The Agency

CORE ESSENTIALS

This year we are working on something big. It's not a project or an event, it's really about who we are becoming as people at The Journey. We always talk about taking next steps in relationships, not religion. Maybe you've asked yourself, what does that mean?

We've always focused around 3 main relationships at The Journey: a relationship with God to find life, relationships with otherJourneyers (other followers of God) to help each other, and relationships with people far from God. We talk about other relationships too, but for our mission, these are the 3 key relationships. This is basically taken from what the Bible calls the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. 

So we wanted to define some things that are essential for us at The Journey when thinking about taking next steps in these relationships. There is much more to life and following God, but these values are essential for us to experience what it means to be in relationships, not religion.

CORE ESSENTIALS
Jesus is the Center: following Jesus by listening to Him & doing what He says in every aspect of our lives.
Invest & Invite: intentionally investing in others to help them find life in a relationship with Jesus.
Look Beyond Ourselves: seeing life & people with an eternal perspective
Live Generously: God is the blesser who blesses us to be a blessing
Do Life Together: you help others, others help you
Own & Live Out the Mission: we all have a part to play

We are looking at resources, environments, series, opportunities and next steps for these essentials to become the heartbeat of who we are as The Journey. It's not a checklist of things to do but elements of who we are trying to come in our relationship with Jesus.

So what's your next step? 

SPRING UPDATE

Make sure you are familiar with all the details for spring and summer ahead...good info for you to know and to pass on to help someone else along the journey. You can always find info like this on the Staff Blogs & News page of the website. Make sure you are on the mailing list if you didn't get this in the mail. Check it out: (you can click on it to enlarge it)

LOCAL & GLOBAL IMPACT

Here's some intel for all Agents at The Journey so we can celebrate and keep aligned in the mission.

We are in our first year of Networks. Networks are designed to make an impact in communities around our area and help us take next steps. Watch the dream about networks and then the celebration of the first 6 months:

Thanks to everyone who helped make networks happen...from leadership to serving at events to groups....thanks and let's keep making an impact.

JOURNEY KIDS & TEENS

Here's some important intel for all Agents of the mission at The Journey. Get to know Journey Kids & Teens so you can be on mission and help parents take steps at The Journey.

A big thanks to all our kids volunteers who make an impact on our littlest Journeyers. Journey Kids leaders & classes look to celebrate kid's next steps and help kids connect with Jesus. It's about knowing that God made them, God loves them and He wants to be their forever friend. It's about helping kids to grow in wisdom, friendship and faith. It's about learning how the Bible can help them take next steps. So watch the video below from the J.A.A.C.'s for some more highlights and say thanks to one of our Journey Kids volunteers.

We know that students are at a critical point in their life. We want to be on the frontlines with students to help them take next steps with God, their parents and peers. It's been a great year of watching our leaders and students take next steps while having some fun along the way. Give a Journey Teen leader a high-five next time you see them.

For more on Journey Kids & Teens, click here.

SUNDAYS MISSION

Here's some important intel for all agents to be aligned in the mission and a look back on how it all happened this year:

Here's some intel about the mission with music.

Here's some more intel on how the language and environment play into Sundays.

We're all about the relationship, not just our weekly event. However, Sunday Gatherings can be a major launching point for some peoples relationship. We view Sundays as 52 opportunities to help people take first & next steps in their relationship with Jesus. Each week is somebodies first Sunday at The Journey. It might be their one and only shot at church in years and maybe for years to come. So we want to bring our best each week. We also talk about first & next steps because we want the relationship to be real and not just a Sunday duty. We don't want to just pass on knowledge. We want people to experience a relationship that bring hope, change, and new life. That vision goes from Sundays to groups to networks to teen and even down to the kids. It's all about first & next steps in our relationship with Jesus and our Sunday Gatherings can be a launching point for those steps.

Thanks to everyone who makes Sunday mornings happen at The Journey!

WHERE WE'VE BEEN - WHERE WE'RE GOING

If you haven't seen the annual review, make sure you take some time to look at it and celebrate all God has done over this past year in and through us at The Journey. Thanks for living out the mission! You can check it out here.

