2021 in Review

At the end of every year we like to take the opportunity to look back on all that God has been doing, to take stock and to give thanks to him. It's obviously been a rather different kind of year in all sorts of ways. One of the things that made this year different for us here at PrayerMate is that we were celebrating the app's 10th anniversary. When Andy Geers started it back in 2011, it seemed impossible to imagine the worldwide reach it would go on to have, and we have been so encouraged to hear people's testimonies of how it has impacted their lives and the lives of those who they have prayed for. We ended up receiving so many contributions to our 10 Year Anniversary Video project that we couldn't fit them all in to one video, so we ended up making two! They both have quite a different feel to them - we hope you find them as encouraging as we did!

Statistics

In the midst of a global pandemic we have been quietly encouraged to see that people are still getting on and praying:

All told, over 110k people have used PrayerMate this year, with an average of 30k monthly active users. It reached a total of 486k downloads.

Together the PrayerMate community prayed for almost 18 million prayer items in 2021 - that's 1.5 million per month.

God is still the same God who is able to answer our prayers, and it's as exciting as ever to imagine what God might be doing in response to all of those prayers!

PrayerMate Development Update

In terms of development work, 2021 has been focussed more on the "unseen" aspects of PrayerMate. This year Google sprung a number of significant Android updates upon us that have meant rewriting significant portions of the app's internals to compensate (thank you, Matt!) This has been a little frustrating at times but very important for keeping the app working well for the future.

Our User Experience developer Josh has also been beavering away on an overhauled interface which we hope to start testing with a small number of real users early next year. It promises to address some of the inconsistencies of the existing interface and make it more intuitive, without losing the essence of what makes PrayerMate "PrayerMate". It also lays an important foundation for the future that will allow us to roll out new features much more quickly. We're really excited to share more details once it's ready!

There have also been a few more visible changes, however: for example, Android users may well have noticed the improved "Add" page, making the available prayer resources more visible:

Team Update

At the start of this year we were joined part time by developer Matt in the USA. In the middle of the year he and his wife welcomed their second child in to their family, so Matt has had to take a step back from PrayerMate. We're so thankful to Matt for all that he contributed during his time with us - it was the kind of nitty gritty detailed stuff that required a very specific skillset, and we couldn't have done it without him!

This year we are also saying a sad farewell to the second longest-serving member of the PrayerMate team, our user support agent Helen - she has been working for PrayerMate for four whole years! If you've ever contacted PrayerMate for any user support, chances are you've had an email from Helen. Do let her know how much you've appreciated her help! Andy is certainly very grateful for her patience with him and she will be greatly missed - we wish her all the best in her next adventure.

Easter Experience

Beyond PrayerMate, it was a joy to do a pilot of our new "Digital Easter Experience" project in partnership with CrossTeach. It was used by around 500 school children, helping them explore the true meaning of Easter, and we got some really encouraging feedback from them and from their schools. Hopefully CrossTeach will be able to share it more widely for Easter 2022. Here's a fun little trailer that we put together for the project:

The Serpent & The Seed: Bible Overview Mobile Game

Inspired by the success of the Easter Experience project, this year we also kicked off a far more ambitious mobile game project called The Serpent & The Seed, working through the whole Bible story in four "acts".

This project has been such a joy and a privilege to work on. Andy has been dreaming of making some kind of Bible game project since 2005 at least, so it's the culmination of nearly 17 years of thinking. God has been so kind in bringing together an amazing team, and we've been very blessed with some generous grants from various organisations and individuals who have clearly got fired up by the vision for this project, to help bring the message of the Bible to an audience who perhaps otherwise wouldn't engage.

According to the Bible Society's recent "Lumino" research project, a quarter of the UK population are "open to the Bible and finding out more", and with people spending more and more time on their mobile devices we wanted to build something which could meet people where they are at and help show the relevance of the Bible's message to our lives today - in a way that respects people's time and attention and doesn't exascerbate smartphone addiction, with natural limits on the length of each play session.

The project has certainly been an emotional rollercoaster at times, but by God's grace we have made fantastic progress this year and we believe we're in a good place as we look ahead to 2022. If anybody is at Word Alive 2022 in North Wales then you might even get a little sneak preview - depending on how things are going by then!

Financial Giving

All of the above has only been made possible because of the generous support of so many backers who have financially supported Discipleship Tech as we work on PrayerMate. Here's a quick overview of 2021 so far:

• Around two thirds of our income came from user donations/in-app patrons
• £44.8k donations
• 105 regular monthly donors (e.g. PayPal/Stewardship/Patreon) PLUS in-app patrons

Your donations have directly supported a second developer on the team, helping us to continue to invest in making improvements to PrayerMate. In 2022 we hope to roll out a completely reimagined user interface for the app across both iOS and Android, which is going to be quite a stretch for our little team. If you are able to consider making a regular monthly donation, or one off, please go to our website for details of how to set one up.

Conclusion

We are so grateful to God for all his faithfulness these past 10 years, and that PrayerMate clearly continues to be a blessing to people all these years later. We're so thankful to him too for each and ever person who has supported us along the way, whether by prayer, by giving financially, by spreading the word, or simply by getting on and using the app - you are all what makes it worthwhile! Thank you for making it such a joy to serve you all in this way.

Keep praying,
Andy Geers
Discipleship Tech CEO

PrayerMate is a free app to help you be consistent in prayer. It is a ministry of Discipleship Tech, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, Registered as a Charity in England and Wales (No: 1178838)