Pray for Open Doors

We serve a great God who loves to answer prayer. In Colossians 4:3 (the verse from which the Door43 project gets its name) we are encouraged to ask that God "may open to us a door for the Word." This is the foundation of Pray for Open Doors - asking God to open doors and make possible the impossible in the task of making disciples of all nations. Please join us and pray for the needs listed here. Thank you!

Prayer Update - 6 February 2012
6 Feb 2012 - admin

Some exciting things have happened in the last couple months! We have welcomed a new full-time staff member onto the team and a number of projects are moving forward. These are the praise items and prayer needs we have right now:

  • Praise God for new staff! – Bruce Erickson has come on staff with DSM and is helping in research, accounting and strategy development. He has been involved with DSM from the beginning of the organization and his active involvement at this crucial phase is greatly appreciated!
  • Praise God for a growing network – We have had the joy of meeting many like-minded contacts in ministry at recent conferences and through the contact form on the DSM website. God is at work all over the world, raising up many who believe in the vision of unrestricted discipleship resources in every language, and on any mobile phone.
  • Praise God for meeting needs – We are very grateful to God for His provision of needed financial resources to end 2011 well. Additional staff members are crucially needed and some are ready to join the organization today. We are praying that God would raise up additional financial supporters to make it possible. Find out more about our support needs here.
  • Please pray for the writing of "the book" – Recently, work has begun on writing a book that explains the "big picture" regarding the rise of the global church, the ministry opportunities afforded by the rise of mobile phones all over the world, and the urgent need for discipleship resources that are released from copyright restrictions so that they can be used in any language without hindrance. Please pray that God would grant wisdom and clarity in the writing of the book. (And yes, it will certainly be released under the same Attribution-Share Alike license that is in use on Door43!)
  • Please pray for Open Bible Stories – We urgently need help from people who are able to review the stories in English for completeness and theological "fine-tuning" of the stories. There is also an urgent need for help Photoshopping the 500+ images that will be turned into videos of the stories. If you know of anyone who could help with either of these, please have them read this blog post to find out more. Please also pray for the translation team in Uganda, that God would open doors for more people to translate the stories into their own languages. Good progress is being made in a number of languages and we are excited to see the enthusiasm of the people as they look forward to receiving the Bible story videos in their language, soon.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 6 December 2011
6 Dec 2011 - admin

Things continue to move forward rapidly! Here's what we are praying for:

  • Call2All - The conference in L.A. went well and many new contacts were made that are already proving to be helpful to Distant Shores Media and the Door43 project. Please pray for good follow-up conversations as we find ways to work together in our common goals of using mobile phones, the Internet and multimedia to evangelize and equip believers in every language. Note: the presentation made at the conference will be on the DSM blog later this week.
  • Open Bible Translation - There continues to be a real need for an unrestricted version of the Bible in modern English and we are beginning to get going on the Open Bible Translation (see http://door43.org/bible for more). Please pray that God would raise up a team of people with the skills and qualifications to make this project succeed, so that a high quality, unrestricted version of the Bible in English will be available as the foundation for the creation and distribution of unrestricted discipleship resources.
  • Open Bible Stories - If you haven't been there recently, check out the progress being made on the Open Bible Stories Project - http://door43.org/stories! We have finally been able to get many of the illustrations uploaded and the text of the stories finished. We are excited to hear that some of the first translations into other languages are being made - stay tuned!
  • Mobile Ministry Forum Consultation - Distant Shores Media will be at the Mobile Ministry Forum Consultation in Waxhaw, NC next week. Please pray for good contacts and good communication with the more than 40 people scheduled to be there. Find out more at http://mobileministryforum.org.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 15 November 2011
15 Nov 2011 - admin

God is good! Things continue to move forward very rapidly with all things Distant Shores Media and the Door43 project. Here's what we are praying for and thanking God for:

