How to Start Journey in Your Ministry

The Need

Although the Great Commission says to make disciples, it is happening so slowly. Recent research shows that only 1% of U.S. church leaders believe that churches are doing well.Pastors have confidence in only 5% of their adults to care for and teach a new Christian. And Christians who lack confidence in their faith will not witness.Begin discipling with Journey and you'll see real multiplication in 25 to 30 weeks.Journey is producing disciple makers in 44 countries and has been translated into 28 languages.

The Advantages and Benefits of Using the Journey Discipleship Lessons

* Journey was designed in the context of planting a church.* Journey is one book that contains discipleship and training to disciple.* The eFold and eTract from e3 Resources, available at 1-617-791-7895 or 1-888-354-9411, or by emailing [email protected]. A movie demonstrating the most effective way to use the eFold is available from author [email protected].* The disciples can begin to witness after completing lesson one with the Spiritual Map tool, which is mentioned in lesson 1.* People learn to answer the “water cooler questions,” real-life interactions that allow them to witness and share the Gospel.* Offerings grow each time a disciple completes Lesson Five.* It is easier to double two people than a group of 5, 10, or more. The results are much higher with one-on-one.* One-on-one allows everyone to focus their time on those who are receptive and ready to grow.* More people will want to disciple when they know it is one-on-one.* You can lay your head down on the pillow at night, peacefully knowing that everyone who wants to move forward in their Christian life can do so.* The lessons are designed to get the disciples into the Bible every day, with 2 Timothy 2:2 is in action.* One-on-one discipleship can duplicate/triple your best people.* With Journey, anyone can speak to one person. Fear of public speaking is not an issue. However, many disciplers will become great teachers of groups for your ministry.* Offerings increase every time a disciple finishes Lesson 5.

Review the Lessons

Begin by visiting the website “OrderJourney.com”Add “SAMPLES Journey & Student Journey plus two booklets - Free Shipping” for $19.95 and checkout.When the Samples arrive, walk through the pages, noticing the “sticky notes” printed in the samples, which show you what is happening in that section.You will receive a booklet titled Outlines and another titled Multipliers. Each booklet provides a view of key elements in Journey.The sample set can be shared with many people.Notice that Journey is supported by online resources for each lesson, including:* Involvement Points, which provide the disciplers with leadership guidance.* Water Cooler Questions and Suggested Answers.* Downloadable witnessing tools.

How to Start Discipling in Your Ministry with Journey

1. Personally Disciple

Make a committed decision to personally become a discipler. Be an example in discipleship.Meet every week with your disciple. You and your wife should disciple as many as possible.If the leaders do not personally disciple, the discipleship ministry will not continue.By modeling effective discipleship, you can provide practical examples of navigating various situations and challenges that may arise during the one-on-one discipleship process.Sharing your own experiences and insights can also encourage and inspire disciplers.

2. Count the CostCount the cost in time, resources, plans, strategy, and schedule.  What programs must you subtract for discipleship to expand?  What time must you give it?  How will you change your official church schedule for Discipleship?One-on-one discipleship can duplicate your best people. Get a vision for multiplying the sheep, as our Lord commanded.Even if some good ministries must be put on hold temporarily, more ministries can return with qualified, discipled, faithful members.Every time a disciple completes Lesson 5, the offerings go up. So count the cost of not multiplying one-on-one disciple-makers, too.

3. Begin to pray and think about how one-on-one discipleship will be in your church schedule.Many USA churches have a morning service, followed by one-on-one discipleship. Some have discipleship available on Wednesday nights, throughout the church, so that childcare is available.Be careful not to add this to the “menu” of ministry activities without prayerfully subtracting even some good but less productive activities. People only have so much time.Some of the ministries you subtract can be revitalized with trained disciples, making them more impactful.A good goal is for one-on-one discipleship to take place every day of the week, anywhere and everywhere, like in the book of Acts. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Acts 5:42

Train Your First Disciplers

4. Personally "hand-pick" your First DisciplersPersonally, ask those you know who could be your first generation of Disciplers.Explain your vision and ask them to join you in this ministry, committing to 2 training sessions.The Training Files for this step are in the Downloads section.Usually, these are the best people in your ministry.A few churches have opened the invitation publicly to be a discipler; however, many will respond that they need to be discipled. If you choose to do that, let them know that your goal is for all of them to be a discipler in the end, but until then, some will need to be disciples as you are learning the material.


