March 1, 2009

We're in week two of The Hope of Prayer virtual class around here. It's been quite a ride with a lot of incredible discussion so far. What I want to talk to you about this week is one of the main assumptions of the teaching: We are all in different places in our maturity, location and experience and yet God entrusts us with bringing His Kingdom. We are all under renovation and yet He is supremely pleased as any Father would be with our growth. We are all growing up. It's the "growing up" that I want to talk about.

Since the launch of the Daily Audio Bible in 2006 every conceivable thing has been thrown at this community. We've stood and we grown in the face of it all. Over the last several months the greatest challenge to this community has been it's growth! I know that sounds bizarre but it remains true. The Daily Audio Bible continues to grow to the point that it rapidly crashes whatever server it's on. To put this in perspective, at the beginning of 2009 one of our tech guru dudes (Chet) was asking around about different scenarios we were exploring and when one Internet provider found out the kind of bandwidth we use he asked, "is this a porn site?" I know that's a bit crude but it's a reality. Internet video pornography gobbles the most bandwidth on the Internet. The Daily Audio Bible gives that a run for it's money and it's an audio program. Video is far and away more resource intensive. Another provider that I spoke to hosts a very well known household name Country artist website. The DAB is far and away more popular in it's demand for resources.

Over the last month and a half you've undoubtedly come to the website only to find an error like "cannot connect to SQL" or something similar. Let me tell you what's happening when you see that. Picture the on ramp to the global Internet as a large pipe. Not a small one. Picture a huge drainage pipe. That pipe can move a lot of water. If it's full it can even expand a little based on how fast the water is moving through it but eventually it has it's limits. It can only take so much and when it's reached all it can take it will rupture. The DAB has been rupturing it's pipe and taking a whole server down in the process.

This week we got fair warning that disaster was imminent and that our provider was about to pull the plug on the whole ministry. Since then we've been looking once again for a scalable solution that can handle any eventuality. I thought we were there already but once again we've outgrown our shoes. Since we're learning to be people of prayer I'm going to step out and ask you for two things boldly.

1. PRAY for the DAB. Pray specifically that we will have favor in this transition period and that there will be no interruptions to this community. Pray that we can quickly identify and implement a final solution and pray that any warfare set against this family will be shattered before it gets here. We bring the cross of Jesus Christ between the DAB family and any malicious plan of the evil one against us.

2. GIVE. I am not a fundraiser. I don't want to be and I've been specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit not to ever make this ministry about the money. I won't do that but there is a need. We're going to have to "mirror" the DAB redundantly so that there are multiple sources spread over many servers and that only adds to everything else that's going on here. While you are praying if you a get a sense from Jesus that you should partner together with the DAB then I am asking this once that you do not ignore that nudge. Enough said.

The good news is that more people worldwide are coming into contact with what is now becoming a movement. Expose yourself to the Word of God everyday and you will never be the same. The great news is that this is really God's problem and there is no fear. Just peace.

Onward Comrades,