  • The Christian Community Fair in Minneapolis this past weekend was a huge success. We had a booth there and met many people who are now part of the DSM/Door43 team - praying for open doors for the ministry and helping spread the word!
  • Board meetings were also this past weekend. It is always encouraging to meet with the godly men who help direct this organization. Please pray for continued wisdom as we seek to discern God's leading and move forward with the opportunities before us.
  • 500@30 - The "500@30 - A dollar a day for the global church" fund-raising campaign is off to a good start! We are thankful for a number of new donors and plan to get the actual numbers updated on the support page updated very soon. Please pray that God would raise up more people and churches to help make the "free + freedom" vision a reality by financially supporting DSM and the Door43 project.
  • Door43 development - We need help from web programmers who can help write some simple utilities that will set up some of the templates and configurations needed in Door43 to improve things like navigation between Bible references. Please pray for more web programmers who can spare some time to help out!
  • Open Bible Stories - We are making progress on the Open Bible Stories project and the new beta video of "The Compassionate Father" is now online! Please pray for the story-writing team and the video creation team - that we would be able to finish the stories in English very soon. Then we need people to help translate into other languages too!

Prayer Update - 1 November 2011
1 Nov 2011 - admin

Here's what we are praying for this week:

  • Shared ministry opportunities - We are grateful for how the Lord leads and the opportunities He is putting in Distant Shores Media's path. Recently, we have started working with a ministry called "Kiosk Evangelism" that develops techniques and hardware to distribute free evangelism videos for mobile phones. Listen to this account from a "mobile evangelist" they trained in India:

"Just now I transferred a full length video clip called 'Magdalena' to a college student's mobile phone through my Nokia E5 phone. Actually he is a Hindu but interested to know about Jesus and he asked me many questions like why He needed to come to earth like that. I asked him to share this clip to his classmates and he promised me that he will share it to 40 of his classmets through bluetooth. Amen... During my study days, we used to share any new clip to all our classmates. I think this is the best way to [reach] the youth."

We are excited to be working with people like this young man in India to use mobile phone technology to spread the Good News! Please pray for wisdom as we move in this direction and begin working together with Kiosk Evangelism. Note: a short clip of the video he mentioned can be seen on YouTube and the full-length film can be seen here.

  • Additional ministry resource needs - We are encouraged by the good response so far to the "500@30" fund-raising campaign. Please pray that God would raise up more people to support this ministry so that we can make the most of the opportunities before us.
  • Open doors in SE Asia - We continue to pray that God would enable us (Tim & Angie) to return to SE Asia soon to work with churches and ministry leaders there to serve in evangelism and discipleship training. Please pray that God would open this door! We hope to move there with Distant Shores Media in a year or so.

Prayer Update - 25 October 2011
25 Oct 2011 - admin

These are the prayer requests and praise items for this week:

  • Introducing: "500@30 - A dollar a day for the global church!" - We launched our new fundraising drive this week! We are asking God to raise up 500 people supporting the ministry of Distant Shores Media and Door43 at $30/month. Please pray that God would raise up the people and churches we need! Find out more at www.dsmedia.org/support and please consider joining our financial support team if you are able!
  • Praise the Lord for the new technical infrastructure - We recently fixed most of the last remaining problems with DSM's communications server and things are much more stable and reliable now. Thank you for praying!
  • Needed: volunteer web developers - We received an email this week from a Bible translation team in a Eurasian language group that is interested in using Door43 to distribute their translation of the Bible! We are excited about this but we need help to set up the "background" pieces in Door43 for their language. This will provide navigational links for their translation and keep things better organized (read more about it here). Please pray that God would raise up volunteer web developers who can create this simple web-based tools that will greatly accelerate things for Bible translation teams like these.
  • Open Bible Stories - We would like to finish the stories in English by the end of 2011, which is ambitious given the number of other projects underway. Please pray for the time and additional help we need to get this done. Also, please pray for the new translators in other languages who are interested in helping. We were contacted recently by a couple who speak Brazilian Portuguese and are interested in translating the stories - Praise the Lord! Thank you for praying with us. God is doing great things and we are thankful for your prayer and support for this ministry.

Prayer Update - 11 October 2011
11 Oct 2011 - admin

Thank you for praying for us! We have made good progress on the reconfiguration of Door43 and are thankful for the volunteers who are stepping up to help make things happen.

