Door43:Project, Process, Platform

From Door43

Where does Door43 fit in with the concept of "missions"?

There is more need than ever before for cross-cultural ministry, in people groups all over the globe. However, it is important that mission strategy reflect Biblical models and take into account the changing contexts of societies around the world. It is easy to continue in a traditional missions strategy that has changed little in the past 200 years without realizing that there are new opportunities for more effective and long-lasting ministry if we are willing to consider new approaches to the task of making disciples of all nations. Some of these new opportunities are the direct result of globalization (read more at http://www.dsmedia.org/vision):

• Travel anywhere in the world is easier than ever before.
• Communications capabilities are improving at an unprecedented pace.
• Mobile phone technology and the Internet are penetrating the last regions of the globe and bridging the digital divide.
• The global church is rising up with a call from God to equip their own people for discipleship and take the Good News to the people groups around them.

An essential key to missions, especially in light of these opportunities, is to equip the global church to function independently using reproducible models that do not require outside involvement for the ministry to continue.

So with that as an introduction, the relationship between Door43 and cross-cultural ministry can best be understood by thinking of Door43 as a project, a process and a platform.

Door43 as a Project

Door43 is maybe easiest to understand as a project to create free & open discipleship tools, using a wiki. Discipleship tools on http://door43.org can be created, translated, adapted, improved and redistributed anywhere in the world, in any language, for any ministry purpose without cost or copyright restrictions.

Door43 as a Process

In addition to being a project, Door43 can also be thought of as a process. Traditionally, discipleship resources have been created using a book-publishing model: it is written behind closed doors by a small group of people and the resource does not exist until it is published as a finished product, which may be expensive to acquire (and of no use to people from other languages and cultures).

Door43 is different in that it will always be an ongoing "work in progress" that is built in the open on the Internet by anyone who wants to be a part of it. As long as people keep improving it, adding new content, translating it and adapting it for use in other languages and cultures, Door43 will always be in a state of being improved. Instead of waiting to release a finished product at the end, Door43 is the process of creating the discipleship tools. Every improvement or new addition to the content is immediately published as soon as the contributor clicks "save" in the wiki.

Door43 projects may have milestones (such as version numbers or dated revisions) to keep things clear and easily usable. But the entire approach to Door43 is fluid by design. This is especially important when we work with smaller language groups (for instance, some only have 1,000 speakers) because their languages can change very rapidly. A book-publishing model is very costly and can easily be rendered ineffective if the language changes so fast that the printed book becomes incomprehensible to the speakers of the language within a few years.

By adopting a process model (instead of a product model) for creation and translation of free & open discipleship tools, it also makes it very easy and very inexpensive to correct errors or improve the choice of words in the content. In a product-oriented approach, these changes are very costly and difficult to make but in a process-oriented model such as Door43, the changes can be made in minutes and the improved work is immediately accessible anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously.

Door43 as a Platform

Door43 is also a platform for cross-cultural ministry where the objective is to equip a people group with free & open discipleship tools, translated and adapted for effective use in their culture. Ministry ventures using this model might focus on preaching and teaching the Word of God, but also teaching people how to access & use the Door43 wiki, how to translate & adapt existing materials, how to create and adding new material and how to maintain their discipleship tools over time.

An example

A cross-cultural ministry team goes to India.

A team of 3 families goes to a language group in India to work with local believers and pastors to equip them with discipleship tools in their own language. They start the work with an exit strategy in place and a project timeline of 3 years.

• A significant part of their time at the beginning is spent learning the language, being part of the culture and developing friendships.

• Using existing technological infrastructure, they develop sustainable access to Door43.org. This could be through Internet cafes, mobile phones, personal computers, etc. The goal is to ensure that the entire process is reproducible without ongoing dependence on outside resources.

• They use the Door43 resources to teach the Bible (in the target language as much as possible) and build up the local churches and leaders, laying a foundation for ongoing ministry after they are gone.

• Working together with the church leaders and technically-capable believers in the language group, the team teaches them how to translate, adapt and contextualize the Door43 content into their own language.

• The believers in the target language group are in the "driver's seat" from the very beginning of the project. They know that the burden of the work is and will be on their shoulders, and they approach the work accordingly, making suggestions and improvements where needed so that they are able to function effectively.

• Nearing the end of the project, the believers in the language group are using the Door43 material efficiently and have designated a younger person as the typist and website editor for their language. Interest has been raised in two neighboring language areas and plans are already being made to send people from their own language group to churches in the nearby language groups to teach them the Bible and how to access, translate, adapt and use the discipleship tools on Door43.org.

• After returning to their home country, the ministry team stays in touch with their friends in the language group in India, remotely helping with their projects on Door43. A return visit is planned a couple years later to encourage the believers and assist them in additional ministry projects.