From Magazine to Journal-zine to Journal

We are making some awesome changes to the Journal this year…

But first a bit on how we got here. When MA started, we had a magazine. It was meant to be flashy and shiny and all design-y. It was meant to have things like columns, and articles, and advertisements. It was designed to have a lot of information about YWAM and about missions and it was meant to be inspiring. We hoped the magazine would carry the DNA of YWAM into the lives of the kids—that they would take it home and be inspired to be a missionary where they were in that moment.

Early MA Magazines: ‘96 Go for the Gold; ‘97 Mission Possible; ‘00 Metamorphosis

As cool as the magazine was, we saw that it was about us. Sure it had some space at the end of the devotions for the user to write some answers, but way over 90% of the space was about YWAM. Somehow that didn’t seem satisfying. It was like a conversation where only one person was talking.

Burn Magazine Cover + Article & Devo Spreads from ‘03

Then God began to speak to us about making a journal. In it’s purest form, a journal is a blank book. A journal is all about the user—in fact a journal is nothing until its owner writes something in it. We asked ourselves, how could we make a Mission Adventures journal?

We recognized that we couldn’t do a pure journal. A blank book wouldn’t be appropriate—there is a tremendous value in having the YWAM DNA in a Mission Adventures journal. So we created a hybrid, a cross between magazine and journal—a Journal-Zine. It had articles but not really columns. It had some advertising, but there was less of a focus on it. It still was design-y—it still was meant to inspire. There was a lot more space for devos and other kinds of pages too—blank pages, word searches and other puzzles.

MA Journalzines: Bought from ‘05; Detox from ‘06; and Expand Heaven Here from ‘11

Even though our Journal-zines had more space for our users, they were still a lot about us. In recent years, we’ve created more and more space for the students—we’ve added more devotions, and given more space for questions and answers.

This year we are going further. We are putting the maximum emphasis on the student who receives the journal. We’re providing the bare minimum for them to create their own journal. We want to give just a framework, make a suggestion, and then let the student make the journal their own. Here are some of the changes we’ve made:

Size: The journal measures 7 1/2 wide by nearly 10 inches tall. It’s considerably larger than our last few journals. It’s similar in size and scale to those popular and expensive blank books you find at fine booksellers and upscale boutiques.

Layout: There are generous margins all around. Careful thought was put into the layout of each page so that students would feel an unconscious invitation to doodle, draw, and write in the margins and all over the pages. The more they mark in their journal, the more it becomes theirs, and the greater the value of the book to them.

Binding: We’re upgrading the kind of binding we’re doing with this journal. It’s meant to lay flat when open, and still be durable and classy.

No Art: Creating something where the design gets out of the way of the content is really hard. Early on it was decided that this journal wouldn’t be filled with flashy photos or with extensive illustration. A goal was to put the minimum amount of ink on the page, so that the students’ writing would be the main element. Of course, we’re not making a blank book, so there are a lot of features in the journal that have been included to invite students to use it.

Calendar: We’ve included a two month calendar—and after a lot of experimentation, we developed a system that allows this calendar to be used for any months in any year.

The Any Month/Any Year Calendar & an Article Spread from the Appendix
Map: We want to inspire our students about the nations, so we’ve included a world map. It can be useful for exploration, but our hope is that students will mark it up with where they’ve been and where they hope to go.

Note Pages & Graph Paper: We’ve included several spreads of lined notepaper. For those of us who like grids and are visually oriented, the graph paper begs for doodles and plans and sketches.

There’s a ton of space for students to make this journal their own personal treasure.
Dots! Outreach means travel time, and travel time means games. We’re sure that students will use the spreads with the dots to play that game where they take turns drawing a line and try to make squares…

An Appendix: We’ve included a compact, yet complete appendix that’s filled with us. It’s a concentrated 25-page section that includes articles from such authors as Marty Meyer, Craig & Kay Charlotte McClurg, and even our founder, Loren Cunningham. This is the purest form of our DNA. We placed it at the end to be a kind of supplementary content. It’s not on the “main stage” of the journal, it’s not overly design-y, but it’s there. We imagine that some of our partners will direct students to the articles there, but we think that many students will find it’s value as they discover it during travel time, and when they rediscover it back home.

No Devos: Wait, what? What do you mean, ‘No Devos’?! Well, let us clarify. There is a lot of devotional space in the Journal—64 pages to be exact. It’s just that we didn’t write any devos to direct the students in their quiet times. Instead, we included some brief instructions and inspiration for how to use the space. We’re challenging the students to read a chapter of Proverbs each day for 31 days. Then we ask them to pick a proverb that sticks out to them and to explore its significance in the devo space. As you can see in the screen shot below, we believe God has given us an inspired design to help our students find deep meaning in the scriptures by creating their own devotions.

Students will use this template to create their own devos from the book of Proverbs.
Pencil Included: Have you noticed we have included a pencil or a pen with every journal for many years? This reflects our belief that it is so important to us that the students process in writing what they’re experiencing.

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So What? Why are we telling you all this? We believe it’s important for you to know where we’ve been and where we are going with the Journal. Even more than the tee shirts, the Journal is the heart and soul of the MA Gear. It contains YWAM DNA, and has the potential to change your students’ lives. We want you to understand what’s in it, so you can build your ministry in such a way that maximizes the impact of this important tool.

Click the button below to get your very own All In Order Form (40 KB .xls file)