Founding cohort · USMC Ministries

The Watchman’s Course
for the Digital Age

A twelve-week cohort for husbands, fathers, solo founders, ministry leaders, and veterans — built on the conviction that AI works for a man’s home, business, and ministry without ever working over him. Thirty-six specific tasks, roughly ninety minutes a week, one signed Watchman’s Charter at the end.

Founding cohort
Free
first 25 men
Claim a founding seat — free → Read the syllabus ↓
Format: twelve weeks, three tasks each, thirty-six in total Time: ~90 min/week Cohort: private Telegram channel (phone or computer)
Taught by

Adam Johns — husband, father, Marine veteran, pilot, minister, founder.

Adam is a husband to Maria and a father of three — first and foremost — and a twenty-one-year United States Marine: combat veteran, operational pilot in both the CH-46 Sea Knight and the MV-22 Osprey, ordained minister (CLA/CLI and NACM), and NASM-certified coach. He runs Bow & Arrow Studio as a solo founder and is the founder of U.S.M.C. Ministries. This isn’t an AI-guru course; it’s a leadership course taught by a man who’s spent his career deciding under pressure, and who’s now wrestling with how AI fits into a Christian household and a small business without ever taking the wheel.

21-Year USMC
United States Marine Corps veteran
Operational Pilot
CH-46 Sea Knight & MV-22 Osprey
3 Tours
Three combat deployments
Ordination
Ordained minister (CLA/CLI & NACM)
NASM-CPT
Certified personal trainer
SYMBIS
Marriage assessment certified
C5iSR
Defense communications industry
B&A
Solo founder, Bow & Arrow Studio LLC
fit20
Coach, fit20 Fredericksburg
Who it’s for

Three kinds of men, the same watchman framing.

The watchman framing comes out of Ezekiel 33 — the man set on the wall to warn the city — and the men who land in this cohort tend to wear three different hats while standing the same wall: solo operators carrying weight without a team, husbands and fathers who refuse to outsource their families to a chatbot, and multipliers training up the next generation. The vocations vary; the posture is shared.

The Solo Operator

You carry weight without a team — founder, operator, consultant, or pastor of a small church — and AI is the leverage that keeps the home table set and the business honest, not the thing that quietly takes over either one.

The Husband-Father

Marriage, kids, work, ministry — the watchman’s first wall is his own home, and AI is the assistant that frees up your evenings without ever replacing the showing-up that holds a family together.

The Multiplier

Pastor, mentor, ministry leader, or veteran with a next mission — you’re here because of 2 Timothy 2:2: what you have learned, you commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me.”

Ezekiel 33:7 ↑
Watch · Listen

The course, explained in a few minutes.

Two formats, same overview — a short explainer to watch, or a deep-dive conversation for the commute. Both walk through what the twelve weeks actually do, who they’re for, and the conviction underneath: AI works for the man, not over him.

Watch — the explainer
↓ Download video (MP4)
Listen — the deep dive

A two-host conversation walking through the course — good for a drive or a workout.

↓ Download audio (M4A)
The Syllabus

Twelve weeks of structured work, one signed charter at the end.

Three tasks each week, twenty to thirty minutes per task — six blocks across the twelve weeks. The Business block runs the longest because that’s where most men in this cohort are spending most of their hours. Click any week to open its page.

Already enrolled? Open the Watchman’s Mission Log — check off each task, watch your progress fill, and install it to your phone to work the course anywhere, even offline.
Open the Mission Log →
BLOCK I Foundation W1–2
BLOCK II Home Mastery W3–4
BLOCK III Business Layer W5–8
BLOCK IV Ministry Layer W9–10
BLOCK V Sovereign Stack W11
BLOCK VI Watchman's Charter W12
BLOCK I · Foundation
WEEK 1

Watchman's Posture

Why a man uses AI matters more than which model he picks; the posture sits above the tooling.

  • Write Your Watchman's Charter
  • Apply the Tiered Autonomy Framework
  • Build Your Watchman's Tool Stack
Ezekiel 33:1–7 ↗ Open week 1 →
BLOCK I · Foundation
WEEK 2

Prompting Discipline + Voice Mastery

The five-part prompt structure, and the dictation loop that turns a thirty-minute task into eight.