  • Please pray for the Bible translations on Door43 - we have a team translating in Indonesian and two other languages planning to get started soon. Pray for wisdom and efficiency in getting the projects set up
  • Please pray for the sysadmin team as we continue the transition to the new server. Things are going well - the email server was transferred over this week - but there is much that remains to be done.
  • Please pray for the Door43 development team as we seek to provide good documentation and create tutorials to help newcomers get up and running.

Thanks for praying!

Prayer Update - Oct 4 2011
5 Oct 2011 - admin

Thank you for praying! Last week we asked for prayer that God would grant the systems administration team His grace and wisdom in the task of reconfiguring the Door43 project to be better-able to support thousands of languages. We are glad to report that God has done just that! In the past week, we have been able to move far more quickly than we expected and the first phase of the project is now complete: Door43 is already running on the new server using the new configuration!

  • Please continue to pray for the team as we continue the development process for Door43 - the next step is to configure Door43 so that we can efficiently manage the information about thousands of languages and provide optimal use of the site for speakers of these other languages. A lot of research needs to go into this part of the process!
  • Please continue to pray for God's provision for this ministry - everywhere we look, we see open doors of opportunity. As mentioned last week, we have volunteers that are ready and able to move into full-time roles, but we do not have the financial resources available at the moment to bring them on. Please pray that God would provide all we need so that we can accomplish the calling He has given us.
  • Open Bible Stories - Please pray for the video team in Indonesia as they work on developing the high-resolution video clips that will be used in the videos in every language. Also, please pray for the story-writing team as much of our time has been taken up with the server reconfiguration and other projects. We would really like to be able to finish writing the Open Bible Stories in English so that they can be used as the basis for translation into other languages.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 27 September 2011
27 Sep 2011 - admin

Praise the Lord! We have begun the process of transitioning the Door43 project to a more capable and robust server. This involves a lot of configuration, testing, planning and prayer - many of the decisions we make now will have significant impact on the future of the project and how effectively it is able to support the creation of discipleship resources in every language.

  • Please pray for God's grace and wisdom as the systems administration team works through this process. We want to move as quickly as possible but need to plan things well. Thank you for praying with us for a smooth transition to the new setup.
  • Please pray for God's provision to expand the DSM team - Two volunteers have expressed interest in leaving their current employment and joining Distant Shores Media full time within the next few months. We could really use their help and are asking God to raise up people who will help provide the financial resources to enable us to bring them on. Please pray that God will bring this to pass in His time!
  • We are starting to think through the possibility of putting together a "concurrent editing" feature in Door43. This would enable people all over the world to work together on the same page in the wiki at the same time. The productivity gain would be significant, especially as we consider how to make it useful for Bible translation teams as well. Please pray that God would raise up developers who have the ability and disposition to make it happen.

We are blessed and excited to see the new things God is doing and the people He is raising up to be part of it. Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 13 Sep 2011
13 Sep 2011 - admin

Here's what we are praying for this week:

  • Praise the Lord for a great conference in Singapore! - The 4/14 Global Summit went very well and it was a great opportunity to meet many people working with media and creating resources to reach children all over the world. Read more about it (and watch the video) on the blog: 4/14 Global Summit - Singapore, 2011
  • Video creation for Open Bible Stories - We are excited to be working with the great people at Clarion Creative and getting their consultative help in developing the videos that we want to get translated into every language of the world. The videos of the Open Bible Stories are a crucial part of the project and these guys are great - they did the video for the 4/14 conference (on the blog).
  • Open doors for ministry - One of the best parts of the conference was interacting with so many people from so many parts of the world who "get" the vision of "free + freedom" and removing all restrictions for the growth of the global church. Please pray for wisdom and good communication as we follow up with these brothers and sisters in Christ and work together to create, translate & distribute discipleship resources.
  • Door43 3.0 - The biggest project on our agenda right now is configuring Door43 to support the nearly 7,000 languages in the world. This involves a significant amount of research and development as the software is currently only configured in a little over 300 languages. Please pray for wisdom and for technically-capable people who can help make this happen. Everything that we are doing depends on this, so we expect it to be a challenge with a lot of opposition.

