Featured App: Open Door Presbyterian Church (ODPC)
The official Open Door Presbyterian Church app “provides a easy and simple access to ODPC sermons, news, live broadcastings and useful resources anywhere in the world.” For a large Korean American congregation in Northern Virginia, that means sermons, worship music and Bible teaching travel with members wherever they go.
Open Door Presbyterian Church (열린문장로교회), known as ODPC, is based in Herndon, Virginia, and serves the greater Washington D.C. area, including Virginia and Maryland. Its app is built with AppPresser and powered by the church’s WordPress website.
In this featured app spotlight, we take a closer look at the team behind ODPC, what the app does, who it serves, and why it is such a strong example of what happens when a WordPress site and a mobile app work together.
Who Is Behind Open Door Presbyterian Church
Open Door Presbyterian Church held its founding service on January 1, 1984, when about 40 families, 68 adults in all, gathered to worship together. According to the church’s own history, the congregation started in Arlington, moved to McLean, and settled at its current home on Centreville Road in Herndon. When the church marked its 40th anniversary in 2024, Manna 24 reported that about 3,000 people were attending. The church’s vision, repeated throughout its website, is to be a community where grace comes, stays and flows (은혜가 임하고 은혜가 머물고 은혜가 흐르는 교회), and its English site invites people “to be an open door to a life-changing grace.”
The church has had five senior pastors. Rev. Paul Kim (김용훈) became senior pastor in 1992 and led the congregation for more than three decades. In April 2024 he retired and Rev. Joseph Kim (김요셉) was installed as the fifth senior pastor. Pastor Joseph Kim moved to California with his family in 1984, studied at Biola University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, first joined ODPC as an associate pastor in 2001, and returned in 2011 after serving as the senior pastor of a church plant. At his installation he described a goal of building on the church’s vision of a community of grace and helping ODPC become a model immigrant church, interdependent with the second generation.
ODPC’s ministry reaches well beyond Sunday morning. Small groups called Oikos gather for fellowship and study, and there are ministries for children (including Awana), the Grove youth group, the NExT and Klema young adult communities, a Korean school, an English speaking congregation, and outreach such as ESOL classes and Love Herndon. Korean language worship runs at 7:30, 9:20 and 11:20 on Sunday mornings, with NExT worship at 1:45 in the afternoon, along with weekday morning prayer services and a Saturday dawn service. All of it is gathered at opendoorpc.org.
What the ODPC App Does
The ODPC app brings the church’s sermons, music and teaching into one place on the phone. It is organized around the same content the church publishes to its website, so new sermons, Bible lessons and worship recordings show up in the app as they are posted. Most of the content is in Korean, the primary language of the congregation.
Here are the main areas the app covers:
- Sermons from the church’s Sunday services, presented as cards with the title, the preacher and a short summary.
- News and announcements from the church community.
- Live broadcasts, so members who cannot be in the sanctuary can still join worship.
- Media, including ODPC worship songs recorded for Passion Week from 2018 through 2023.
- Bible teaching such as the 열리는 성경 (Opening the Bible) series, with numbered lessons and audio.
- Sign language interpreted sermons (수어통역말씀), so Deaf and hard of hearing members can follow the message.
- Search on every screen, to find a sermon or lesson quickly.
What makes the ODPC app distinctive is how much of a large church’s teaching ministry it carries. A member can go from a Passion Week worship song to a numbered Bible lesson to a sign language interpreted sermon in a few taps, all in the congregation’s own language. For a church whose members are spread across Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C., that kind of access “anywhere in the world” is exactly the point.
App Screenshots
Here is a look at the app. Use the arrows or the numbered buttons to move through the screenshots.
Test Drive the App
The best way to understand the ODPC app is to try it. Download the app on iPhone or iPad, listen to a worship song in Media, and then open the latest sermon.
Key Features That Stand Out
Media
The Media section collects ODPC’s worship music, with each entry showing cover art, a title and a short description. The screenshots show songs the church recorded for Passion Week (고난주간), including releases from 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Some posts include notes such as sheet music and a link to listen in the browser, so members can sing along with new songs.
Bible Reading
The 열리는 성경 (Opening the Bible) series walks through Scripture in numbered lessons, such as 성경관통 07 and 08, each with its own audio. Large cards make it easy to see where you are in the series and pick up the next lesson. It turns the app into a steady companion for anyone working through the Bible at their own pace.
Sign Language Interpreted Sermons
A dedicated section, 수어통역말씀, offers sign language interpreted sermons. Each card shows the sermon title and the opening of the message, from sermon series to guest preachers. Giving this ministry its own place in the app shows a real commitment to making the Word accessible to every member of the congregation.
At a Glance
- Built for Open Door Presbyterian Church in Herndon, Virginia, founded in 1984.
- Sermons, news, live broadcasts, worship music and Bible teaching in one app.
- Content primarily in Korean, the language of the congregation.
- A dedicated section for sign language interpreted sermons.
- Search available throughout the app.
- Free on iPhone and iPad, first released in May 2020.
- Powered by the church’s WordPress website through AppPresser.
Who ODPC Serves
First and foremost, the ODPC app serves the church’s members. With thousands of people attending and worship services spread across Sunday morning and afternoon, the app gives everyone the same easy path to the week’s sermon, the latest news and the live broadcast, whether they worship in person or follow along from home.
It also serves Korean speaking families across the Washington D.C. area and beyond. The App Store listing promises access to ODPC’s sermons and resources “anywhere in the world,” so members can keep hearing their church’s teaching in their own language wherever they are.
Finally, it serves members who need content in a different form. The sign language interpreted sermons make worship accessible to Deaf and hard of hearing members, and the audio Bible lessons suit anyone who prefers to listen rather than read.
Technology Behind the App
The ODPC app is powered by Open Door Presbyterian Church’s own WordPress site, opendoorpc.org.
The app is built from WordPress, and WordPress drives it. Sermons and church news live on the WordPress site, and AppPresser carries that content straight into the app, so updates made on the site show up in the app without a separate system to manage.
Looking at the site itself, these are the platforms behind the experience:
WordPress, the foundation for the church’s website. WordPress is the open source content management system that powers more websites than any other platform.
A custom ODPC theme, built for the church.
AppPresser, which turns the WordPress site into the mobile app. AppPresser is a mobile app builder that creates native iOS and Android apps from a WordPress site.
What ODPC Shows About AppPresser
Open Door Presbyterian Church runs its website on WordPress, and that site already publishes a large volume of sermons, prayer services, Bible lessons and worship recordings. The ODPC app shows how AppPresser can take that existing library and present it as a clean, native feeling mobile experience, without asking church staff to publish everything twice.
It also shows that AppPresser works in any language. The app’s menus, titles and summaries are in Korean, and the layout handles them just as cleanly as English. For immigrant congregations and international ministries, that flexibility means the app can speak to people in the language they worship in.
And it shows how an app can serve accessibility, not just convenience. Because each WordPress category can become its own section, a ministry like sign language interpreted sermons can have a dedicated home in the app, right next to the music and Bible teaching.
Congratulations to Pastor Joseph Kim and the Open Door Presbyterian Church family on building an app that carries the church’s teaching to members anywhere in the world. We are proud to have AppPresser behind it.
Do You Want Your Own App?
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Not on WordPress yet? AppPresser can still help. Our team can move your website onto WordPress and then set up your app, so everything works together from the start. And if you need something more tailored, from custom features to a completely custom app, our custom development services have you covered.
If you need help or have any questions, tell us about your organization and what you’d like your app to do, and we’ll get back to you with a clear answer on costs and next steps.
