ABOUT

Founded in 2007 out of a church in Pasadena, CA, Deidox’s story is a long and windy rode of making media for the Kingdom. Its founders, Brent Gudgel & Dave Mahanes, had traveled the world for several years working with large ministries and filming people of great faith. But, they were getting hired to tell marketing stories where the goal was to build the ministries. During this time they were profoundly impacted by seeing how God was at work around the world, but they weren’t allowed to lean into the “God stories” they were discovering. So, in 2007 Deidox was founded as a way to focus on telling stories of how God was at work.

For the first 15 years, the Deidox filmmakers were bi-vocational, meaning they made films at Deidox as much as they were able, but it was in between other “tent making” projects. They had projects on Showtime, Hulu, and for the Olympics, among others. Traditionally, media production is incredible cost-prohibitive (expensive!), and since Deidox operated on a shoestring budget it remained a passion project the team wished they could do more. They prayed that if God ever wanted it to be full-time He would make it clear.

Their common refrain was the phrase, “be faithful with what we’ve been given.”

Over time, while staying bi-vocational, Deidox assembled a network of dozens of collaborators and produced 55 projects. Their short films were used by over 3,500 pastors during their sermons, in addition to being released online and at film festivals. Next came a 30-minute documentary, The Ordinance, about an inspiring partnership between Baptists & Catholics, leading to the passing of laws across the country to limit predatory payday lending. 

Then, after years of focus on “faithful steps” as a ministry, Deidox was blessed to bring their unique approach to the big screen with the acclaimed theatrical documentary Free Burma Rangers. It was a new type of Christian documentary, told in a new kind of faith-filled documentary, and the result was spectacular. Francis Chan called it “the best Christian film I’ve ever seen.” Amazon had over 2,000 5-star reviews. It’s now available on Amazon Video, Sony’s Great American Pureflix, RightNowMedia, and more. It was truly special – too special for any person to have done on their own – and the team credits the Holy Spirit as the ultimate author of Free Burma Rangers.

After Free Burma Rangers, the team of Deidox collaborators wished they could do more but to support their families they faithfully returned to a bi-vocational approach, until… 

In the summer of 2022, Brent lost both of his “tent making” gigs in the same day. Over the next six months all the things that traditionally work would suddenly get shut down at the last minute. In December, he and his wife finally admitted that God was funneling him to commit full-time with Deidox as the Executive Director. This was December of 2022, and there was enough money in the account for one month! But they felt it was what God wanted so they took the leap. (Watch a video about that transition here, called “A Supernatural Year in 7 Stories”).

The goal was first to take prayerful and faithful steps, and then to start building Deidox out into a more fully functioning nonprofit organization, Brent and the board started praying through the vision, mission, and path forward. At the end of January, a day before payroll was scheduled to run, money unexpectedly showed up in the account. They took this as a miracle and encouragement to keep going. Then in February it happened again on the day before payroll. For six months they did not know how they would pay bills and then right before the end of the month the funding would somehow show up. And after six months, He provided enough for two months so that they could rest in the seventh month (July). It was incredible.

Throughout this year God has brought other volunteers on to pray and take steps forward with the team.

2023 was a year of new foundation laying – a time of wonderful stretching and God showing His wonderful faithfulness. Mid-year the team shifted the brand Deidox (God documentaries) ever-so-slightly to include the tagline “God’s stories, for God’s glory.” They also prayerfully developed five new proof-of-concepts for future projects and technology platforms to enable media to reach the ends of the earth.

2024 is a year of building the new frame for the ministry. In April a donor generously provided the means to fund Andrew Alkema to come on full-time as Executive Director so that Brent could shift his focus back into directing content and mapping out media blueprints which others can run with.

Miraculous, an audio series about modern miracles, was also launched in 2024 and is being led by Brent’s better half, Danielle Gudgel, bringing the couple into full-time ministry together. Danielle, a trained teacher built out the series and then led a first training cohort to equip others in the Deidox storytelling style. The team of three also began working towards using miraculous as a new type of outreach that can use media to share God’s love with Gen Z.

It’s at this point that something should be made clear – the new vision is beautiful, but what it can become does not yet exist. Deidox is in the “garage” phase, and as far as they know what is being built are things the world has never seen. The foundation may be laid, but God will need to call other pieces and partners into place to bring it to fruition. So, the team is committed to not forcing the future vision but trusting the Lord to lead into it.

Would God call you into this work with them? They are praying for and looking for the people who feel similar about the need for media missionaries to create and send God’s stories into culture. Partners, collaborators, volunteers – whoever God would call to this work if God wants it done.

In Brent’s words: “The new vision is big. Far bigger than we can or should strategize. So we give it all back to Him, we lay it all down, and we ask that He would call others to join if this is truly what He wants. And if He does… let’s go! For His glory.”