Digital Formation Journey Designer

Digital Formation Journey Designer

Lifecycle Content, Email & Product Experiences

Practicing the Way is looking for a part-time Digital Formation Journey Designer to help shape the digital journeys that support people as they practice the Way of Jesus in everyday life.

This role will focus primarily on individuals and groups: people engaging our Courses, participating in groups, completing the Spiritual Health Reflection, building a Rule of Life, and continuing in apprenticeship over time. It will also contribute to church-facing journeys, helping pastors and church leaders onboard, adopt, and grow in their use of Practicing the Way resources.

We are looking for a digitally mindful designer who can think at the level of the whole journey and also get into the details of designing beautiful, useful digital experiences. The right person is likely a hybrid of a growth-minded email marketer, UX journey strategist, and UI designer: someone who understands how email prompts, in-app moments, content, reminders, and product flows can work together to help people take the next faithful step.

Email is currently one of our primary delivery channels, but the work is bigger than email. The right person will design the journey first, then discern how that journey should show up across email, the platform, web, app, notifications, or other touchpoints.

Our Vision for this Role
The Digital Formation Journey Designer will help individuals, groups, and churches move from initial engagement to ongoing practice.

This role sits at the intersection of:

• Lifecycle email
• Content strategy
• UX/UI and product experience
• User research and data
• Spiritual formation

We are looking for someone who can take an initial vision or product goal and turn it into a clear user journey. This includes thinking through what the user is experiencing, what they need next, what content should be delivered, what touchpoint is best, and how each step helps them take the next faithful step.

A strong candidate will likely have experience designing and improving key user flows, such as onboarding, activation, nurture, engagement, or re-engagement into a digital product, platform, course, app, or system. They understand how a thoughtful combination of email prompts, in-app steps, content, reminders, and product moments can help someone move forward.

They should also bring real user experience and visual design ability. This is not only a journey mapping or content strategy role. We are looking for someone who can help shape web, app, or interactive digital experiences with strong instincts for user flows, interface clarity, visual hierarchy, content hierarchy, interaction design, friction, pacing, and simplicity.

A strong candidate will also know how to create emails that people are actually grateful to receive. Not generic updates. Not cluttered reminders. Not clever copy for its own sake. Clear, thoughtful, timely emails that serve the person and deepen the journey.

This person should bring enough product and technology awareness to understand what is possible in tools like Customer.io, including segments, triggers, personalization, journey logic, testing, and measurement. They do not need to be a technical operator, but they should be able to design experiences that can actually be built.

The ideal candidate is spiritually grounded, user-centered, visually capable, and comfortable moving between big-picture journey design and detailed experience design. In many ways, this person may feel like a thoughtful blend of a growth marketer, UX strategist, and digital product designer, with a pastoral imagination for spiritual formation.

Specifics: What This Role Does

Design Formation Journeys

• Mapping journeys for individuals, group members, group leaders, and church-facing users
• Designing onboarding, nurture, activation, continued engagement, and re-engagement flows
• Thinking across email, product, web, app, and future touchpoints
• Identifying what users need at key moments
• Creating pathways that help people move from engagement to practice
• Connecting journeys to available technology, including segments, triggers, personalization, product behavior, and lifecycle logic

Bring UX/UI and Product Thinking

• Thinking through user flows and interaction moments
• Sketching lightweight product or journey concepts
• Creating wireframes, content structures, or interface concepts when needed
• Shaping information architecture and content hierarchy
• Considering when something belongs in email versus inside the platform
• Helping design onboarding flows, guided experiences, dashboards, prompts, and next-step moments
• Partnering with product, design, content, and technical teammates
• Helping make digital experiences feel cohesive, intuitive, and not fragmented

Shape Email and Content Experiences

• Designing email sequences and nurture journeys
• Developing content strategy for each journey
• Writing or sketching clear, useful email copy
• Shaping subject lines, message structure, calls to action, and next steps
• Supporting newsletter-style communication when needed
• Ensuring email works as part of the broader user experience, not as a disconnected communication channel

Use Research, Data, and Tools Wisely

• Using data to improve journeys, emails, and product experiences over time
• Noticing where users are confused, disengaging, or needing clearer next steps
• Understanding what is possible in Customer.io and other lifecycle tools
• Thoughtfully integrating the best of AI into research, writing, journey mapping, design iteration, content development, and workflow efficiency
• Talking with real users and gathering feedback
• Reviewing survey responses, analytics, and user behavior

About the Ideal Candidate

About you:

• You are a committed apprentice of Jesus, actively arranging your life around being with Him, becoming like Him, and doing what He would do if He were you.
• You bring a unique perspective, background, and set of experiences that can help broaden the voices shaping our work and strengthen how we serve the Church.
• You have experience designing and improving key user flows such as onboarding, activation, nurture, engagement, or re-engagement.
• You understand how email, in-app moments, product flows, content, reminders, and data can work together to help people take the next step.
• You bring real UX/UI and visual design ability for web, app, platform, or other interactive digital experiences.
• You can move between big-picture journey mapping and detailed experience design.
• You are comfortable shaping user flows, wireframes, content hierarchy, interface decisions, and digital interactions.
• You can write clearly and warmly. You may not be a professional copywriter, but you know how to create emails and digital content that are human, useful, and worth reading.
• You are curious about real users and willing to learn from interviews, feedback, surveys, and data.
• You have enough technology awareness to understand how email platforms, product behavior, segmentation, triggers, and personalization can work together.
• You are curious and discerning about AI, with a thoughtful approach to integrating the best tools into your workflows without compromising the human judgment, pastoral care, theological wisdom, craft, design thinking, and Spirit-led discernment this work requires.
• You resonate deeply with the mission, theology, voice, and ethos of Practicing the Way.

About your previous experience:

• Experience designing and improving user flows for onboarding, activation, nurture, engagement, or re-engagement.
• Experience designing UX/UI for web, app, platform, learning, nonprofit, ministry, or digital product experiences.
• Experience creating user flows, wireframes, prototypes, content hierarchy, interface concepts, or high-fidelity digital designs.
• Experience shaping lifecycle journeys, email programs, product experiences, or multi-touch digital engagement paths.
• Experience with lifecycle or email platforms such as Customer.io, Braze, Iterable, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or similar tools.
• Experience collaborating with product managers, designers, engineers, writers, and marketers.
• Experience using research, user feedback, analytics, or behavioral data to improve digital experiences over time.
• Thoughtful perspective on theology, technology, AI, and spiritual formation.

Details

• Employment Type: Contract, Part-Time
• Time Commitment: 15-20 hours per week
• Location: Remote with flexible working hours. Willing to travel for key meetings, conferences, etc.
• Compensation: $55/hr

Note: At Practicing the Way, we’re always trying to balance generosity and fairness as we think about compensation. As a nonprofit organization stewarding givers’ sacrificial gifts, we may not offer the highest salaries, so we encourage you to consider that as you apply.

As part of the hiring process, we may conduct a background check. Our discernment process invites you to submit references from previous employers and pastors who can testify to your service to your local church.

About Our Hiring Process

Note that, as we discern, our hiring process includes several interviews with key team members. Applicants should be prepared to provide references and complete assessments from us. Successful candidates must sign our statement of faith and pass our background and reference check discernment process before joining our team.