  • Anatomy of a Watchman's Prompt
  • Voice Capture + Whisper Workflow
  • The Watchman's Audit (Weekly Rhythm)
Proverbs 18:13 ↗ Open week 2 →
BLOCK II · Home Mastery
WEEK 3

Home Foundations

A short wife audit, a five-year vision rewritten in your own words, and one hard conversation actually shipped.

  • The 5-Minute Wife Audit
  • Write Your 5-Year Watchman's Vision
  • Prep One Hard Conversation
Ephesians 5:25 ↗ Open week 3 →
BLOCK II · Home Mastery
WEEK 4

Home Systems & Stewardship

A family AI policy your kids help write, a household rhythm posted where everyone can see it, and a legacy plan started.

  • Family AI Policy + Friday Devotion Generator
  • Family Rhythm Asset
  • Legacy Plan Starter
1 Timothy 3:4–5 ↗ Open week 4 →
BLOCK III · Business Layer
WEEK 5

Operator Foundations

Subscriptions audited, body wired as platform, and the first real Cowork workflow shipped.

  • Subscription Audit
  • Body as Platform (Movement + Sleep)
  • Ship One Real Cowork Workflow
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ↗ Open week 5 →
BLOCK III · Business Layer
WEEK 6

Business Operations & Stewardship

Read your numbers; build the recurring-comms workflow; lock in a tithe-first budget.

  • Read Your Numbers (P&L Review with AI)
  • Client-Comms Workflow
  • Tithe-First Budget
Luke 16:10–11 ↗ Open week 6 →
BLOCK III · Business Layer
WEEK 7

Cowork as Operator Infra

Cowork's inventory + redlines mapped, a reusable prompt library you'll actually use, and a multi-step research workflow shipped on something real.

  • Cowork Inventory + Redlines
  • Build Your Cowork Prompt Library
  • Multi-Step Research Workflow
Proverbs 16:3 ↗ Open week 7 →
BLOCK III · Business Layer
WEEK 8

Operator Output

Strip the AI fingerprint out of your drafts; sign a real decision; ship a public piece in your voice.

  • Strip the AI Fingerprint
  • Decision-Support Memo
  • Ship One Piece in Your Voice
Colossians 3:23 ↗ Open week 8 →
BLOCK IV · Ministry Layer
WEEK 9

Ministry Tools

Sermon to weekly actions; a ten-minute Scripture-study loop with AI as partner; a teaching aid you'll actually use Sunday.

  • Sermon → Watchman's Actions
  • 10-Minute Scripture Study with AI
  • Build a Teaching Aid for One Passage
2 Timothy 3:16–17 ↗ Open week 9 →
BLOCK IV · Ministry Layer
WEEK 10

Discipleship at Scale

A personal daily-devotion loop you tune to your own walk, a pastoral-counseling prep workflow with hard redlines, and a cohort prompt-pack you test on one man.

  • The Watchman's Daily Devotion (Personal)
  • Pastoral Counseling Prep Workflow (with Redlines)
  • Build a Discipleship Cohort Prompt-Pack
2 Timothy 2:2 ↗ Open week 10 →
BLOCK V · Sovereign Stack
WEEK 11

Sovereign Stack

A local-AI smoke test on your own hardware, your watchman's redlines wired architecturally, and one MCP server scoped and tested.

  • Local AI Smoke Test
  • Define Your Watchman's Redlines
  • MCP Server Setup
Proverbs 22:3 ↗ Open week 11 →
BLOCK VI · Watchman's Charter
WEEK 12

Watchman's Charter

Synthesize the eleven weeks into one document; teach one person one thing; sign your charter and ship the commissioning log.

  • Build Your Personal AI Adjutant
  • Teach One Person One Thing
  • Sign Your Watchman's Charter (Commissioning)
Ezekiel 33:7 ↗ Open week 12 →
How It Works

Run it from a phone or a computer — your choice.