Thanks for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 30 August 2011
30 Aug 2011 - admin

Did you know:

Think of the significance of this, especially in light of the many places in Scripture that speak of the importance of each language and people group. We are excited to see how God will continue to use the new opportunities of technology and "open collaboration" to reach even the smallest languages of the world with the Good News.

Will you pray with us for these needs:

  • Wisdom in preparing for the 4/14 Conference - We are excited to have the opportunity to present at the conference and are asking the Lord to guide us in the preparation for the time there.
  • Additional financial supporters - We believe that God is in this "free + freedom" vision and is raising up people to join our financial support team. It is exciting to have a growing number of volunteers working with us. However, we need the financial resources to meet our current budget and also to bring some of the volunteers on staff so that we can make the most of the opportunities before us. Please pray for more people to financially support this ministry!
  • Mission: Thailand - Please pray that God would open the door for Distant Shores Media to begin work in Thailand. There is a real need for people to work alongside the church there in everything from evangelism & discipleship training to translation and development of media and technical resources. We are starting to sense that this is where God would have us begin planning to serve and we are praying that He will raise up the "senders" to make it possible.
  • Praise the Lord for volunteers! - We are blessed with a great team of volunteers that make a lot of what we are doing possible. From London, UK (Java ME mobile app developer) to Pennsylvania, US (mobile technology consultant) to Idaho, US (mobile web developer) to Washington, US (network engineer) to Indonesia (web developer)... and many others scattered around the globe: God is good! And He continues to raise up people who want to be part of the vision and are using their gifts to make it happen. We are grateful to each one of them and we praise God for the way He is meeting these needs. Find out how you can get involved at www.dsmedia.org/serve.

Prayer Update - 16 August 2011
18 Aug 2011 - admin

Lots of exciting developments and some prayer needs to share with you:

  • DSM is accredited with the ECFA! - The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is one of the best-known accrediting organizations and we are glad to report that Distant Shores Media was recently accepted as a member. This means that we are committing to be open and transparent in how we use and acquire financial resources. Find out more about our accountability.
  • Growing the team - We have an urgent need for more people to help build Distant Shores Media and the Door43 project. We have been in contact with some individuals who have expressed interest in joining us and helping build this ministry. Please pray that God would grant us wisdom in how to proceed, and that He would raise up the financial supporters to make it possible.
  • Open Bible Stories - We are excited to see the progress being made in the Open Bible Stories project. More people are joining Door43 and helping draft and revise the stories. Translation recently started on the first story in Indonesian! Please pray for more people to get involved and help us translate the story into other languages. This is one of the illustrations from the story God's Covenant with Abraham:

  • Conference in Singapore - Did you know that approximately 80% of people who decide to follow Jesus do so between the ages of 4 and 14? Finding effective ways to intentionally target this demographic is the reason for the 4/14 Conference coming up in Singapore this September. In the last prayer update, you read that DSM would be represented at the conference but we have since been asked to make a presentation at the conference. Please pray for wisdom in the preparation for the conference.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 3 August 2011
3 Aug 2011 - admin

If you haven't heard the news yet, Sweet Publishing recently released nearly 3,000 Bible story illustrations under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license, meaning they can be used in Door43 and the Open Bible Stories project. The first video of the project, "The Compassionate Father" is on YouTube:

Thank you for praying! These are some other things we are praying for:

  • Mobile phone development - We are working on designing and building mobile web interfaces to the Door43 project, as well as mobile applications to make viewing and sharing the content easier. Please pray for wisdom and skill for the developers.
  • More people to help - We are grateful for the team of volunteers and staff that God has raised up to be part of DSM, but we have an urgent need for more people to help. The doors that God is opening are a real encouragement and we want to make the most of these opportunities. Please pray that God would call more people to join this ministry. A list of current personnel/volunteer needs is online at http://www.dsmedia.org/serve.
  • Growth of Door43 - Building a network of people working toward a common goal requires patience and having the right pieces in place at the right time. Please pray that God would guide us as we build the Door43 network, putting the pieces in place and inviting others to join the team. We want Jesus to be glorified and His church equipped through this project.

