride from the core downtown area you can be on some world class trails at Galbraith, or on a county road with light traffic,” Glenn says.
Faithlife goes the extra mile to encourage healthy activities like biking. Glenn says, “I love how supportive Faithlife is of the biking community with our bike shop, indoor parking—it’s out of the rain and there’s no need to carry a lock—and gift cards for people who participate in Bike to Work Day.”
Jon Deviny, a Faithlife designer, participated in the official Bike to Work Day for the first time this year, though he usually bikes to work once or twice a week.
“It’s a fun way to redeem my commute for a little exercise and it’s fun to slow down and see things I normally pass by in a car,” he says.
Living in Bellingham, if you don’t bike regularly yourself, there’s always someone you know who does. Jon says, “Bellingham has the most active bike community I’ve ever experienced. There are bikes everywhere!”
Two brothers, Taylor and Jeromy Blomquist, rode the farthest of any Faithlife employees. The duo made a 12.6 mile trip together from Ferndale.
Jeromy says, “Every time we rode by a Bike to Work station, everyone got really excited and cheered. A guy even ran out and handed us a granola bar while we rode.”
Altogether, 40 Faithlife employees participated, and they rode over 60 miles in total.
The final stop for Faithlife employees was Faithlife’s freshly established food truck patio. The station was cohosted by the Pickford Film Center, Kulshan Cycles, and Faithlife.
Starting this week, this new space is reserved for local food trucks to serve up an assortment of delicious foods.
Want to be here for the next Bike to Work Day? Faithlife is hiring!
Faithlife: A Year in Review
Growth is one of Faithlife’s company values; it’s even a job requirement to be growing personally. Here are some ways we grew as an organization in 2014:
More choices
In March, we created specialized base packages for Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Reformed, and SDA churches to provide more useful tools for everyone.
A new name
In September, we changed our company name to Faithlife. Our mission hasn’t changed: to serve the church—and Logos Bible Software is a huge part of how we do that. But with so many offerings—Faithlife Groups, Biblia.com, Bible Study Magazine, Lexham Press, and more—it was time to separate the name of our primary product from the name of the company.
A major upgrade
In October, we released Logos 6. We introduced brand-new tools like the Ancient Literature tool and our powerful visual tools.
New content areas
In November, we released the Noet desktop app, making the technology behind Logos Bible Software available for use in studying the humanities.
We won an award
In December, Glassdoor named Faithlife one of the Top 10 Best Places to Work. (The award was based on anonymous employee ratings and reviews). Faithlife employees love their jobs! Faithlife has received this honor two years in a row now.
We sent a gift
On Christmas Eve, we sent a coupon to anyone who had ever purchased anything from Faithlife—even a free book—with a limited-time $20 promotional code to spend on any Logos resource before the new year. You make it possible for us to create new things, improve what we have, explore different directions, and win awards. This $20 gift was one of the many ways we wanted to say thank you to the people we love and serve.
We serve the church, and we love building Bible study tools and resources to help you study and teach the Word.
We look forward to serving you well in 2015!
3 Things Playing Ping Pong Says about Faithlife
When you need a break from work, there’s plenty to do around the Faithlife campus—foosball, spikeball, Super Smash Bros., and a whole lot more. For me, one particular activity rises above the rest—ping pong.
When I was hired as an intern a little over a year ago I spent many hours getting to know our flagship product, our company values, and the awesome people who make working at Faithlife so great.
It wasn’t until my internship was almost over that Art Pinney and Eric Vaniman invited me to play a game of ping pong.
One game quickly turned into two, and eventually ping pong became a daily occurrence. A fierce competition formed between us.
Over time our group of three was joined by several others and we started having regular tournaments.
We take ping pong seriously
Ping pong is not just popular among our group of six. It’s a big deal across campus—it’s not unusual to make the journey to building 3 only to find the table occupied.
Every department has a number of people who are skilled with the paddle, including development, design, marketing, customer service, sales, and others.
The sport is popular enough at Faithlife to justify reserving the table ahead of time, especially during the company wide tournament—the C.O.P.P.T.R (Corporate Ping Pong Tournament).
The C.O.P.P.T.R
The C.O.P.P.T.R. is open to anyone at Faithlife—whether you’re a brand-new intern, or someone who’s been here over 20 years. Even Executive Vice President Dan Pritchett is on the ladder.
It’s no laughing matter. C.O.P.P.T.R. is governed by a lengthy set of rules similar to those listed on pongworld.com (with a couple of our “house rules”).
So many stellar players make the competition difficult. Pritchett himself is currently listed as the number two seat in the tournament.
From personal experience, I can tell you that Dan’s pong abilities rarely meet their match. In our first meeting, he kept me below 10 points in two out of three matches to 21.
We’ve played several times since then, and it wasn’t until the week before Faithlife launched Logos 6 that I finally beat him.
