plain english
academy
Through practical teaching, real conversations, and biblical truth, Pastor Jay and Pastor Sonia help you grow in three essential areas: Marriage, Leadership, and the Five-Fold Ministry Gifts. You'll gain the tools you need to strengthen your relationships, mature as a leader, and confidently walk out your calling every day.
Plain English Academy is a private learning community hosted on the Skool platform, where members can access courses, participate in discussions, and grow alongside others who are serious about living out their faith.
Choose the tier that fits your growth journey. Access (Standard) provides on-demand learning you can move through at your own pace. Inner Circle (Premium) includes live coaching, deeper conversations, and direct interaction with Pastor Jay and Pastor Sonia. Select a monthly plan, or go annual and receive two months free when you commit to the full year.
Your journey toward clarity, confidence, and calling starts here.
choose your
growth path
Get full access to the Plain English Academy community and course library. Grow at your own pace through practical teaching on marriage, leadership, and spiritual gifts while connecting with others pursuing purpose.
Go deeper with live coaching, Q&A, and real conversations. Join Pastor Jay and Pastor Sonia each week for interactive sessions designed to help you apply what you're learning and grow alongside other leaders.
FOR MARRIAGE
This five-session course is designed to help couples strengthen, protect, and restore their marriage through biblical truth and practical application. Drawing from Pastor Jay’s book The 5 Laws of Protecting Your Marriage, each session focuses on one key principle that will help you build lasting unity, deepen communication, and love each other the way God intended.
Whether you’ve been married for years or are preparing for the journey ahead, you’ll gain wisdom, real-life tools, and powerful insight to guard your relationship from anything that tries to come between you.
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Marriage was designed to function as a team — you, your spouse, and Jesus. This course helps you identify and remove anything that tries to divide that bond, whether it’s people, finances, or passwords. You’ll learn practical steps for protecting unity, setting boundaries, and keeping transparency at the heart of your relationship.
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Whatever you focus on in your marriage is what will grow. This session teaches you how to shift from criticism to gratitude, replacing frustration with appreciation. You’ll explore how to see your spouse through God’s eyes, speak life over your relationship, and create a culture of encouragement in your home.
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Sometimes love means standing up and speaking out. Inspired by Jesus clearing the temple, this course challenges couples to defend one another and set healthy boundaries that protect their marriage from harm. You’ll discover how to love courageously, resolve conflict biblically, and create emotional safety for your spouse.
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Love is not about giving what feels good to you — it’s about understanding what speaks to your partner. This course helps you learn your spouse’s true needs, recognize their love language, and give in ways that bring joy, connection, and trust. You’ll leave equipped to serve each other with purpose and compassion.
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Men and women were created differently, but designed to complement one another. This final course unpacks Ephesians 5, showing how love and respect create balance and strength in a marriage. You’ll learn how to honor each other’s roles, communicate with understanding, and build a lasting bond that reflects God’s design.
FOR LEADERS
This seven-session leadership course helps believers grow deep roots in faith while developing the heart and habits of a Kingdom leader. Each session explores a biblical figure whose life reveals a powerful principle of leadership—from Joseph’s servant spirit to Jesus’ empowering example. Through teaching, discussion, and real-life application, you’ll learn how to lead with humility, courage, prayer, and purpose in every area of life.
Whether you’re leading a team, a family, or simply leading yourself, this course will help you bloom into the leader God created you to be.
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Discover how God shapes leaders through humility, faithfulness, and integrity. Joseph’s journey from the pit to the palace teaches us that true leadership begins with a willing heart and a commitment to serve, even when no one’s watching.
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Abraham’s story reminds us that great leaders trust God’s promises even when the path is unclear. Learn to step out in faith, believe without wavering, and rely fully on God’s timing and provision.
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Moses learned that trying to do everything alone leads to burnout. This session helps leaders recognize their limits, value wise counsel, and empower others through healthy delegation and shared responsibility.
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David’s courage and confidence came from knowing who he was in God. This week focuses on embracing your unique gifts, tuning out critics, and trusting God’s strength to overcome every giant in your path
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Nehemiah shows that effective leadership requires both prayer and action. You’ll learn how to seek God’s guidance, create a plan, and move boldly when He opens the door—fighting with both a hammer and a sword
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Peter proves that failure isn’t final. This session encourages leaders to surrender pride, accept grace, and keep moving forward despite mistakes. God’s greatest work often flows through imperfect vessels
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Jesus modeled leadership that multiplies others. Learn how to invest relationally, model godly behavior, and release authority to empower future leaders. True Kingdom leadership isn’t about control—it’s about calling others higher.
FOR five-fold mINISTRY
Five-Fold Frontier is a 5-session journey for pastors, ministry teams, and Kingdom leaders who want to understand how the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, and Teacher actually work together in real life.
Using the language of the frontier, Pastor Jay walks leaders through each gift, its biblical foundation, its strengths and blind spots, and the points of tension it creates with the other four. This isn’t theory; it’s about learning why your team thinks the way it does, why certain conflicts keep showing up, and how to move from frustration to partnership.
By the end of the course, participants will be able to recognize their primary gift, honor the gifts of others, and build healthier teams that pioneer, protect, and advance the Kingdom…together.
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The Apostle is the pioneer of the Kingdom, the one who leaves the safety of what’s known to build where no one else has built yet. In this session, leaders learn how apostles lay foundations, create new structures, and think in terms of movements rather than moments. We’ll unpack their strengths (vision, strategy, courage) as well as their weaknesses (moving too fast, overlooking people). You’ll also explore the tension between apostolic leaders and the other gifts, especially pastors, and how to turn that tension into healthy collaboration instead of constant conflict.
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If the Apostle is eager to build, the Prophet is the surveyor who says, “Wait, let’s make sure we’re building on the right ground.” This session focuses on prophetic gifting as the voice that hears God, discerns the landscape, and calls the Church back to His heart. Leaders will learn how prophetic people strengthen and protect a ministry, where they often create friction (timing, tone, and truth), and why their role is essential for keeping vision aligned with God’s blueprint. We’ll talk honestly about both the power and the weight of carrying a prophetic voice in the local church.
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The Evangelist is always moving beyond the edges of the camp, looking for those who are still outside the family. This session explores how evangelists carry a holy urgency for the lost, bring momentum and growth, and keep the Church from turning inward. We’ll look at the beautiful impact of this gift, as well as its pressure points with more structured or care-focused leaders. Participants will discover how to champion evangelists without burning them out, and how to build systems that can actually hold the people they bring in.
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Teachers turn revelation into language, vision into clear steps, and passion into practices that can be lived and passed on. In this session, leaders learn how the teaching gift grounds a church in truth, creates reproducible systems, and guards against drift and confusion. We’ll also talk about the flip side: when teachers overcomplicate, resist change, or unintentionally box God into their framework. You’ll see how Teachers can partner with Apostles, Prophets, and Evangelists to make sure what God is doing today is still healthy tomorrow.
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The Pastor is the one who thinks about people before programs and sees faces where others see functions. This session highlights how pastoral leaders create belonging, protect the flock, and keep the culture healthy as the ministry grows. We’ll explore the real tensions Pastors feel with more “go-focused” gifts like Apostles and Evangelists, and how their concern for people can either anchor the mission or accidentally stall it. Leaders will walk away with a deeper appreciation for the pastoral gift and practical tools for balancing care and calling on their teams.
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