You believe it. You have meant to pray for years. And most mornings the phone gets to you first.
Tekton is forty days for a man who wants to be nearer to God, to himself, to his people and to his work. Each day is one passage of the King James Bible, prayed in your own words. One practice for the body. Two lines laid down at night. It takes a few minutes in the morning and a few before bed.
A man who wants
to be nearer.
He might be in church every Sunday, or he might not have been in years. He might never have prayed out loud. What he needs is a place to begin and a shape that holds.
You pray when it is hard, and forget when it is not.
You want words with God that are your own.
You want the people in your house to have a steadier man.
You would rather not walk it alone.
If one of these is true, it was built for you.
Every day has
three movements.
The passage changes every morning. The shape does not.
Pray the Word
Read the passage once. Then speak to God yourself, out loud or not, and be still for one minute.
The practice
One thing for the body: breath, silence, a walk, a slow reading, with a quiet sound under it if you want one.
Lay it down
Two lines before sleep, and the day is set down. Nobody reads them but you. On five nights, three plain questions ask how you are carrying it.
One passage a day.
The King James Bible, every verse checked against two editions before it was set. Forty days in four stretches of ten, in the order a life is built.
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
- oneThe yoke
- twoStill
- threeWith all thy might
- fourThe morning watch
- fiveA solitary place
- sixThey that wait
- sevenO man
- eightSearch me
- nineAbide
- tenThe shut door
- elevenKeep thy heart
- twelveNot your own
- thirteenRuleth his spirit
- fourteenTemperance
- fifteenQuit you like men
- sixteenNot conformed
- seventeenA clean heart
- eighteenSwift to hear
- nineteenYea, yea
- twentyIt is finished
- twenty-oneGave himself
- twenty-twoWhen thou sittest
- twenty-threeProvoke not
- twenty-fourExcept the LORD build
- twenty-fiveAs for me
- twenty-sixIron
- twenty-sevenBefore the sun goes down
- twenty-eightAccording to knowledge
- twenty-nineAnd ran
- thirtyOf such
- thirty-oneHeartily
- thirty-twoThe least of these
- thirty-threeFirst
- thirty-fourLean not
- thirty-fiveHere am I
- thirty-sixFaithful over a few things
- thirty-sevenWorkmanship
- thirty-eightThe resurrection, and the life
- thirty-nineWhithersoever
- fortyThe blessing
Days in oxblood carry the words of Christ, which the app sets on a face of the same color.
Borrow his.
Some mornings nothing comes. Every passage offers four ways in, and any of them is prayer when you mean it.
The body prays too.
Nine practices, each older than the phone it runs on. Take the day’s, or pick one. The screen goes dark while it runs. That is the design.
- BreathFour counts in, six out, a ring that breathes with you.
- SilenceNothing to produce. One line, then nothing.
- Walking prayerFor a man who cannot sit still.
- The examenThe evening look back, in five moves.
- Slow readingOne passage, three times, until a word reaches for you.
- The morning watchBefore the phone. The first words of the day go to God.
- The closetA place with a door. Shut it.
- The tableOne meal, no screens. You speak last.
- The blessingSaid out loud, over your own, by name.
The sun comes up anyway.
Over the forty the sun rises with the calendar, whether you are watching or not. Each day you pray leaves a ray of light, and a night laid down lengthens it. A missed day leaves nothing and says nothing.
Under it, the way you have walked so far, by the names of the days. Tap one and the day opens again: its passage, and the two lines you laid down that night. On day forty the rays close all the way round the sun, and after it the days you missed are drawn in for you.
A beam is carried by two.
Name a man and Tekton goes to him in a text from your phone, into a thread you already have. The text is an invitation, not a copy of the app: he buys Tekton for himself, $4.99 once, or you can give it to him from the App Store. Then he begins his own forty on the day he chooses.
Every seventh day you are given one question to ask him, by call or across a table, never in the app. You will not see how his forty is going unless he tells you.
He gets the app for himself.
What spoke to you, kept.
Keep any passage and it waits for you in the order of the Bible, beside every night you laid down. Find any of it by a word. After the tenth night, the look back lays your own lines out in order and asks what has changed in you.
Set a passage on one of the paintings, for your Lock Screen or to send to a man. When the forty are done, the turned field becomes a keepsake with your name on it, and the Word keeps coming, a passage each morning.
Made to be put down.
No written prayers
The passage is read, then the app goes quiet and leaves the talking to you. What you say is between you and God.
No score
Nothing counts your days. There is no streak and no badge, and the only reminder is a morning bell, if you set one.
Nothing leaves the phone
There is no account, no server and no tracking. What you write stays on your phone, with a copy in your own iCloud so a new phone brings it back. You can turn that off.
It never asks where you were.
Not a church, not a counselor, and not a substitute for a real brother in a real room.
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon?Mark 6:3
Tekton is the word his hometown used for Jesus. It means a builder, a craftsman in wood and perhaps in stone, and it is the root of architect. Until he was about thirty it was the trade his neighbors knew him by. One of the earliest Christian writers says he made ploughs and yokes, and he offered one: my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The app was built in the fall of 2026 by a photographer, after a hike with the men of his church. He made it for himself first, and then for them.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Matthew 11:28the words of Christ
Day one is yours to choose.
Coming to the App StoreFor iPhone, iOS 16 or later. $4.99 once for each man, and nothing renews.
In testing now with a small group of men. If you were asked to test, begin on TestFlight.