How to use them
Answer the do-nothing objection in session one
The first chapter says God has already prepared certain people, and somebody
always hears that as permission to stop working.
If it comes up, say immediately where the work is: chapter 5 sets an alarm and
chapter 6 asks for one move this week. Naming it early costs a sentence; leaving
it unsaid means seven chapters heard through a misunderstanding.
Watch too for the person who answers “peace” too quickly in the first exercise.
It is sometimes true, and it is often the answer they think you want.
Send them back to the text
Chapter 2 is where a group will answer from remembered sermons rather than the
words in front of them. Send them back, every time.
And hold anybody who wants to jump to application. Chapter 6 is the application,
and it lands considerably harder after this one has been worked properly.
The reputation is the point
In chapter 3 a group will admire the Samaritan woman’s story without noticing who
she was in that town. Say it plainly — the reputation is not incidental to the
account, it is the reason the account is in this class.
Expect defensiveness at the third exercise and keep it descriptive: this is what
programmes do, not what bad churches do. The distinction is the difference between
a room that thinks and a room that defends.
Marks you have seen, not marks you hope for
The chapter 4 scan fails in two directions, and both produce a full-looking page.
A list drawn entirely from inside the congregation has not scanned the harvest at
all; a page with all five marks against every name has recorded what the writer
wants rather than what they have watched.
Bring a real example from your own scan, including the person you almost left off.
A real one is worth more than a hypothetical, and the near-omission is usually the
interesting part.
Watch for warm agreement in the last four chapters
The last four chapters are the easiest in the class to approve of and the easiest
to leave undone, and each one has a comfortable version you should refuse to
accept.
In chapter 5 the comfortable version is enthusiasm without a phone coming out of
a pocket — and, underneath it, the assumption that praying is the preamble to the
work. Luke 10 puts it first for a reason. In chapter 6 it is a good conversation
about all four moves that never says which one this person skipped; ask when they
last did the one they are avoiding. Somebody will also answer with a season’s plan
when what was asked for is a single move inside seven days.
Chapter 7’s comfortable version wears the best disguise of the four, because it
sounds like faith: if God is at work, there is nothing left for me to carry. The
seventy-two heard the same theology and still walked to the towns. Its cousin is
writing off a field as hard ground when nobody in the room has actually been
there — the sentence the whole chapter exists to interrupt.
Names and dates, one each
Chapter 8 is the deliverable, and it fails in three recognisable ways: three names
instead of one, which is how people avoid choosing; warm agreement with no dates
written; and a plan that is an event rather than a person.
Decide your own name and date first, say them out loud, and decide who is holding
you to it.
Using the two books
The workbook is the participant’s: short lead-in, the questions, the space to
write. Print it front-and-back for a binder.
The leader book is this one plus the whole teaching and the facilitator layer
— per-chapter timing, what to prepare, and what to watch for. Keep it open in
front of you during the session. It carries answers and notes that are not in the
participant book, so hand out the workbook, never this.