The cohort lives in a private Telegram channel — free, works on iPhone and Android and Mac and Windows, about a minute to sign up if you don’t already have it. We picked Telegram over Mighty Networks, Discord, and Slack because it stays out of the way: tasks drop as channel posts, you react when you ship, and the linked discussion thread is where iron sharpens iron.

STEP 1

Enroll

Free for the founding twenty-five — no card, no checkout. Email Adam; he confirms your seat.

STEP 2

Get added to the cohort

A private Telegram-channel link lands in your inbox within twenty-four hours; open the pinned watchman’s index, and W1.T1 is right behind it.

STEP 3

Ship a task

Twenty to thirty minutes per task, three tasks a week (Mon/Wed/Fri) — open the PDF, do the action, react ✓ on the post when you’ve shipped it.

STEP 4

Commission

By Week 12 you’ll sign your Watchman’s Charter, teach one person one thing, and post the commissioning log — you finish the cohort as a watchman with a system and a man you’ve trained.

The founding cohort

The first 25 men run it free.

The course is finished — twelve weeks, thirty-six tasks — and it has not been run with a cohort yet. So the first twenty-five men through it pay nothing to start. Register, run the weeks, ship the work. When you finish, if it earned its keep in your home, your business or your ministry, give what you think that was worth. If it didn’t, you owe nothing — and I’d rather hear why it missed.

Claim one of the 25 →

Email reaches Adam directly. He confirms your seat and your number in the twenty-five — there is no card and no checkout in the founding cohort.

Later cohorts

Price stays unpublished.

The first twenty-five men run it free. What it costs after that is not set, and it will not be posted until the course has been walked end to end. Until then there is nothing to pay and nothing to check out.

Claim a founding seat — free →

Cohort Cadence

Quarterly cohorts; late joins welcome.

Four cohorts a year, with hard start dates so the men in each cohort move through the weeks together — and a roughly two-week late-join grace window so life’s timing doesn’t lock you out of a season you’re ready for.

Upcoming cohorts

Hybrid cadence — fixed kick-off, ~2-week grace for late joins. Lifetime access means you can re-run any future cohort as a refresher.
Cohort 1 — Watchman’s InaugurationTBD · first run of the program
Cohort 2 — SummerQuarterly cadence, dates TBD
Cohort 3 — FallQuarterly cadence, dates TBD
Cohort 4 — WinterQuarterly cadence, dates TBD

Dates lock ~4 weeks before each cohort kicks off — email Adam if you want first-notice on the next cohort opening.

Explore the Materials

What ships with the cohort.

Eight deliverables travel with the enrollment — some live the moment the cohort kicks off, some build out as the program runs. All of them stay yours for life after you’re in.

Master Curriculum

Source-of-truth Word document. Full block + week + task breakdown, watchman’s drills, the cohort cadence overview, and the Charter template.

Ready — included with access

Participant Workbook

Print-friendly companion journal. One page per task, weekly reflection pages, the family AI policy template, and your signed Charter at the end.

Ready — included with access

Live-Teaching Deck

Cohort-leader slide deck with speaker notes — built for the leader of a future cohort, an in-person teaching night, or a recorded video module.

Ready — included with access

36 Task PDFs

Every task as a single-page PDF. Print and hand to a brother who can’t fit the full cohort, or run yourself through one task at a time off-platform.

Ready — included with access

Watchman’s Drills (PDF)

Optional depth track: 36 ninety-second micro-prompts, three per week, that turn AI into a daily rep alongside the main task work.

Ready — included with access

Watchman’s Field Packet

Twelve one-page Week Runners in one print job — each week’s Mon / Wed / Fri tasks and daily drills as a day-by-day paper checklist. Print it and run the week off the wall.

Ready — included with access

Cohort Telegram Channel

Private channel where tasks drop Mon/Wed/Fri, watchmen react ✓ on the ship, and the linked discussion thread is where iron sharpens iron.

Live now

NotebookLM Explainers

Three- to four-minute Watch · Listen overview for every page in the program — the same explainer-video + audio-podcast pattern USMC Ministries already uses.

Rolling out — first weeks live

Watchman’s Charter (signed)

The capstone document you fill out, sign, and ship publicly in Week 12 — what you’ll use as your standing daily operating doctrine after the cohort ends.

