The By Faith

Experience

Sept 30 | 9:00am - 12:00pm CST

Every fall, The WorkFaith Connection gathers our community at the annual By Faith Breakfast to celebrate successes, hear from our graduates, and unite in support of our shared mission. As you have seen this year, the team at WorkFaith quickly moved to adapt our programming for students in response to the challenges set before us by COVID-19. And we’re doing it again! We have reimagined our annual community gathering to bring the heart of our organization into your homes.The WorkFaith Connection is excited to invite you to The By Faith Experience on September 30!

During this unique, completely virtual experience, you will hear from our lineup of inspiring featured speakers Jewel Burks-Solomon, Head of Google for Startups, US; Dave Evans, Co-founder of Stanford Life Design Lab; and Gregg Matte, Senior Pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church. And we will join together in prayer and fellowship as we seek God's guidance to provide faith-based training and coaching for long-term employment in Houston and beyond.

Stay tuned for additional event details on this page in the coming weeks. You won’t want to miss this one-of-a-kind event! Register today!

Give Now

Event Purpose

COVID-19 has left millions of Americans unemployed and desperate for a way to support their families. Although statistics show that 4.8 million jobs have been created in recent months, there is still a wide gap between companies that are hiring and people who are seeking work. To help bridge that gap, The WorkFaith Connection & Gallery Furniture, along with Houston's First Baptist Church – Downtown are hosting a unique virtual hiring event designed to connect Houstonians with employers, 2nd chance job opportunities, free resources, and so much more. Interview with hiring managers on the spot, receive tips from career experts, and engage in job readiness workshops. It’s more than a job fair, it’s a hiring expo! Register today and be on your way to a new career!

Featuring

Workshops

Building Your Resume
Branding Yourself
Interviewing 101
Mock Interviews

Employer Interaction

Live Interviews
Employment Q&A

Forward Momentum

Teaching Yourself New Skills
WorkFaith Coaching
All About WorkFaith
Volunteering
Paying It Forward

Dave

Evans

New York Times #1 Best-selling Author - Designing Your Life
Co-Founder / Stanford Life Design Lab

Dave Evans has a long history in innovation. He was part of Apple in the early days, where he led the first mouse team and introduced laser printing to the masses. Next, he was a co-founder of Electronic Arts and became the company’s first VP of Talent. After 15 successful years as a tech executive, Dave went out on his own as a management consultant assisting both startups and multinationals in strategy, marketing, and corporate culture formation. Along the way, Dave discovered his real passion is to help people discern and build the life they really want. That led Dave to co-found the Stanford Life Design Lab with Bill Burnett in 2007 with the mission of applying the innovation principles of design thinking to the wicked problem of designing your life. The Life Design Lab has enjoyed great success at Stanford and is now expanding broadly across higher education. Bill and Dave's 2016 book, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived and Joyful Life, is a #1 New York Times Bestseller, available in 23 languages worldwide.

Jewel

Burks Solomon

Head of Google Start-ups
Co-Founder / Partpic

Jewel Burks Solomon is an advocate for representation and access in the technology industry.

In March of 2020, Solomon was named the head of the new Google for Startups. This marked a return to Google, as Jewel previously managed Google events, before serving as an entrepreneur in residence for diversity markets at the top tech company, where she matched underrepresented companies with Google tools and resources.

In 2013, she received over $2 million in seed funding from notable investors like AOL co-founder, Steve Case, and Comcast Ventures for Partpic, which uses technology to provide imaging of equipment parts to facilitate maintenance and repair. As co-founder and CEO, she expanded the company, which eventually led to its acquisition by Amazon in 2016.

Jewel is a proud board member at Google Nation and the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project, and spends much of her freetime mentoring startup founders and angel investing. Jewel has been featured in notable publications such as Forbes, Wired, TechCrunch, Essence, Glamour, and Business Insider. She is a graduate of Howard University and member of the 2019 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, Zekarias.

Gregg

Matte

Senior Pastor / Houston's First Baptist Church

Gregg Matte is the senior pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church. Under his leadership, this historic church founded in 1841 has moved to the cutting edge of ministry and experienced tremendous growth. Before coming to Houston in 2004, Gregg founded Breakaway Ministries at Texas A&M University — the largest college Bible study in the nation. What started with twelve participants in his apartment grew to a weekly gathering of thousands of students each Tuesday night under his leadership.

Gregg holds a bachelor's degree in marketing from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is an author of numerous books, the latest being Difference Makers. Gregg has received the Outstanding Alumni Award from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M. He was the first pastor and youngest person to receive the honor in the history of the award. Most importantly, Gregg is married to Kelly and together they have a son and a daughter, Greyson and Valerie.