Worship Musician October 2019 | Page 174

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 174 October 2019 Subscribe for Free...