About EPHOD
EPHOD stands for Every Person, Household, Oikos — Discipled. Oikos is the Greek word for a household and the circle of people around it. The vision behind the name is that every person, every family and every circle of friends becomes a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ.
EPHOD is not a book or a course you finish. It is a way of living with the Bible: reading it every morning and every evening, hiding a verse in your heart each week, writing down what God shows you, and meeting with a few other believers to share it. Do that for a year and you have read the whole Bible — and you have become someone who can help the next person do the same.
The program was developed by Rev. Herb and Rev. Karen Johnson during thirty years of missionary ministry with the Assemblies of God in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Today it is carried forward by the churches they served, on this website, and in the EPHOD apps.
Rev. Herb and Rev. Karen Johnson
Ordained ministers of the Assemblies of God USA. Bachelor's degrees from Evangel University, Springfield, Missouri; master's degrees from Indiana University. Appointed missionaries in 1974.
Since 1975 they have lived and served in Ethiopia, Kenya, France, Belgium, Tahiti, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. They are the parents of Kevin and Kristi and the grandparents of Dillon, Kayla, David and Ian.
Herb and Karen still choose every day's Gold Nugget verse themselves.
Where EPHOD came from
The Johnsons were appointed Assemblies of God missionaries in 1974. Wherever they served, they kept meeting the same need: believers who loved Jesus and wanted to grow, and pastors who had no practical way to train them. Ephesians 4:11–12 says leaders are given to the church "to equip the saints for works of service," and the Johnsons set out to build something a pastor anywhere could use to do exactly that.
It took more than ten years. What came out of it is the EPHOD Church Strengthening Seminars — thirteen seminars that cover nearly every foundational principle of the Christian life, built around one conviction: a disciple is someone who continues in God's Word (John 8:31) and goes to make other disciples (Matthew 28:19). The seminars have been taught to hundreds of people in Cambodia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, in city churches and in highland villages with no electricity or running water. In Papua New Guinea, churches filled for the whole seminar, night after night.
Because it was shaped across so many cultures, EPHOD travels well. It does not depend on a building, a budget or a seminary. An EPHOD lifestyle just needs a Bible, a notebook, a few fellow believers and a decision to keep living for Jesus every day.
The 10 Point Plan
The seminars turn discipleship into ten habits, and the habits are the heart of EPHOD:
- Daily Bible reading
- Weekly Scripture memorization
- Sunday school and worship
- A weekly care cell, small group or Bible study
- A devotional journal
- Pray and fast one meal each week
- Sharing or witnessing Jesus
- Tithes and offerings
- Daily prayer and worship time
- Taking notes in services
Each point explained, on the home page · Take the seminars online
What EPHOD gives you every day
The daily reading
An Old Testament passage each morning and a New Testament passage each evening. Follow it from January to December and you have read the whole Bible. The prophets are read in the order they lived, and the New Testament is arranged so the story keeps coming back to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The plan is the Full Life Study Bible Reading Plan, used by permission of Life Publishers International.
The weekly memory verse
One verse a week, chosen in Manila by Zarah Tan of Binondo Full Gospel Church. Memorized Scripture is what comes to mind when trouble comes, and it is what you have to give when someone else needs a word.
The daily Gold Nugget
A single verse to carry through the day, chosen by Herb and Karen themselves — one for every day of the year.
The weekly devotion
A short reflection on the week's reading, posted every week since 2017 — more than four hundred of them, from Gospel Publishing House. Each one is tied to the passages you are reading that week.
Small groups
"Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass" (Mark 6:39). A small group is where EPHOD comes alive: each week the group shares what God showed them in the reading, goes over the memory verse, and prays for one another.
The seminars
The full program, thirteen seminars on being a disciple and a disciple maker, taught by Herb and Karen. The whole course is now online here, free, with every seminar on video.
EPHOD today
In Papua New Guinea
The program the Johnsons carried into the highlands now continues under its own leadership as EPHOD of Papua New Guinea, within the Assemblies of God of Papua New Guinea. The EPHOD PNG app serves believers there and Papua New Guineans in Australia and the Solomon Islands, in English and Tok Pisin, with Scripture in more than two hundred Papua New Guinea languages so that people can read the daily passage in their own tokples — their heart language.
In the Philippines
Binondo Full Gospel Church in Manila keeps the weekly rhythm going: the memory verse and the devotion are chosen and posted there every week. The EPHOD PH app speaks English, Tagalog and Chinese, and it was the young people of the church who asked for Scripture in the modern Tagalog they use every day.
The apps
EPHOD PH and EPHOD PNG were built by Kevin Johnson, Herb and Karen's son and the missions coordinator at Victorville First Assembly of God, so that the reading plan could live on a phone. He launched EPHOD PNG in Papua New Guinea in person in 2026. Many believers there walked to a top-up store and bought a day's worth of data just to download the app; some had come from villages where the signal carries only calls and texts. That is why the apps work entirely offline once the Bible is on the phone, and why they are free, with no ads and nothing to buy.
About the EPHOD PH app · EPHOD PNG at ephod4png.com
The people and churches behind EPHOD
EPHOD has always been a family and a fellowship, not an organization. These are the people and churches who sponsor it and carry it forward.
Sponsors
- Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM)Sponsor of the Johnsons' missionary ministry and of EPHOD
- Indiana District, Assemblies of GodMissions department sponsor
- Victorville First Assembly of GodVictorville, California. Sponsoring church of the EPHOD PH and EPHOD PNG apps
EPHOD of Papua New Guinea
- Ben HariMissions Director, Papua New Guinea
- Paul TakuEPHOD Director
- Mark Ani and Grace AniMark serves as General Secretary of the Assemblies of God of Papua New Guinea
Philippines
- Binondo Full Gospel ChurchManila
- Pastor Zaldi Lim
- Zarah and Lawrence TanZarah chooses the weekly memory verse and posts each week's devotion
Get in touch
Questions about EPHOD, the seminars or the apps are welcome, and so are churches who would like to bring the seminars to their people. Contact us.
Start today
You don't need to wait for January. Open this morning's passage, read it, and come back tonight.