Two Upcoming Pilgrimages: Walking Through Scripture and Church History

After a long break from leading international group trips, I’m excited to share that I have two upcoming pilgrimages, and you’re invited.

I am not planning frequent trips again or trying to travel the world. I am committing to one intentional pilgrimage per year. It may not cover a lot of ground, but my hope is that it will leave a deep spiritual impact.

Unlike my past group trips, these will not be large groups of people heading out to explore fun destinations. These are different… they are slower, more intentional, and designed to help us grow in our faith and in our walk with the Lord.

I led a pilgrimage to Israel and Jordan in April of 2023, and it was a profoundly memorable trip. Walking through places where so much of Scripture unfolded left a lasting impact on us. I do hope to return to that region one day and lead another pilgrimage there, but before doing that I feel drawn to explore a couple of different places first.

I will only be opening four spaces on each trip because I do not want this to feel crowded or chaotic. My hope is that it feels personal, reflective, and meaningful. A small group allows room for real conversation, prayer, and time to process what we are seeing and learning together. We will read Scripture in the places where these events happened, spend time in reflection and prayer, and allow the history around us to deepen what we are learning together.

These pilgrimages are not about checking places off a travel list. They are about stepping into moments of church history, reading Scripture where those events took place, and allowing those experiences to deepen our understanding of God’s work across generations.

Below I’m sharing the heart behind each of these trips. If one of them resonates with you, I invite you to prayerfully consider joining.

If you would like to be among the first to hear when full details are released, you can fill out the waitlist form below. Joining the waitlist does not commit you to the trip; it simply lets me know that you are interested and ensures that you will be one of the first people notified when dates, pricing, and registration open. Those on the waitlist will receive first opportunity to secure the limited spots before they are offered more widely.

Pilgrimage One

Ephesus, Turkey — November 2026

For a long time now, I have felt a deep relatability to Paul.

Before he was the apostle who wrote letters that shaped the Church, he was Saul, a man who persecuted Christians and approved of Stephen’s death (Acts 8:1; Acts 9:1–2). His past was not mild. It was violent. And yet God did not waste it. On the road to Damascus, everything changed (Acts 9:3–6), and the very man who tried to destroy the Church became one of its greatest missionaries.

How incredible is it that Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Nearly half of the New Testament letters carry the name of a man who once persecuted the Church. When I think about that, it stops me. God did not just forgive him. He entrusted him with shaping the very Scriptures that would guide believers for generations. That reality alone stands as testimony to how completely God redeems and how powerfully He uses what He has restored. That is hopeful. So hopeful.

Paul also speaks about a “thorn in the flesh” that he pleaded with the Lord to remove, yet it remained so that Christ’s power would be made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–9). Many scholars have suggested it may have been some form of ongoing physical illness, possibly related to what he references in Galatians 4:13–15. We are not given a diagnosis, but we are given something more important. We are shown a man who lived with limitation and still loved and served God wholeheartedly.

I, too, live with a chronic condition that plagues me. There are days when weakness feels louder than calling. So when I read Paul’s words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), they do not feel abstract. They feel personal. The fact that God can take a sinner like Paul, redeem him completely, and then use him in such massive ways for His kingdom reminds me that weakness and past failure are not disqualifiers in God’s hands.

That is part of why this trip feels so meaningful to me.

To walk through Ephesus, where Paul spent roughly two to three years during his third missionary journey around AD 52–55 (Acts 19), feels surreal. To stand in the theater where the riot broke out because the gospel disrupted the local economy (Acts 19:23–41), to imagine the daily teaching in the hall of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9–10), and to reflect on the fact that letters like 1 Corinthians were written during this season, is something I can hardly wrap my mind around.

After Paul eventually left Ephesus, leadership of the church there was entrusted to Timothy, one of his closest disciples. Timothy’s ministry in Ephesus is reflected in Paul’s letters 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, written sometime between approximately AD 62 and AD 67. In those letters Paul encourages Timothy, a younger pastor facing pressure and false teaching in the city, to remain faithful in teaching sound doctrine and shepherding the believers there. Knowing that Timothy carried on ministry in the very place where Paul once taught daily adds another layer of meaning to walking through that city.

Centuries later, Ephesus would again become an important location in church history. In AD 431 the Council of Ephesus was held there, one of the major ecumenical councils of the early Church. Bishops gathered to address theological disputes about the nature of Christ, particularly the teachings of Nestorius. The council affirmed that Jesus Christ is one person who is both fully God and fully human, and it upheld the title Theotokos for Mary in order to protect the teaching that the one she bore was truly God incarnate. It is remarkable that the same city where Paul once preached the gospel would later host such a pivotal moment in defining early Christian doctrine.

I am excited for every part of this trip.

Not only to see where actual events recorded in Acts took place, but also to visit Smyrna, where Polycarp, an early church father and bishop, was martyred around AD 155 for refusing to deny Christ. That kind of faithfulness under pressure has shaped Christian history in ways we often forget.

And then there is Thyatira, the city Lydia was from (Acts 16:14). She was a seller of purple goods, a businesswoman whose heart the Lord opened to respond to Paul’s message. She is often recognized as the first recorded convert in Europe because her conversion took place in Philippi, in Macedonia, around AD 49–50. To see the city she came from and reflect on how the gospel traveled across regions and into new continents through ordinary, faithful people feels incredibly powerful.

