Occasionally we receive questions about the company and and the name "Fourthbook.com". Here we solve those mysteries.

The fourth book in the Bible is the book of Numbers.  The book of Numbers begins with a command from God that Moses would take a census of all the people of Israel and divided their numbers into groups.  In many ways, it’s Moses getting Israel organized in order to be more effective in their service and ministry to God.  It seemed like a memorable and relevant name, and more importantly…the domain was available!

Who developed Fourthbook.com?

Fourthbook.com was created by Rockfish Interactive.  Rockfish, based in Northwest Arkansas, is an innovative marketing and technology company providing web-based marketing communications and new media services for clients that include; Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, JB Hunt, The North American Mission Board, and many others. Visit our website for more information regarding Rockfish Interactive.

Rockfish Interactive and Fourthbook.com was founded and is led by Kenny Tomlin.  Kenny’s background spans nearly every facet of application development, from strategy consulting and creative design to usability and programming. Prior to founding Rockfish, Kenny successfully launched and managed I-Soft, Inc. a leading interactive design agency in Dallas, Texas.  Kenny also founded CustomGolf.com in the late 90’s.  As CEO of CustomGolf.com, he managed the company’s dramatic rise from a small startup to one of the most recognized golf brands on the Internet.  In 1999, Yahoo listed CustomGolf.com as one of the 10 best examples of e-commerce, putting them along side industry giants such as Amazon.com and UPS.com.  The highly successful company was sold to a private investor in 1999.

Kenny has been the Founding Member of two church plants and has participated in four church plants over the past 13 years. Kenny holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and Political Science from Southwest Baptist University and a Masters of Divinity Degree in Evangelism and Church Growth from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Combining Kenny’s practical, real-world knowledge of starting and managing a church, along with leading a cutting-edge interactive development firm ensures that Fourthbook.com will combine the best of emerging technologies along with relevant ministry and church management experience.

As the Founding Pastor of a church plant, I began looking into solutions for managing a growing contact database.  Churches have unique contact management requirements and traditional contact management tools were not flexible enough to meet my requirements.  Additionally, I wanted to be able to send emails to my contacts, record financial giving, and run detailed reports.

After visiting with other church planters, I found most were using a combination of Microsoft Excel, Quicken, Microsoft Outlook, and possibly a web-based email tool to try and meet their needs.  These multiple software applications don’t all work together, creating multiple contact databases.  Additionally, using multiple desk-top applications makes it extremely difficult to delegate some tasks out to church members – something that church plants and small to mid-sized churches often need to do.

After a little research, I did find a couple online church management applications and considered them.  However, I had a number of concerns with these options, including:

1. Pricing – Obviously a concern for most churches.
2. Learning Curve - The learning curve for these options requires training staff members (for a fee).  I wanted to be able to delegate some of these tasks to lay members who volunteer from their house.  I needed it to be easy to learn and use.
3. Feature Creep – The tools have added numerous features that most churches don’t need…this only exuberates point two above.

Therefore, Fourthbook.com was developed to meet a personal need and the needs of many other churches.  It’s inexpensive, easy to learn, and does the most important things very well. 

We are blessed at Rockfish to work with great clients utilizing the best of emerging technologies.  Working on a variety of different types of interactive projects will lead to more innovation in Fourthbook.com.

In May of 2007, only 8 months after Fourthbook.com originally launched, a number of significant enhancements were added based upon the feedback of numerous churches and my own personal experience. In addition to improving the existing areas of Fourthbook.com, a social networking component was added that allows churches to dialogue and share resources with one-another. All this was added without any increase in pricing