FILO’s Todd Elliott
by Bruce Adolph
[WM] Todd, first of all, as someone myself who
has produced a lot of training conferences for
churches, I have to say that I love the name of
your events… FILO. It’s so simple, yet brilliant.
Tell our readers the concept behind your name?
[Todd Elliott] Somewhere along my journey,
the phrase “First In, Last Out” got into my head.
I don’t remember the exact moment, but I used
it as the name of a blog I started back in 2006.
Fast forward to 2014, and I gathered a small
group of people to help me brainstorm the idea
for what would become the FILO Conference.
When it came time to figure out a name, the
team jumped on using the name of the blog as
the title of the event.
[WM] You have a background with Willow for a few years before the conversation with Conference. They were gathering church tech
Creek and their technical production side. Tell Willow Creek happened. Making the move to people together on a much larger scale. At a
us about your history with them and how out of Willow Creek is a long story and one that could certain point that conference ended, but the
that grew into the FILO event? have only been God’s idea. I loved where I was need to gather tech people was still super
and was excited about what God was doing at important in my mind, and so the production
Kensington and I never wanted to leave. staff team at Willow Creek shifted to help host
[Todd] The idea of gathering tech people
an event called Gurus of Tech.
together has been a passion of mine since
the mid-90’s when I was trying to just build But once God made it clear that we needed community for myself. At the time, I was to leave everything we loved and follow Him, it In many ways, FILO is a continuation of the
working at Kensington Church in Troy, MI and was exciting to then become a part of Willow spirit of Gurus. When I felt it was time to move
we were bringing church tech people together Creek and therefore, the Willow Creek Arts on from my role at Willow Creek, I thought
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October 2019
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