I have already been to Turkey 5 times, so this trip is not about checking a new country off the map. I am returning because of what happened in these places, not because they are new destinations. It is about immersing myself in the story of redemption that Scripture records and seeing the geography of God’s faithfulness. It is about remembering that the same God who met Paul on the road, sustained him through weakness, and used him to shape the early Church is still at work today.

To stand in these places, to read Acts where it happened, and to let those moments press more deeply into my own life feels like such a gift. I cannot think of a better way to grow than to walk slowly through the places where the gospel first took root and ask the Lord to strengthen my own faithfulness in the process.

Pilgrimage Two

Provence, France — May 2027

For as long as I can remember, I have felt a deep kinship with Mary Magdalene.

She was broken, truly broken, and Scripture tells us that Jesus cast seven demons out of her (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9). Whatever her life looked like before that moment, it was not whole. The world would have seen instability or shame, yet Jesus saw someone worth restoring. He saw something beautiful beyond what others saw.

Mary was not a main character in the way many others were. She did not preach sermons or write epistles. Yet she was chosen by God in ways that still humble me. She remained at the cross when many fled (John 19:25). She rose early and went to the tomb while it was still dark (John 20:1). And she was chosen to be the first to see Him after He was resurrected and to go tell His disciples (John 20:14–18).

That has never felt small to me.

Her faithfulness was steady, and she stayed when others left. She loved Him with the gratitude and devotion of someone whose life had been restored. Even though she is often overlooked, her example has never felt little to me.

Because of that, when I learned there is a place in Provence, France, long associated with where she spent her later years in prayer and ministry, the cave at Sainte-Baume, I knew I wanted to go. Not because I believe every tradition without question, but because generations of Christians have remembered her faithfulness there. I want to stand in a place where believers have reflected on what a restored life devoted to Christ looks like.

Over the past eight months, I have been diving deeply into church history, learning, reading, and growing. The more I study, the more I realize how much of our faith has been carried across centuries by people whose names we barely know. When I began learning about the Christian roots in southern France beyond just the Magdalene tradition, I knew I wanted to see more, to immerse myself in history, and to let it deepen my faith.

This trip is not about elevating Mary above Jesus. It is about remembering what Jesus does in a life that has been redeemed. Her story points back to Him. If there is a place where Christians have reflected for centuries on her devotion to Christ, I want to stand there and ask the Lord to grow that same kind of steady faithfulness in me.

There is absolutely no pressure to join. These trips are simply an invitation.

If you have been feeling a pull to deepen your understanding of God’s Word, or to grow more intentionally in your relationship with Him, I encourage you to prayerfully consider whether one of these pilgrimages might be meaningful for you.

I also want to make these experiences as accessible as possible. Payment plans will always be available because I know most of us are balancing real life responsibilities, budgets, work, and family. My goal is to make these opportunities realistic for people who genuinely want to participate.

Looking ahead, there are several other pilgrimages I hope to lead in the future. Returning to Rome is high on that list, where we would explore the early church in the heart of the ancient empire. We would walk sections of the Appian Way, visit the underground catacombs where early Christians gathered and were buried, and reflect on the lives and martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul while exploring the historical roots of the Church in the city that shaped so much of Christian history.

Assisi is another place I hope to lead a pilgrimage one day. It is the small hill town in Italy where Francis of Assisi lived and carried out his ministry. Francis is remembered for abandoning wealth and status in order to live a life fully devoted to Christ. His tenderness toward animals and creation flowed from a deep conviction that all of creation belongs to God and reflects His glory. A pilgrimage there would allow us to walk through the town where he lived, visit the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi where his life and legacy are preserved, and reflect on what it truly means to live with humility, devotion, and reverence for the Creator.

Ireland is another place I hope to return to one day for a pilgrimage. I have visited before, but I would love to experience it again through the lens of the early Christian monastic tradition that shaped the island for centuries. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Ireland became a quiet center of Christian life where monks devoted themselves to prayer, Scripture, and learning, preserving biblical texts and eventually carrying the gospel into other parts of Europe. Figures like Saint Patrick helped shape that story. After being taken to Ireland as a slave as a teenager, he later returned as a missionary and spent his life preaching the gospel across the island. Returning there as a pilgrimage would feel different than my first visit, not simply seeing the landscape again but reflecting on the lives of believers who devoted themselves so fully to Christ.

Egypt is another journey I hope to lead one day. That trip would include places tied to both biblical history and early Christianity. We would explore the region of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, visit the Red Sea area connected to the Exodus story, and see some of the ancient monasteries that grew out of the early Christian monastic movement in the Egyptian desert. And of course, I hope to return to Israel and Jordan again one day too.

These future trips will be spread out intentionally. I will only lead one pilgrimage per year. Most of us have jobs, responsibilities, families, and real life commitments that make frequent travel unrealistic. Spacing them out keeps them financially manageable and allows each trip to receive the attention and intentionality it deserves.

For now, I am simply grateful for the opportunity to begin again with these two upcoming pilgrimages. Thank you for taking the time to read the stories behind them.

It is a gift to be able to visit these places, and even more so to do it alongside other believers.

If you have been wanting to step into the places where Scripture and church history unfolded, I invite you to prayerfully consider joining us.

JOIN THE WAITLIST HERE