10 WAYS TO MAKE MARGINS

We talked about margins in our life in the Be Rich Series. No matter if it's about our time, money, relationship, activities, or even our kids schedules, we need healthy margins. So, here's some more thoughts from Mark Batterson about margins:

 

One of the quantum challenges leaders face is this: as the organizations they lead start experiencing organizational growth they stop experiencing personal growth. Why? Because of the demands of the organizational growth. They start leading the organization and stop leading themselves. And that is when the blessing turns into a curse. Growth will grind to a halt. In fact, it will probably implode. You lose spiritual margin. You lose intellectual margin. You lose creative margin. And you stop growing. No Margin = No Growth.

The key to continued organizational and personal growth boils down to this: margin. You need margin to think. You need margin to play. You need margin to laugh. You need margin to dream. You need margin to have impromptu conversations. You need margin to seize unanticipated opportunities. You need margin.

One of the primary responsibilities of leaders is creating margin. It almost seems selfish. But you are doing everybody you work with a disservice if you give them everything you’ve got. You need margin. And it starts with time management. If you don’t control your calendar, your calendar will control you.

Here are a ten ways to create margin:

1) Use all of your vacation days. You owe it to yourself and your family.
2) Protect your day off religiously. 
3) Don’t schedule meetings on certain days or before certain hours. 
4) Delegate more responsibility.
5) Only check email during designated times during the day.
6) Get up earlier in the morning. 
7) Schedule meetings with God and yourself. 
 Turn off the TV. 
9) Get out of your organizational context and go to a conference. 
10) Hit the gym. You don’t have enough time or energy NOT to workout.

Have any ideas to add to the mix? How do you create margin?

DON'T LOSE YOUR MARGINS

We talked about margins in our life in the Be Rich Series. No matter if it's about our time, money, relationship, activities, or even our kids schedules, we need healthy margins. So, here's some more thoughts from Mark Batterson about margins:

One of the hardest things for me to do right now is to maintain a margin. It’s hard to keep up with email. I can’t meet with everybody I’d like to meet with. It’s tough to juggle pastoring and writing. And my kids need their dad more than ever. But for all of those reasons, maintaining margin is the key to maintaining everything else. Starting with sanity!

When you lose margin, you lose perspective.
When you lose margin, you lose creativity.
When you lose margin, you lose gratitude.
When you lose margin, you lose peace of mind.
When you lose margin, you lose sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.
When you lose margin, you lose emotional reserves.

So how do you maintain margin? I think it comes down to time management. If you don’t control your calendar, your calendar will control you. You’ve got to schedule time with God. And it probably needs to be a consistent time slot. You’ve got to schedule time for yourself. That includes days off, days without meetings, off site meetings, etc. If you need to, schedule reading time! Or just put a book in the bathroom! For me, Tuesdays and Thursdays are meeting days. Wednesday and Fridays are margin days.

 

GUARDED MARGINS = GUARDED HEART

We talked about margins in our life in the Be Rich Series. No matter if it's about our time, money, relationship, activities, or even our kids schedules, we need healthy margins. So, here's some more thoughts from Mark Batterson about margins:

I’m trying to guard the margins in my life these days, and it’s not easy.  In some ways, I feel guilty if I’m not busy.  I feel guilty if I can’t meet with everybody or meet every deadline.  But that attempt to be all things to all people is really a form of pride.  If you try to be all things to all people then you’ll end up being nothing to nobody.  Why?  You’ve got nothing left to give. No margin = no grace, no creativity, no vision.  By trying to do more we become less.

In the words of II Thessalonians 3:11, we become “busybodies.”

Guarding the margins of your life–in other words, managing your schedule in a way that you have time to read, time to pray, time to dream–is really guarding your heart.  Your heart needs room to grow!  If you lose your margin, you’ll lose your spiritual edge.  The first thing to go is a sensitivity to the prompting to the Holy Spirit.  You don’t have time to obey those promptings because you’ve got places to go and things to do. The next thing you know you’ve got an inverse relationship with God. Instead of living a Spirit led life, you want God to follow your lead.  You’re no longer serving God’s purposes. You want Him to serve your purposes. You’re no longer following Christ. You want him to follow you.

When we lose our margin we get it backwards.

 

J.A.A.C.

Next Sunday, March 25, is our Journey Annual Awards & Celebration from 6:15-7:30 pm. We have a big fun night for the whole family to say thanks and to celebrate all God has done in the past year. We try to make it a fun night & worth your time. We also have free Bernie O's pizza for everyone to say thanks for giving your time, money, energy, prayers and talents to serve God at The Journey. We will roll out our new booklet to highlight some big next steps & we'll talk about a few important things coming up in the next year. This is a "don't miss" event at The Journey and everyone is invited.