Where will people get the time?

A question that frequently comes up regarding Door43 is: "where will people get the time to create discipleship resources?" This is a good question and while there are no guarantees, there are indicators suggesting a change is occurring in society (and, we assume, also in the church) where many people are spending less time as only consumers of entertainment and are starting to use free time to create, communicate and collaborate on projects of eternal significance. In a recent Wired.com article, the following points were mentioned:

• Creating Wikipedia took 100 million hours of work.
• Americans watch ~200 billion hours of TV each year.
• The average person born in 1960 has watched more than 5 1/2 straight years of TV (and some estimates are higher).
• Computer and mobile phone technology makes it so people can both consume and produce, pooling their free time for activities they like and care about.
• The idea of "free & open" has a proven track record of success in the computer world, where open-source software (e.g. Linux and Apache) that is available at no cost and with the freedom to re-program it for any use, powers everything from mobile phones to supercomputers to the Internet.
• "We do things because they’re interesting, because they’re engaging, because they’re the right things to do, because they contribute to the world."

What does this have to do with Door43? In Door43, we are attempting to provide a platform where believers all over the world can tap into their "cognitive surplus" of time and production capability to help create a new generation of unrestricted discipleship resources for the specific goal of equipping the global church to grow in spiritual maturity. Time will tell, but the initial response we have received is very encouraging. Now that the platform is (finally) ready for use, we look forward to connecting with others who want to be part of this movement.

Photo credit: Brooks Elliott