What ping pong says about Faithlife
Ping pong is just a game. It has nothing to do with our companies products. But there are three traits shown through this simple game that reveal who we are and showcase what makes working at Faithlife so great:
We’re competitive
Growth is one of our core values. We strive to do and be the best we can at everything we participate in. Naturally, this flows into a friendly game of ping-pong. It’s something we enjoy, so we practice and get better together. Just like the jobs we do every day.
We’re good sports
While we enjoy good competition, we still value and respect our coworkers. The games always remain friendly and they end with a handshake or high-five followed by “good game.” Our company values are summed up by the four words, “Honor God. Love others.” This overflows into everything we do—whether it’s building the world’s best Bible software, or playing some ping pong.
We love a good challenge
Challenges present the opportunity to persevere. Perseverance is the goal of competition. When we compete and lose, it fuels our fire to perform better in the future.
These qualities transfer to our work. We work hard, and when we make a mistake we admit it. These experiences fuel our passion for creating better products and providing better service. We search for our faults, correct them and aim to perform better in the future. It’s part of who we are.
Want to be around for the next C.O.P.P.T.R.? We’re hiring! Apply today at Faithlife.com/careers.
Christmas Decorating! Welcome to Gingerbread Lane
Every December, Faithlife has a Christmas decorating contest. What’s at stake? Free lunch and bragging rights. Teams and departments duke it out to prove once and for all who has the most holiday spirit, creativity, and determination.
This is serious business.
Bob Pritchett, CEO of Faithlife, has always insisted on using an outside judge—someone impartial. This year, we brought in Anne-Marie Faiola. You might remember her from our women in leadership speaking series. She brought her husband and two kids to help (cookie-bribes may have been involved).
There were skits, elves, toy trains, Santa himself, hipsters singing carols, dressed-up dogs, and more. It was quite a sight.
In the next display, you may notice that there are more than a few snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. That’s thanks to Jani Snell. She’d been planning for this contest since last December. “Last year, the competition was rigged,” said Jani. “My team cut out hundreds of snowflakes and created the most beautiful winter wonderland, and we lost. I’ve been part of a winning decorating team in the past, so to have a loss associated with my name was unacceptable.”
So what’d she do? She saved all those snowflakes she cut out during Netflix marathons and hung them up again this year, with a new theme and a new team.
And she wasn’t the only one who planned ahead. “In early November, Glenn Airoldi popped into my office one morning and said, ‘Christmas decorating contest. You in?’ Uh, duh! To work with a group that was set on winning made the work that much easier.”
Being in the large department category this year meant that Jani had about 15 people volunteer their time to help out, including a core group of six who put in at least four hours to pull off “Gingerbread Lane.”
“I expected to win based on the amount of sweat and paper cuts that went into the project,” Jani says. “I mean, my coworker electrocuted herself twice making sure that all the lights were perfect. The night before judging, a group of us stayed from 5:00 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. to make sure everything was perfect.”
Like I said, this contest is a big deal.
“I think the only thing that kept us going was the drive to win,” Jani says.
Take a trip down “Gingerbread Lane”:
Next came the holiday hipster exhibit.
The fine print says, “Please don’t feed the hipsters gluten or dairy products. (Or meat, GMO’s, MSG, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial colors or flavors of any kind). Permitted foods include: kale chips, gulps of air, and GF cardboard.”
No trees were harmed in the decorating of this space.
This year, for the first time, design joined in on the decorating fun. Branson Anderson rallied the troops and transformed “DSGNHVN” into a modern winter wonderland.
“We can’t help but work on Christmas decorations like a design project,” Branson said. “We had a brainstorming meeting, made moodboards, created a design document detailing our plan. We had to visualize everything.”
“We got pretty serious about how we hung letter snowflakes,” Branson says. “Are we modulating height in a compelling way? Is our distribution right? Like I said, we can’t help but design it.”
It may have been serious, but it was far from boring.
“We had a huge turnout. It was a really great time. We were blasting Christmas music, eating food, and enjoying each other’s company.”
When it was all said and done, our judges selected a winner for small and large departments, and then Bob announced the winners at our company Christmas party at Semiahmoo Resort.
“Gingerbread Lane” in marketing won the award for best-decorated large department, and our facilities team sealed the win for small departments with “All Wrapped Up.”
“As Faithlife grows, so does the Christmas decorating competition,” said Kensey Burdick, who helped decorate “Gingerbread Lane. “After hours of painting peppermints, wrapping boxes, and hanging snowflakes, it felt great to win! Not only does the winning team get a free lunch from Faithlife, they get an entire year of bragging rights!”
But it’s not all about winning. “It’s fun to see coworkers get so creative and excited about Christmas,” Kensey said. “It’s not every day you get to see your manager wearing a Santa suit! We don’t just work hard at Faithlife—we play hard, too.”
So how much time did they put into this? “Too much!” Jani said. “I think I put in about 16 hours. This is definitely the most work I’ve put into the decorating contest, and I don’t think I have the energy to repeat that next year.”
