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From Journey School’s Founder,
Seth Barnes

January 2025

Dear homeschool parent,

My ministry team and I are looking for a select group of parents who are raising their children to be faith-filled agents of change.

We’re hoping you see your children this way and are looking for partners to help them in their next phase of life.

Karen and I raised our five kids knowing they were destined to be leaders. When they were still young, she’d tell me, “I’m raising up leaders who will one day change the world!” With each new stage in their lives, whether they were entering grade school, high school or college, we always had a lot of questions and we wanted to find partners who could help us.

The homeschool movement was just getting going when we started – we were pioneers. We saw the way our kids thrived when we tapped their curiosity and initiative. They learned faster when they were motivated. And when it came time for them to graduate from high school, we knew we needed to find partners who would be as motivated as we were to help them learn at the next level.

We saw that our kids were entering those crucial years of life when they would need help just figuring out who they were. They needed help making their identity and faith personal. We knew that public universities were not going to give them a Biblical worldview. We sensed that our kids needed more than lectures and reading assignments. They needed experiences that would expand their horizons and challenge their faith. They needed mentors who would give them wise counsel and who could suggest real-world learning opportunities. They needed adults in their life who cared deeply about them, just as we did.

College is changing

Karen and I were both products of Christian college. The model served us well in many ways. It offered great opportunities that helped shape our faith and life skills. We sat at our desks and took notes as professors lectured to us. Then we took quizzes and tests on facts we memorized – facts that, honestly, we soon forgot.

Over time, schools using that model have been slow to adapt to the challenges of our modern world. The result? Tuition costs have skyrocketed and debt loads have risen. The need to be a lifelong learner has grown in a world where the total information doubles every year. Still, in many fields, the value of a degree has diminished. Today, many businesses no longer see degrees as the sole criterion for those they hire. Now, many businesses look for maturity, real-life skills, responsibility, thinking critically, and leadership potential.

Simultaneously, our society has become cynical – opposed to faith. 70% of Christian young people now lose their faith by the time they graduate. Even Christian colleges no longer produce disciples prepared to establish the kingdom of God.

I’ve seen the results firsthand. Over the years, the ministries I lead, Adventures.org and WorldRace.org, have graduated some 170,000 young people from their programs. I’ve seen the increasing challenges young people face. It’s not like it used to be. Our young people need help if they are to be equipped to address the world’s greatest problems in Jesus’s name.

Yet the typical college remains more concerned with imparting information than in being a bridge from youth to adulthood.

Those of us who follow Jesus and want to see our children follow him as well need a better model of higher education. And we need partners who will appreciate all we’ve invested and are committed to helping our kids take the next steps to becoming solid, unconfused, world-changing leaders.

What a partner looks like

What would such a partner look like? Well, they would share a vision and the values Jesus showed us. They’d have a passion to do more than check society’s boxes. They’d prepare our kids to follow Christ with all of their strength, body, soul and spirit. They’d communicate with us and involve us appropriately in the process, respecting our role as partners.

They’d give our kids experiences that help form their identity. They’d expose them to the kind of peers who would be their friends – and their encouragers – for life. They’d show our children how to think critically while being people of prayer. They’d help them become life-long learners who are committed to addressing the world’s greatest problems in Jesus’s name.

Over time, we would hope that those partners would involve us in an ongoing conversation about what’s important in walking out faith in a world that often may think we’re crazy. We’d want them to involve us in their kids’ projects and journeys when it made sense. We’d want them to help us learn how to navigate a new season of encouraging our kid when they are no longer in our home.

With Journey School, we give students the opportunity to invite their parents to join us on what we call “Parent Vision Trips” where the students can show their parents what they’re learning.

Journey School

And so, we’ve built Journey School to help young Christ-followers to become the leaders the world needs. Journey School is the partner in the higher education space that deeply invested homeschool parents have wanted but didn’t know how to find.

As parents, you know your kid is special. You knew that even the best public education couldn’t compare with the learning your kid experienced when they were motivated and had the chance to go where their curiosity led them.

At Journey School, each class is intimate, with 12-25 students who meet our criteria of self-awareness, self-discipline, spiritual hunger and curiosity. It is led by a team of leaders whose role it is to come alongside students: Mentors, Coaches, Experience Directors and Apprentices. The student/leader ratio is 1:5. Daily coaching sessions are available for students who are motivated. Weekly sessions are mandatory.

We are called Journey School because in every academic year we set aside student funds for a semester abroad. Current locations are in America, Italy, Spain, Albania, Guatemala, and Mexico. Future bases in other countries are planned. In Semesters where students are not traveling, their class bases at our campus in Gainesville, GA.

The Journey School experience is one part hands-on, one part guided learning (coaching, self-directed, and classroom-based training). Experiences are often framed as problems that we embrace, seeking to address the needs of those around us. Our classes are infused with an abundance mentality and a drive to make a difference and to live as learners as we do so.

Believing that faith and character are developed through ministry, we have ministry partners in each location who help us connect to what God is doing in that country. In my experience, nothing helps a young adult find their place in God’s kingdom the way missions do.

Students’ online Journey School coursework is part of an accredited degree program that takes as little as 2-3 years to complete. Students earn their degree from any of 6 accredited colleges in America. You can review the list of schools at www.worldrace.org/journeyschool.

Results so far

Our team has been developing Journey School for 10 years, graduating students who have gone on to successful careers in ministry, business, and other fields. Along the way, we’ve worked hard to keep costs down such that most students are able to graduate without student debt.

We have developed our model in venues around the world. By focusing on identity and providing deep mentorship with committed, older Christian adults, we give students the tools to learn who they are as sons and daughters in Christ and then to begin walking that out. Journey School students bond deeply and stay in touch long after graduating.

We have seen that our audience needs to be primarily homeschoolers, who in general are ahead of their peers in learning to think and seek God for themselves. We have recruited coaches and mentors who are world-class. And we have learned deeply from our partner ministries, Adventures.org and WorldRace.org, about how to activate young people and apprentice them in both faith and career.

Interested?

We are looking for 20 students age 18-21 to join us Fall 2025. We are inviting you, moms and dads, to join the adventure.

If you and your student are interested, there are ways to learn more.
Parent vision trips
Regular feedback and strategy calls with your child’s mentor
Parent mentoring
Zoom calls with Journey School staff

As a next step, please email our team at info@adventures.org or call +1 (470) 655-6226. Be sure to mention you’re inquiring about Journey School. You can also reach out to me directly if you’d like at sethbarnes@adventures.org.

We’d also be happy to connect you with alumni or mentors in your area who can tell you about their experience. We have a robust parents’ ministry through Adventures.org. Over the years we’ve seen hundreds of parents’ lives change as they followed their kids’ journeys.

In closing: We are looking for those who don’t fit society’s mold. Your kids may feel like oddballs much of the time because, unlike so many students, they never stopped asking “why?” And when they look at the world, they don’t see problems that provoke anxiety. They see opportunities to be addressed as they seek God for his direction and the mentorship of mature disciple-making believers.

Also, just so you know the situation: We have no more than 40 slots for our Journey School incoming class. If you’re sensing this could be a match for your student, reach out soon.

In Christ,

Seth Barnes
Founder, Journey School