For many of us, there is a disconnect between our understanding of God and our experience of God. We are taught that God loves us, but we don’t always find that we can sense that love. We learn that Holy Spirit lives within us, but we don’t always understand how we can connect with that reality. We learn from Scripture that God speaks, but we only hear silence.
One reason that our beliefs and our experiences are out of alignment is because we are not integrated human beings. We focus on correct thinking but ignore our emotions. Or we pay a lot of attention to our behaviour but not to our spirituality. This means that there are only parts of ourselves – our intellects or our bodies – that participate in our relationship with God, and there are other parts that we simply neglect.
At Journey we believe that God wants to love the whole person – body, mind, heart and soul. We give people a safe, spiritually supportive place to help them get in touch with their hearts and emotions and integrate their beliefs with their feelings and experiences. Most importantly, we create the time and the space to look to God and invite Jesus into our lives through prayer. For many people, the result is healing for the past, a sense of freedom from old habits and, most important, a renewed sense of walking with Jesus.
Journey provides a number of avenues for people to start pursuing Jesus with their whole person:
Journey Discipleship Course (JDC): The JDC is a 17-18 week course that is at the heart of what Journey does. It’s a safe place for people to talk about their lives, receive the love and support of God and others, and experience Jesus. Each week, participants will spend time in worship and teaching on topics ranging from understanding our needs to addiction, forgiveness and developing healthy friendships. Participants then break out into small groups for times of honest sharing and listening prayer.
Journey 101 (J101): J101 is a shorter, six-session introductory course that helps people identify aspects of their lives that interfere in their relationships with God and others. J101 includes worship and teaching that is shorter than in the JDC, small group sharing and prayer time.
Journey Intensive Week (JIW): Every year, Journey offers our Intensive Week geared to pastors and church leaders. The week is structured in a way that’s very similar to our JDC, but concentrated into a single retreat week.