Winter, spring, summer, and fall. These seasons reliably follow one another. The particular highs and lows, sun and clouds, rain and droughts will vary within the season. But we can absolutely count on winter following fall, spring following winter, and so on.
On the prairie where I live, Fall brings the arrival of the migrating geese to the small lake that sits in front of our home. Very predictably, at dusk every evening, we can first hear the geese honking from afar. Then, louder and closer. In perfect formation, the geese follow each other with wings set, down, down, circling, slowing, and gliding onto the water. It’s truly like an aircraft landing—every time. The flight formation of geese has likely captured your attention as well. They are good followers.
At VantagePoint3, we, too, have been doing our own following over the last two years. We have been seeking to faithfully follow the Spirit’s lead in our strategic and creative decisions. As a staff team, sitting on the deck of a colleague’s home during our annual Team Days in September 2022, we asked the question, “What is the most impactful thing we could do as a ministry – whether we had the resources or not?” We sensed in a compelling, encouraging, gentle wind-of-the-Spirit-kind-of-way that refreshing The Journey process would have the most impact. We all sensed it. And over the last two years, we have never wavered from following what we discovered that day.
With that focus in mind, we are working on a Journey refresh right now. And because of this work, we hope to see:
- Renewed energy and enthusiasm among those familiar with our process, perhaps saying, “Oh, this is the same…just better!”
- The variety of audiences using the Journey expanding. Originally, The Journey was created for emerging leaders inside the local church. We have been surprised over the last few years by marketplace and home groups adopting the Journey for a deeper discipleship. As well as a swell of use in recovery communities hungry for life with God and pathways to transformation.
- More developmentally-minded Christian leaders trying out the Journey because we make it simpler to “taste and see” what The Journey is all about. Our research shows that a small group that commits to the first eight sessions will, over 80% of the time, commit to the entire 21-week process.
We hope you catch the enthusiasm that we feel as we faithfully follow the work we feel called to do and have embraced.
As we turn the calendar toward the end of the year, we are grateful for so many friends who are “with us” and share in this good work of catalyzing the depth and maturity of adults in Christ. We hope that you might begin to prayerfully consider investing in our Journey Refresh project in the weeks ahead. Our expenses for a project of this magnitude are about $110,000.
As Christian leaders, may we each faithfully follow what we cannot completely see, but trust what we sense to be true in the nuanced settings and seasons of our life with Christ, individually and collectively.