Next December is a long ways away, but something tells me Jani will still have her stash of snowflakes next year.
Want to see the rest of the pictures from the decorating contest? Like us on Facebook to see “Lego Land,” “Pirate Christmas,” and more!
Faithlife’s Biggest Christmas Party Yet
Last Saturday, Faithlife took a trip up to the Semiahmoo resort, near Canada, for our annual Christmas party. The dress code was “as nice as you like,” and the evening was a festive mix of classy and casual.
Over the last four years, Faithlife has doubled in size. With that kind of growth our list of possible venues near Bellingham grows smaller each year. Last year, we had a little over 300 employees, and we gathered in one central room with our guests. This year, the Faithlife Christmas party sprawled across four separate sections of the Semiahmoo Resort with a different selection of food and entertainment in each area.
At 5:30 p.m. the doors opened to the Protea String Quartet, and the stream of people never stopped.
A half hour later, our friends from Oh Snap! Photo Booth and The Upfront Theater set up shop, so people could get pictures with friends or have some laughs between bites to eat.
Beckie Rosillio from the video team scoured the resort for Kodak moments like these:
Beckie has been taking photos at our employee Christmas party every year since she got here, and by the end of the night there was a line of people waiting for her to take their annual Christmas photo.
In the main ballroom, stand up comedian Jeff Allen took the stage and had people literally throwing back their heads in laughter:
Throughout the night, everyone was free to roam between rooms, so there was never a dull moment.
The Upfront Theater crew took a break and then returned for a final show. This time, the improvised comedy somehow led to a soap opera wedding (don’t ask me to explain how it got there):
After the entertainment wrapped up for the evening, it was time for Bob’s annual speech about how much he loves working with us, why we do what we do, and of course, Faithlife’s famous raffle.
As always, when it comes to thanking his employees, Bob went big. Thousands of dollars in gift cards were given away, brand-new tablets were handed out, and there was even a Playstation 4 and an Xbox One thrown in the mix.
When the raffle was over, only one thing remained: Christmas carols. Max Morin and Josh Warren from design led the company in a couple of carols, and the evening came to a close.
Want to be at the next Faithlife Christmas party? Check out our available careers!
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To see the rest of our Christmas party photos, like us on Facebook!
Glassdoor Names Faithlife One of the Top 10 Places to Work
For the second year in a row, Faithlife was named one of Glassdoor’s top ten small to medium sized businesses to work for in the country.
It’s no secret that Faithlife has always been a little different. We have no HR department. We give employees unlimited vacation. Our company manual is one page.
To some, that may sound like a recipe for disaster. It’s unconventional. But you should know: Glassdoor selects from thousands of companies all across the United States based on employee surveys. We like it here. So we said so.
“We offer our employees more autonomy, less bureaucracy, and more reason to be personally invested in the company,” said Bob Pritchett, Faithlife president and CEO. And it’s true. Every couple of months, Bob hosts an “Ask Anything” meeting that’s open to all employees, where anyone is welcome to ask Bob . . . anything! From sales goals and what comes next, to company mistakes and what we’re learning, Bob models the openness and honesty he desires in our company culture. Everyone has a voice and the opportunity to make their voice heard.
Faithlife began in 1992 with a handful of people and an idea: help people study the Bible. Today, Faithlife is serving the church with more than Bible software. We provide church presentation software, a Christian ebook app, beautiful Bible art, a better way to reference Scripture, a church communication tool, the world’s smartest humanities software, and much more.
With so many directions to go in, it’s easy for employees to find a career path they can be passionate about. Even with over 400 of us, every person has a place, a purpose, and room to grow.
Part of what’s made Faithlife such a great place to work are the very things that make Faithlife so unconventional. Our company manual is short and sweet because our mission is simple: “to serve the church.” The values that help us carry out our mission can be summarized in four words: “Honor God. Love others.” Our company values encompass the way we treat each other, our customers, and our work. We balance the productivity that makes us successful with an emphasis on people that helps us care about our relationships to others.
Every summer we bring interns—about 50 of them—to experience what it’s like to work at Faithlife. Unlike many intern environments, our interns are treated like employees. We pay them, and we give them challenging jobs that help them grow into valuable employees, not leftover tasks that make them feel like the bottom rung of a corporate ladder. Every intern gets a mentor—an employee they work alongside who can walk them through their job and help them adjust to day to day life here. If they’re still enjoying their work at the end of the internship, we often keep them! (That’s actually how I got started here about a year and a half ago.)
We celebrate success and the awesome people who make it happen. We nominate each other for awards to recognize when someone is growing or goes above and beyond. We advocate on behalf of each other, so even in a company this size, no one is left to fend for themselves. We work in teams, and those teams have fun together outside of work (and even during work).
It’s official: Faithlife is one of the best places to work in the U.S. Check out our careers, or apply for one of our internships (marketing or software development), and you too could find yourself saying, “I love my job.”
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