The Disciple-Making Journey
An eight-week formation centered on Matthew 4:19 — a sober look at what it means to follow Jesus and to make disciples. It is how most people first encounter NAMS, and the doorway through which you discover whether the network's call resonates with your own.
Bring the Disciple-Making Journey to your church.
An eight-week formation centered on Matthew 4:19, walked together by your leadership team or a few from your congregation — looking honestly at what it means to follow Jesus and make disciples, and beginning to live it as a body. For many churches, it is the first step into everything NAMS is.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Matthew 4:19
Not a recruitment program. A reckoning.
The Journey does not ask you to sign up for anything, and it is not something you work through on your own. It is walked with a few others — one of whom has already been down this road — looking honestly together at the cost of following Jesus and of making disciples, and discerning whether that call is yours. Many find their answer is no, and that clarity is part of the gift. For those whose answer is yes, the Journey is the first step into everything else NAMS is.
A defined formation
A short, serious season of study, prayer, and honest conversation — not a course to pass, but a call to weigh.
Walked, never alone
This isn’t a workbook you finish by yourself. It is walked together — a small group with someone who has been through it before — facing the real questions and the honest answers side by side.
The first step, not the last
Those who find the call resonates go on toward the Order, GAP, the 52-Week Guide, or disciple-making in their own church.
Not a program to run. A formation to walk together.
The Journey isn’t curriculum you hand your people, and it isn’t run from the front of the room. It is walked in a small group — your leaders, or a few from your congregation — with someone who has already been down this road, looking honestly together at the cost and the joy of following Jesus and making disciples. For a church, it is a way to begin disciple-making not as a campaign or a program, but as a shared life.
A defined formation
A short, serious season your team gives to study, prayer, and honest conversation together — not a course to pass, but a call to weigh as a body.
Walked, never alone
Begin with the few you’d want beside you — staff, elders, or core members — formed together so disciple-making takes root in the people who set the church’s direction.
The first step, not the last
Churches who find the call resonates go on to deeper training through 2820, the 52-Week Guide, and a lasting partnership with NAMS.
A conversation, not a class.
You won’t sit through lectures. The Journey is taken together — two of you, sometimes a few more, up to about five — meeting each week for an honest, unhurried conversation around a single passage. One has walked it before and helps keep it moving, but no one stands at the head of the room; you are all on the road together. You come to understand it the way it has always been passed on: not only by what you are told, but by what you see and hear in someone living it beside you.
One theme each week
You meet once a week for eight weeks, each conversation turning on a single passage and the one thing it asks of you. The weeks build on one another — from the first call to follow toward a life that makes disciples.
More questions than answers
You’re not being tested, and there’s no wrong answer to fear. Expect honest questions, room for silence, and the freedom to wrestle with things out loud. What you put into your own words is what stays.
Able to walk it with another
By the end, the aim isn’t that you’ve joined a group, but that you could walk this same road with someone else — a disciple who can, in time, help make disciples.
Eight weeks, eight questions.
You hold the whole arc loosely in mind even while walking only one week at a time. It opens with an invitation rather than a command — and that order is deliberate. Here is a glimpse of where the weeks lead.
The Call
Am I catching men? An honest first look at whether the call to follow Jesus — and to fish for people — is one you are actually living. This is the doorway; everything else opens from here.
The Command
Does this apply to me? Following Jesus means being sent. Here the question turns personal: is the charge to make disciples mine to carry, or someone else’s?
The Truth
What it means to hold fast to his word — and how that holding leads into truth, and truth into freedom.
And the marks that follow
From there we explore the other marks of a disciple Jesus would recognize — love, fruit, cost, and life lived in community — before the journey arrives where it has been heading all along: the cycle of discipleship. Disciples who make disciples, a pattern meant to repeat and multiply long after these eight weeks end.
If you are ready to weigh the call.
Full details are coming soon. Add your name below and we’ll write to you when the next Journey begins and whether it is the right first step for you.
Ready to start with your team?
Tell us about your church and who you’d want to walk the Journey with. We’ll help you take the first step.