Thank you!

Prayer Update - 12 July 2011
13 Jul 2011 - admin

These are the needs we are praying for this week:

  • Open Bible Stories - the project is progressing well and we are aiming for a target date by when we hope to have the English version finished: September 1. Distant Shores Media will be represented at the Transform World Global Summit & the 4/14 Conference in the first week of September. Please pray that God would raise up people to help us finish the stories, record them as audio, create videos and mobile applications in time for the conference. We are building on a good foundation and it will be a challenge to make that deadline, but one we can make if the Lord opens the door.
  • Mobile phone developer - We are grateful for the mobile phone developer who is volunteering his time to create Java ME apps that will install Door43 content on the low-end mobile phones that make up nearly 2/3 of the phones in use around the world today. Please pray for wisdom and perseverance for him as he writes the code and creates innovative solutions to enable the global church to get access to the discipleship resources in the Door43 project.
  • Partnerships with churches - We are asking the Lord to continue to open doors for DSM to get connected with more churches so that we can work together in the task of "making disciples of all nations." Specifically, please pray for more opportunities to share with more congregations as well as more opportunities to serve local churches that are on a global mission. We are excited about the tools and resources that are being developed by DSM and the Door43 team, and we want to make them effective and useful to churches and believers all over the world, starting right here.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 5 July 2011
5 Jul 2011 - admin

As we see what God is doing as He opens doors for the advance of His Kingdom, we have a lot for which to be thankful, including:

  • The launch of the intro video! - The last remaining pieces were completed for the video "The future of the global church is Open", which introduces the need of the global church for discipleship resources, the opportunity presented by mobile phone and Internet technology, the obstacle to the global church that is copyright restrictions, and the vision of the Door43 project to bridge the gap and meet the need. Watch the video here.
  • Progress in the mobile aspect of Door43 - The recent meetings in London were a tremendous success and encouragement. It is always amazing to see how God works, in other people in other parts of the world, in ways that are complimentary and supportive to the vision on which we are building. We are designing (and in some cases have working prototypes of) a "mobile portal" for Door43 resources that can be accessed from any webserver as well as a mobile app creation engine for developing stand-alone applications of the resources on Door43. More updates will be made on the blog shortly.

Please pray for:

  • The FLY 2011 Youth Conference is underway and Distant Shores Media is honored to have a table there. Please pray for good contacts with the youth and that God would stir up in many a desire to make their lives count in the mandate of making disciples of all nations.
  • Open Bible Stories continues to move forward, for which we are grateful. Please pray that God would raise up people who "get" the vision of 30 Bible stories in every language, in text and mobile-ready media and will help create and translate the stories. We have been amazed at the opposition we've experienced already as we have gotten underway with the project, so please join us in praying that God would open this door for the advance of the Word.
  • Financial needs - Please join us in praying that God would raise up additional churches and individuals who financially support this ministry and "open doors" for the global church. For those of you who are part of our financial support team, thank you! You are a tremendous encouragement and a huge part of the way God is making this impossible vision possible. We appreciate you.

Thank you for praying with us!

Prayer Update - 7 June 2011
7 Jun 2011 - admin

These are the prayer needs for this week:

  • Meetings in London - A meeting is scheduled in London for later this month to meet with some others who are using mobile phone technology in global ministry. We plan to discuss ways to work together toward our common goals. Please pray that God would be glorified and that He would accomplish His will for the advance of His Kingdom during our time together.
  • Technical glitches - DSM has been hit with a number of minor but time-consuming technical glitches recently, including email configuration issues and web application problems. Please pray that God would grant wisdom so that we can resolve these issues efficiently.
  • Personnel - Along these lines, we are really in need of additional volunteers and personnel to help move this ministry forward. Please pray that God would lead the right people to be part of the team: a systems/network administrator, web developer and mobile phone developer.
  • Door43 Design Improvements - We are in the process of streamlining the design of the Door43 project, with the goal of making it easier to understand and be part of. Please pray for efficiency in the development of this new design, and that others would sense God's call to help equip His church with unrestricted discipleship resources.

Thanks for praying with us!