Apprenticeship to Jesus Community—is a discipleship community of diverse individuals who have come to believe that Jesus is the way to abundant living and that following Him includes daily rhythms of intentionally being with Him and with other followers of Him, in order to learn from Him how to live. It also involves following Him in addressing the needs of our neighbor and of the society in which we live. The community and its leaders operate a formal intensive apprenticeship experience in learning to follow Jesus that requires a minimum of 20 hours a week. Apprenticeship to Jesus(A2J) is an initiative of Antioch Network.

There are currently two centers for A2J ministry in Phoenix. The first is in the Woodland Historic District, near the state capitol and the second in the Brentwood Historical District just a couple miles east of downtown. As the apprentices are experiencing personal transformation, they are working towards transformation in their communities by becoming instruments of peace and mercy as they advocate for the weak and show compassion to the broken. We understand that learning from Jesus how to live life involves two movements: first we come together to be with Him, and second we go out to serve Him among others.

In the Woodland community we serve together in several ways, such as a growing ministry to refugees, which allows us to bring the mercy of Jesus to one of the most vulnerable ‘communities’ in our city—the foreigner among you. We are providing affordable housing, friendship, and life mentoring to refugees. We plan to grow into the areas of life skills and job training, educational tutoring and eventually job creation for the refugees within our community. There is also a strong burden among our community to love and care for the many homeless who live among us. There is a desire to influence and help shape the growing art community with its influential culture. The Brentwood community is committed to serving the youth and providing safe environments for children to be nurtured and supported. Along with reaching out to those who comprise the future of this community, we are also focused on serving immigrant families in the neighborhood.

This discipleship community model we believe can be reproduced in any location or culture and we are working to have teams of apprentices trained and sent out to birth other communities. The apprentices involved in the A2J program are part of different local churches and we share strong friendships and partnerships with various local churches and mission organizations in the pursuit of training this next generation to bear fruit here locally and to the ends of the earth.