If you are a pastor or a men’s ministry leader, we want you to know a little more about our relationship with the local church.
JOURNEYMEN Ministries is Devoted to the Local Church
Journeymen Ministries is a parachurch ministry, but was created to serve the local dicsiplemaking Church. We believe that men and their families need to live, grow and serve in the context of a local congregation. When we train men in evangelism and discipleship, we teach them to draw other men to Christ and into the church community. We do not take them out of your congregation, we intentionally drive them deeper into it. One of the initial commitments each man makes when he gets started in a Journeymen group is to tell his wife, kids, and his pastor that he is joining a Journeymen group to become a more fruitful servant leader in his home and in his church. He must even get his family and pastor to sign a commitment form promising to pray for his progress in the Journeymen training.
We want Journeymen to become an effective ministry of your church, to serve your ministry of disciplemaking. If you wish, we will even customize the Journeymen materials with your Church’s name and logo or men’s ministry moniker. Journeymen can act as a core discipleship curriculum for your men in harmony with your other important ministries and outreaches. Journeymen small groups are a great next step for men after other larger group events, topical men’s ministry courses, retreats, conferences or classes.
Our mission is to build men up into mature leaders who can serve shoulder to shoulder with local, disciplemaking church pastors and ministries. We measure our success by the number of mature Journeymen who are actively building up the local Church body.
JOURNEYMEN is Your Ministry Partner
Rather than merely shipping you some materials, we also offer you… ourselves. We are available to talk with you at your convenience to hear what you need and consult with you on how we might be able to serve you best. Our staff is set apart to serve you and your church with any level of training or orientation needed to help you begin or deepen a healthy, growing men’s disciplemaking ministry. We offer you all of our resources and training as a true partner in the great commission.
JOURNEYMEN is Grounded in Transformational Theology
Strengthening & Challenging with Scripture A close examination of the Journeymen lessons will reveal that we are committed to helping men to, be transformed by the renewing of their minds, (Romans 12:1,2). You will see an intentional, pastoral effort to lead men into particular biblical truths, principles, concepts and challenges that are meant to accelerate their transformation into Christlikeness. These lessons are purposely designed to bring a man into the profound truths of his identity in Christ, train him to demonstrate his faith with action, inspire him to pursue God with the devotion He deserves, teach him dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, call him to a biblical standard for character, relationships and spiritual leadership, convince him of the exceeding value of God’s eternal purposes for his life, and to challenge him from God’s Word to personally live for the cause of Jesus Christ.
Spiritual Disciplines In 1 Timothy 4 the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy (and us) to, “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” Combining these scriptural lessons with practical instruction in the spiritual disciplines of authentic fellowship, Bible study, meditation and memorization, prayer, obedient faith, evangelism, making disciples, and spiritual leadership, make the Journeymen study more of a discipleship training course. We lead men into lifestyles of disciplined devotion that demonstrate our love for God and our commitment to follow Jesus.
Jesus as Our Aim According to Paul’s words in Romans 8:29, all of us, as God’s people, are destined for a common purpose, to become like Jesus, to be conformed to His image and live for His cause. At the same time, each of us is born with our own unique personality, talents, gifts and life circumstances. Journeymen Men’s Discipleship is designed to develop men into the image of Jesus. The faith training lessons and applications we do are aimed squarely at helping you live more like Jesus and for Jesus.
Jesus as Our Example A study of Jesus’ interactions with His disciples reveal a masterful progression of revealing Himself, challenging their faith, expecting decisive actions of faith, and then debriefing in personal teaching moments. He repeats these patterns, circling back to critical truths and perspectives leading to greater and greater levels of faith and commitment. All aspects of the Journeymen sessions are thoughtfully crafted to follow Jesus’ example. The order of the lessons begin with establishing a man’s walk with the Lord and then move into the challenges of a man living for the Lord. The Bible study questions are not “fill in the blank.” They are written to drive men into the scriptures to promote personal discovery from the Lord, not the study leader. The application questions are also intentionally personal, forcing each man to ask the Lord how he should respond. The clearly stated purposes of the small group, the commitment agreement each man signs, the training objectives in each lesson, and the personal encouragement and accountability asked of each man are patterned closely after Jesus’ methods of building commitment in men.
Committed to the Great Commission Journeymen discipleship is also born out of a close study of Jesus’ great commission, in Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus did not commission us merely to “teach them… all that I have commanded.” He said, “Teach them to OBEY (put into practice) all that I have commanded you.” This changes the game completely. In our culture that too easily mistakes head-knowledge for wisdom and belief for faith, we need to be careful to train men to OBEY all that the Bible teaches. How do we do that? Journeymen discipleship training is based on Matthew 7:24-27. The difference between the wise man and the foolish man was not the hearing of Jesus’ words, but acting on them. So, we built two dynamics into Journeymen to be sure that we are actually “training” men to follow Jesus.
Biblical Discipleship Dynamics One dynamic is the expectation of personal encouragement and accountability of each man involved. Each man signs a commitment of accountability and establishes an accountability partner within the group. Each lesson includes an accountability page with men reporting on the steps of faith and obedience taken since last time they met. The second dynamic is a commitment to intimate biblical fellowship. Men need real friends. This means keeping the small groups small, 3 to 6 men max, and creating an environment in which every man feels that he is authentically known and truly knows the other men. Each man must feel safe enough with his friends to truly “get real” and open up about his personal life. Teaching someone to obey also requires observing his progress. It means that the leader needs to know each man well enough to understand what he is struggling with, to discern what his spiritual needs are, and to give him very personal counsel and encouragement. A Journeymen leaders is trained to give personal mentorship. He can know if he is accomplishing his commission to make disciples because he is close enough to see firsthand if his trainees are actually growing in Christ-likeness.
Multiplication In 2 Timothy 2:2 Paul exhorted Timothy to entrust what he had learned to “faithful men who would be able to teach others also.” Leadership development is built into the Journeymen course. Men can participate as an apprentice or co-leader and receive the Journeymen leader training along the way, or they can be trained in a seminar as part of the next step in their discipleship journey. Each man that participates in a Journeymen small group observes how the leader functions and gets on the job training. Everyone is given the opportunity and challenge to lead one of the sessions. They’ve already seen how the group dynamics work and the lessons are designed to be very user-friendly, so it is no stretch for any man to see himself passing this experience of encouragement and accountability on to others. Men involved in a Journeymen group are trained to share their faith and bring other men into the church, so there is a strong emphasis on multiplying what they received by starting a new group for other men who need their help. At the end of the Journeymen Foundations course, each man is invited to continue in ongoing fellowship with other men who are also committed to winning men to Christ and making disciples.
These unique qualities of the Journeymen men’s discipleship ministry are intended to help your disciplemaking efforts to be faithful to scriptural principles and as fruitful as possible.
Please CONTACT us. We are ready to talk with you about any way we can serve you.
If you haven’t already done so, please visit the JOURNEYMEN Men’s Discipleship page to learn what the ministry is all about.
To learn more about the JOURNEYMEN Discipleship Resources visit the Discipleship Discipleship STUDIES and TRAINING pages.