ABOUT US

HOW IT ALL STARTED:
Hey there! Back in August 2022, we decided to shake things up and try something totally new. Let us introduce ourselves – we're Thad & Kaila DeBuhr, and we've got quite the unique God story to share (check out our blog and social channels for more on that!). But for now, let's dive into the excitement of our journey!

We made a bold move by stepping away from full-time paid vocational ministry, trading the traditional church gig for a radically different path. We absolutely love the church, but we felt God leading us towards something fresh and transformative in our lives and ministry.

We made some major changes, starting with selling our spacious 3,000-square-foot home. Downsizing was the name of the game as we embraced a 400-square-foot home on wheels – talk about an adventure! We held onto the essentials and, of course, our adventure gear.

Equipped with a truck and a 5th-wheel camper, we set off on an epic journey! It's been a thrilling ride of trust in Jesus, following His lead, and sharing His incredible invitation to a life filled with true purpose and meaning.

We kicked off this adventure back in August 2022, spending the initial months adjusting to life on the road, resting, and gearing up for our December ministry launch.  During those initial months we shared a lot of what we were going through and processing in our blogs.  Feel free to go back and read through the raw and vulnerable stories we shared along the way.



JOURNEY CHURCH OR YOUR JESUS JOURNEY?
In December of 2022, we officially launched the Journey Church online.  Initially starting out all of our online addresses were built around the phrase, "Joinnthejourneychurch".  It didn't take us long to learn that, #1 it was too long and hard to rememebr and #2 there are LOTS of other Journey Church's out there which made it very hard to find us on all the formats.  So, we made the adjustment to point all of our online addresses to, "YourJesusJourney" which has worked out great!  You can find us at www.YourJesusJourney.com and over on YouTube.com/@yourjesusjourney.



WHAT IS YOUR JESUS JOURNEY?
YJJ is a modern take on what the growing body of believers looked like in the New Testament of the Bible.  In the early church, the apostles and later other growing disciples, would travel from place to place and prayerfully search out people to connect with to share gospel.  They would also look for opportunities to teach or preach as they traveled.  Sometimes they would speak at a local synagogue, other times it might be at a busy city gate or local gathering place.  Regardless of where they went, their mission remained the same, to proclaim the truth about God and His offer of salvation and new life through His son Jesus.  Then to encourage those who believed to stick together and encourage one another daily to continue to learn the teachings of Jesus and invite the Spirit of God to work in them to transform them to be more and more like Jesus as they continued to faithfully follow Him together.

Your Jesus Journey is a ministry that has set out to follow in the footsteps of those early pioneers of our faith.  To trust God to lead us day by day as we travel throughout North America prayerfully looking for people to connect with and opportunities to teach others about the Bible.  Where we differ from those early pioneers is in the ways we utilize technology and the internet as a part of our ministry and mission field.  While we wholeheartedly look for ways to connect with people in person as we travel, we also work diligently to connect with people online.  The same is true when it comes to our approach to teach the Bible.  We are always looking for opportunities to teach and preach in person as we travel, but beyond that we also put tremendous effort into teaching the Bible and proclaiming God's word in various ways online. Foremost of those ways is our daily Bible Podcast and weekly episodes we release on our YouTube channel.

As we meet people in person and online the goal is always the same.  How can we help them either get to know Jesus and accept His offer of salvation and freedom from sin, or help them continue to grow as followers of Jesus.  In the early church the apostles would meet people, invest in them for a day, a week or sometimes months and then move on to the next place God was leading them.  Those meetings led the apostles to write letters back and forth with the people they met along the way.  Letters written to check in on people they loved.  Letters to continue teaching, encouraging and even correcting them as well.  Now we have the luxury and blessing of tools like Zoom and Facetime, Texting and Cell phones.  All of which make it so much easier to stay in touch with the people we meet along the way.  Whether it's Kaila or I discipling someone or others in our ministry meeting over zoom to pray, there are countless ways we utilize these tools in much the same way the apostles used the tools available to them in their time.

It's important to say that from the beginning the dream has never been to "build a church".  The mission has always been about helping people hear the gospel and learn to embrace a new life as growing and changing disciples of Jesus.  The "church" is made up of those believers, both scattered about and those gathering secretly and publicly.  Unfortunately there has been massive energy expended, debate and ultimately division among Christians around the idea of exactly what the "church" is supposed to be and do.  In the end, we believe there is great freedom for believers to assemble as churches with different flavors and focuses.  But Jesus' great commission to all believers was not about sending them out to start churches.  His instructions then and now are for all believers to go out near and far and make disciples of Jesus, teaching them everything He taught and then walking together to learn to embrace those lessons in our everyday lives.  And to be reminded that through His spirit He will be with us always as our counselor, guide, comforter, teacher, and more.

We certainly aren't saying church planting is bad or the wonderful efforts of faithful saints to build up local churches is bad.  We know that God calls and equips the saints for important things such as these.  We are saying that for years it has felt to us that the emphasis on growing churches has overshadowed the commission to make disciples as we go.  We sense that God has called us to lean into that commission and invite others to join us in our "out-of-the-box" approach at the YJJ Ministry.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel – we broadcast a LIVE daily Bible Podcast every morning at 6am pacific time followed by a new full length episodes every weekend. Throughout the week, we share interviews, daily reflections, and spontaneous adventures.  And the best part? All our content is available for free, anytime you want it. Watch and learn at your convenience!


Consider this your personal invitation to join the journey. We can't wait to meet you, whether it's online or in person. Let's have some fun, share our lives and grow as we follow Jesus together!