Yours to sign in Week 12
Premium Add-On

Want hands-on time with Adam? The Watchman’s Walk-Through.

Three personal sessions with Adam across the run of the cohort — in-person if you’re near Fredericksburg, VA, or over Zoom if you’re anywhere else. The cohort gives you the curriculum; the Walk-Through gives you the watchman. We sit down together, walk through your tool stack, look at the workflows you’re actually building, and answer the questions that don’t fit in a channel post. The add-on is not priced until the founding run is finished.

What the three sessions cover

  1. SESSION 1 Mission Brief

    Early in Week 1. We open the cohort together — walk through your tool stack, draft your Watchman’s Charter side by side, and pick the first real workflow you’ll ship. You leave with a plan and a person who’ll know if you don’t follow it.

  2. SESSION 2 Mid-cohort Check

    Around Week 6 (Business Operations). We review what shipped, troubleshoot what stuck, and adjust your operator workflows based on what’s actually working in your week. This is the session where most watchmen find the bottleneck they couldn’t see alone.

  3. SESSION 3 Commissioning

    End of the cohort. We walk through your finished AI Adjutant document, your signed Watchman’s Charter, and the standing operating doctrine you’ll carry past Week 12 into the next year of your life and business.

Common Questions

What men ask before they enroll.

If your question isn’t here, email Adam. He answers every one.

Do I need to be technical?
No. The course assumes operator-level common sense — not a CS degree. If you can drive a smartphone and write a paragraph, you can run every task. The technical depth lives in Week 11 (Sovereign Stack) and that week is graded for the watchman who's invested in local AI; if you're not there, you'll still ship the cloud workflow and skip the local install without falling behind.
How much time will this take per week?
Three tasks a week. 20–30 minutes per task. Plus optional daily drills (90 seconds each). Total: ~90 minutes/week of structured work plus however much you decide to spend applying what you learn. We've held this pace with USMC Ministries for over a year — it's the most sustainable rhythm we've found for working husbands and fathers.
Is this just for veterans?
No. The watchman framing comes from Ezekiel 33 — the man set on the wall to warn the city. Veterans recognize the posture viscerally; the cohort is full of solo founders, ministry leaders, pastors, and working dads alongside men who served. The common denominator is the Watchman's Posture, not a DD-214.
What if I can't make a live call?
There are no required live calls. The cohort runs in a Telegram channel — tasks drop Monday / Wednesday / Friday and you ship them on your own schedule. Optional Q&A threads run weekly; you read and contribute when it fits.
What's the difference between this and the free public content?
The free pages (Toolkit, Mission, Sovereign Stack, Heartbeat) are the reference library — what tools exist, how they're tiered, what the program covers. The course is the doing: 36 specific tasks with deadlines, a private cohort to ship in, and the personal accountability of a 12-week commitment. The first twenty-five men run it free.
What if I start and it isn’t a fit?
The founding twenty-five pay nothing, so there is nothing to refund. Email Adam and stop. He would rather hear why it missed than have you grind through a course that does not fit.
Will my data leave my country / be sold / train a model?
Cohort discussion stays on Telegram (their terms apply). Your specific prompts, family details, and pastoral notes never go in the cohort feed — Week 11 (Sovereign Stack) is literally the answer: here's how to wire local AI for the things that shouldn't leave your machine. The course teaches the boundary; the watchman enforces it.
Start free

Not ready to enroll? Start with one free tool.

Grab The 5-Part Watchman’s Prompt — the one-page guide that stops you getting mush out of AI. It’s a single rep from the full course: learn the five-part structure, and the same thirty-minute task starts taking eight. Free, no strings — if it helps, the cohort is where it goes deep.

Download the free guide (PDF) ↓

No spam, unsubscribe any time. The free guide downloads instantly; the waitlist note goes straight to Adam’s inbox.

Watchman — your wall is waiting.

Twelve weeks of structured work, thirty-six specific tasks, one signed Watchman’s Charter at the end — and an honest framework for using AI as a tool that serves your home, your business, and your ministry, without ever taking the place of the man set on the wall.

Claim a founding seat — free → or email Adam with a question first