Almost time

At midnight tonight, GMT, we move into 2008, a new year. The 1st of January also marks the first day of specific content for WordLive. This is all new material created to help you and others engage with the Bible, to get to know what is is written in that old manuscript and hopefully meet with God through the experience.

It is quite interesting for me, as this time last year I was preparing for a six week sabbatical, that didn't go quite according to plan but that is another story, however, on my return to the office, in February, I was asked to join a team that were just beginning to plan the scope of the WordLive project. And now, here, a little over ten months later we are at launch.

The content that you'll find has been edited and pulled into shape by a team of editors and creatives and it would be good to give these unsung heroes a little credit as we hit the web. So in no particular order, I give you the editors and creatives who have pulled the first months content together.

'Tricia, Andrew, Phil, Lin, Eddie, Lizzie, Andrew and Wendy, Jon, John and myself. I'll tell you more about these people as we head into the new year, but just to say a big thank you to them at this time. Roll on midnight.

Prayer for today

As WordLive goes Live (in a very few hours!!), pray for all to happen smoothly.
Once it’s live, many people including church leaders will be getting news of it, some for the first time. Pray that they will be hugely excited about it - - excited enough to pass the news on!

The (almost) secret phone call

Tomorrow evening, while the world is getting ready to count down to the beginning of a new year, two people will be having an (almost) secret phone call. It won't be about the financial forecast for 2008... it won't be about the state of political affairs near and far... it will be about flicking a switch, a very important switch, a switch to make things go live. WordLive is about to go live.

Prayer for today

As people and churches reflect on the year ending and the year to come, pray that many will be prompted to think afresh about building their relationship with God through the Bible.

Prayer for today

Pray for young people and teams at Scripture Union’s New Year holidays as we raise the profile of WordLive with them.

Prayer for today

Pray for English speaking Christians around the world to come across WordLive – or be directed to it. We’d love it to be a valuable tool for other Scripture Union movements

Prayer for today

Pray for current users of Bible Reading Guides - that, recognising the potential of WordLive alongside printed notes, they encourage others to get involved in delving into the Bible.

Prayer for Today, Saturday, Sunday and then some

"On time and on budget” - Keith’s grateful reflection at yesterday’s handover from Baigent as thanks were expressed for all the human activity that has got us this far. Praise God for all the skilled and gifted people brought together for such a time as this.

On Saturday….
Think back to the start of the year when we were so encouraged by the strong response to the January appeal. (We had asked people to consider doubling their giving and that appeal brought more than twice what we might normally expect from the January appeal. ) We are still praising God for each one who gave and indicated their support for the project – please join us! And pray that God will prompt ongoing support through the 2008 January appeal!

And on Sunday…. Pray that God will continue to supply ALL our needs


Many of you will be away from your computers over the next week, but if you are able to keep praying, you might like to print off this page and focus on the following themes until you surface from the festivities!

· For real spiritual impact

· For many thousand WordLive users to come on board

· For current users of Bible Reading Guides who may appreciate the personal benefit of WordLive alongside printed notes - and be amongst the best advocates for encouraging other people to get stuck in to exploring what the Bible says

· For enthusiastic recommendation by churches, leaders and individuals

· For strong financial support, not least through the impact of the January appeal and the ability to donate through the site

· Gratitude to God that he has given us the privilege - and entrusted us with the responsibility - of this hugely significant initiative

Prayer for today

At 3pm this afternoon, our web partners Baigent will be ‘handing over’ to us the completed-for-launch version of WordLive!!!!

Praise God for bringing us to this point!

And I'd like to add some personal thanks to the peeps at Baigent, this year had been a pleasure, stressful, but a pleasure.

Prayer for today

Praise God that the beta-testing has revealed no significant glitches!

It also unleashed significant creativity, with many suggestions about content coming in which (while not all are possible from launch) do give us lots of possibilities for future development.

God is good!

Prayer for today

It’s the last full working week before the Christmas break - and in 15 days’ time WordLive will be live!

Pray that all that needs to be done will be done….

Prayer for today, Saturday and Sunday

There are meetings with our web partners Baigent today, including one for feedback from the WordLive beta testing

On Saturday….
…pray that God will prompt people to donate money so that ongoing costs are met

And on Sunday…..
….pray for an increased hunger for the Bible amongst Christians

Compassionart

Compassionart is a new charity founded by Martin Smith (Delirious?) dedicated to seeing works of art generate income for the poorest of the poor. For more information take a look at the new webste here.

Prayer for today

Praise God that (so far) the beta-testing is bringing more encouragements than major problems to be solved!

Continue to pray that the testing will bring to the team’s attention all that's necessary.

A little information

Want to know a little more about WordLive then take a look at the video found here

Prayer for today

Praise God for the enthusiasm for the project felt by staff at yesterday’s staff day of prayer and pray that we will be able to pass on that excitement to others.

Pray for Amanda, Kate, Ian and Sarah’s meeting with Halcyon today on marketing and fundraising aspects.

I didn't update yesterday as we were praying, we do that :-)

A little factoid

WordLive is made up of lots and lots of ideas, thoughts and things. For each week in WordLive we are writing, thinking and creating about forty of these.

Prayer for today

Continue to pray for those who are working hard in marketing to make people aware that WordLive is coming!

Prayer for today, tomorrow and Sunday

One of the beta testers sent an email simply saying… 'Have already tested today and it is looking FAB!'

Pray that enthusiasm and excitement will continue for beta-testers… and that they will identify all the issues we need to know about

on Saturday
Look back on this last week with gratitude to God for the big steps that have taken us forward!

…and on Sunday
Pray that many more people – Christians and not-yet-Christians – will feel drawn to delve into the Bible

Prayer for today

Let’s pray today for a strong sense of unity and common purpose amongst everyone involved in the whole project.

Prayer for today

One of the editors received this message from someone commissioned to write for WordLive:

“Not only have I learned a lot, but have really been drawn into the Lord's presence doing these. It is a tremendous encouragement to my own faith to work with Scripture in this way. Thank you.”

Praise God!

Ready, Set, Beta

Closed beta testing begins today and we're all very excited about it. Well I am, I'm not sure about those who are handling the bug reports and other process bits and pieces (a website doesn't just come into being you know).

BTW, I am Darren, I'm your host for the time being on this blog, but there are others who may just pop in and post. My role is to oversee the content that gets created for the site. That means that I spend a lot of my time filling in forms, editing text and sometimes (if I am really lucky) playing with Flash animations. I'll introduce you to other members of the team over time, there are quite a few of us, and we'll get to know each other as we journey onwards.

For those who are active in the beta test, I hope you enjoy the experience and are able to give us some constructive feedback, and for those who aren't, it won't be long now till WordLive gets released to everyone.

Prayer for today

So from one big day (thank you God!) to the next!

Today the volunteer beta-testers begin their work. Pray that they get into it, love it and adapt to the feedback process swiftly and painlessly, so that all we need to learn is picked up and acted on……..

Busy, busy, busy

It is a lovely bright and sunny morning in Bletchley, Milton Keynes and the team who are putting together WordLive, are getting ready for the private beta test that begins Tuesday 4th December. It is a weird feeling doing a beta test, the whole point of the exercise is for us to find all the bits and pieces that don't work. However, having done so much work on it already, I secretly hope that nothing shows up.

Prayer for today

The new Scripture Union web site * is due to go live today, a foundation for WordLive (and so much else). Praise God that we’ve got this far and pray especially for the internet team today as they work, watch, and - probably - worry!

*After 11 me thinks :-)