We are excited to share with you the upcoming changes to The Journey. And over the next couple weeks you will be hearing a lot about how to get your hands on the new process materials. For those of you insiders to the process and leading the process, let me give you a bit of sneak peek of what to expect.
It has been five years since we last made substantive changes to the process. As we have listened these last few years we continue to be amazed by the consistency of lives awakened and lives deepened in Jesus’ name through The Journey.
To recap, at its core, the Journey is a meaningful walk with a group of people, guided by three primary questions:
- Question #1: Who is God?
- Question #2: Who am I?
- Question #3: What does God desire to do through me?
Our enhancements and revisions have focused on strengthening Question #3 within the process. We are seeking to foster a supportive and challenging set of conversations around life purpose and vision and where God is inviting participants to deepened kingdom life and influence … where might God be inviting us to join in and contribute out of who we are?
Stages 1 and 2
The substantive changes to The Journey are found in Stage 3: Relational Foundations. Besides the new look of The Journey there has been some very minor editing and enhancements within Stage 1: Biblical Foundations and Stage 2: Personal Foundations. The same page numbering remains intact within the first two stages.
Stage 3: Relational Foundations
Sessions 1-3 will look familiar; some things have been subtracted and others have been added to offer greater focus to the importance of Jesus relational way with us and through us. Sessions 4-6 cover new and improved ground by providing more focused conversation and an increased laboratory for exploration into the uniqueness of who each participant is and how God may be inviting them to grow and contribute out of who they are.
- Session 4: Your Talents and Gifts– In this session we will explore the particular talents and gifts God has given us for the functioning and flourishing of the body of Christ. We will do this by discussing the results of our CliftonStrengths assessment and our spiritual gift survey (gifts.churchgrowth.org).
- Session 5: Embracing a Sense of Calling– In this session we invite participants to reflect upon key elements included in The Journey process, so they might better understand and move toward a sense of God’s specific calling in their lives. (personal vision exercise)
- Session 6: Next Steps on The Journey– This session will encourage you to consider, in the company of friends, what next steps of growth toward kingdom life and influence God is inviting you to.
Supplemental Books
We have decided to keep the same additional books as we have in years past with two adjustments. Michael Card’s The Walk: The Life-Changing Journey of Two Friends and its emphasis on the incarnational nature of the Christian faith will be suggested for Stage 1. As The Journey draws to a close in Stage 3, Henri Nouwen’s In The Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership and its challenge to move toward a deeper sort of Christian leadership for the 21stcentury (one that is prayerful, vulnerable, and trusting) will be the suggested book. We feel like the adjusted timing of these book conversations will strengthen the learning for participants. David Benner’s The Gift of Being Yourself will remain in Stage 2. Our second adjustment is that StrengthsFinder 2.0: Discover Your CliftonStrengths by Tom Rath will the recommended book (assessment) for the StrengthsFinder assessment.
Keep a lookout for upcoming communications about how to get your hands on The Journey 2018 and how to take advantage of some unique Summer 2018 facilitator training and refreshing opportunities.
Thanks for journeying with us. Our prayer for Journey participants and facilitators remains: May you come to discover more deeply who God is, who you are, and what God desires to do through you.