5. Train the First Generation of DisciplersTraining your first disciplers in using Lesson One and some procedures. You can download the training files below to assist you.The disciplers do not need to know every lesson to get started. Explain that they are all learning and growing together with a disciple.If their disciple asks them a question that they do not know the answer to, they can tell them they will prepare an answer, or an answer will come in a future lesson.They will practice meeting one-on-one with each other to get the “feel” for the lessons and the procedures. Three training meetings are usually enough. Training files can be downloaded below.

At the Same Time - Prepare the Church to Disicple

6.  Preach/Teach on one-on-one DiscipleshipAt the same time as training your first generation of disciplers, preach or teach on discipleship for several weeks to communicate your burden.


7. Take CommitmentsAt the end of the preaching, teaching, and training of your first generation of Disciplers, give out commitment cards in every church service and ask who is interested in being discipled one-on-one.You can download a card we use in the downloads section.


8. Pair the Disciplers and disciples together.The leadership determines who meets with whom. Men with men. Ladies with ladies.Close friendships and close family members may not be a good idea. The leadership decides.Each discipler can have more than one disciple, but one at a time. Adding even one person will kill the multiplication.

Start the Disciples and Diciplers

9. Start them Discipling.Set a time and place for discipleship to begin. Some have all pairs start discipling at the same time and place to get some momentum.It is normal that some pairs have to be reassigned.Ask the disciplers to use the record-keeping system, which is explained below. You can also create your own system, but it is important to know if disciples are meeting together, what section of each lesson they are in, so you can know if they are going too fast or too slow.


10. Expand meeting times.After a few weeks of meeting, or however long it takes for everything to go smoothly, allow the disciplers and disciples to meet at other times and places. Some do that from the beginning.


11. Continue and Repeat.Perform the above schedule quarterly or every six months until it is no longer necessary to repeat.  Ask for disciples in every message, church invitation, and appeal.


12. Continue training and gaining commitments.Meet monthly with your disciplers to continue training them in the lessons and help them with any issues as needed.

For Multiplication, carefully follow this advice, based on experience.* Do not use Journey for any group meetings, Sunday school lessons, or sermons.* Follow the instructions on how to use Journey, found on the third page of the lessons. Taking shortcuts will kill multiplication.

The First Six Months

Publically Recognize at Lesson 5 and 10

1. We strongly recommend you publicly recognize the discipler and the disciple at the end of Lesson 5 and Lesson 10.*The Certificate files are in the Downloads section.


2. Keep Records
Ask the disciplers to record all discipleship meetings on the publicly posted form at the church, if you use that.Monitor the progress of each discipler by observing how quickly or slowly they are progressing.The record-keeping files are in the Downloads section.


3. Continue Expanding.Talk about discipleship with Journey every Sunday.  Include it in every aspect of your ministry: camps, retreats, fellowships, outreach, invitations, preaching, teaching, and training - bring all the parts together.All activities should (and can) strengthen discipleship.Become a First-Century Church and not a Medieval church. In a first-century church, the Pastor is a shepherd whose goals are to care for and multiply the sheep.Jesus said “feed my lambs”, “feed my sheep,” “feed my sheep” because new believers (lambs) mature to become sheep who reproduce sheep.Picture this in your mind:  all your adults can lead someone to Christ and are trusted to disciple new converts to do the same.A person can be discipled online by the author or his wife, John and Cathy Honeycutt, who are church planters at discipleship.uteach.io

A Life-Time Philosophy

Though the discipleship lessons are called "Journey," the Bible has a specific path to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.These destinations are "built in" the lessons to provide a lifetime philosophy to be a multiplying disciple-maker.We call them the Steps of Discipleship:1. The first Step is to become a Believer. John 8:302. A disciple is in the Word of God every day. John 8:313. A disciple in prayer to God every day. Luke 11:14. A disciple and discipler meet together every week. John 13:34-355. A disciple is growing in a Local church with a pastor. Ephesians 4:11-126. A disciple is obedient to the Word of God and becomes a disciple-maker. Luke 14:337. A disciple-maker leads people to Christ and disciples them. John 15:88. A disciple-maker multiplies disciple-makers. John 15:16

Download Section

Click on an image to download the file.