Let us gather the stones

Each day… I come to Jesus without fixing anything first.

Show interest. An ordinary, non-spiritual question: "Tell us one ordinary thing from your week." Nobody gets tested at the door.

Connect. A: a stone covered in mud. "Clean it before you hand it back to me." They rub it, with no water. Then: "Hand it back just as it is." B: a clear bottle of muddy water. "Clean it, without emptying it." They shake it, wipe the outside: nothing. Then, in silence, pour clean water into it, for a long time, until it overflows and runs clear. One sentence only: "You cannot clean yourself. He is not asking you to. He is asking you to let yourself be filled."

Discover. Opening prayer, then research in subgroups. A — What does Jesus require of me before I come to him? John 6:37 · Matthew 11:28-30 · Mark 2:17 · Romans 5:8 · Ephesians 2:8-9 · Revelation 3:20. B — Did Jesus ever ask anyone to fix himself before coming to him? - Jeremiah 13:23: can a man change his own skin? No. And God knows it before you do. That is the starting point, not the condemnation. - Luke 19:1-10 (Zacchaeus): Jesus invites himself in before any restitution. It comes after the meal. - Luke 15:20: the father runs while the son still smells of pigs, and before the end of his sentence. - John 8:1-11: he does not condemn first. The "sin no more" comes after. The order never reverses. - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: Paul names the vices, then says that is what some of them were. The past is named, not hidden. - Mark 2:17 · Romans 5:8 · 1 Timothy 1:15 · Isaiah 1:18 · John 6:37.

THE HEART OF THE STUDY · The parable of the father who runs (Luke 15:11-32)

Read the parable out loud, all of it, slowly. Do not explain it yet. Then ask one question, and be quiet: "At exactly what moment does the father forgive?"

Let them look. The answer is in Luke 15:20, and it demolishes everything: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him."

The father runs BEFORE the son has said a single word. Not after the confession. Before. The prepared speech (vv. 18-19) is only delivered afterwards, and by then he is already in his father's arms. That is why you can come as you are: grace does not answer your confession, it precedes it.

The broken pot · what the community expected

Connect (strong variant). Bring a clay pot. Explain the rite, then smash it on the floor in front of them. Silence. Then: "That is what the son believed was waiting for him. And that is what the elder brother was demanding." Then read Luke 15:20.

The kezazah ("the cutting off") is a rite of rupture: the elders break a vessel in the public square and declare the tie severed, like the jar. The message: irreversible.

WARNING · What you can assert, and what you cannot

The rite exists. It is described in the Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 28b, with parallels in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ketubot 2:10; Qiddushin 1:5) and in Ruth Rabbah 7:11. A barrel is broken, and the family declares the rupture.

BUT its documented object is an unworthy marriage, not a squandered inheritance. No rabbinic source applies it to the prodigal son. That application comes from Kenneth Bailey, it is widespread in preaching, and it is contested: the texts are late and are talking about something else.

So: present the kezazah as an IMAGE of what a definitive rupture was in that world. Never say "the custom was to break a pot in front of the prodigal son." That is not documented, and your skeptic will check.

And you do not need it. Your proof is in the text: the father runs (v. 20). No custom ever made an elderly Middle Eastern man run out to meet the one who had dishonored him. The scandal is in Luke, not in the Talmud.

The four gifts, and why this order

The father does not merely forgive. He restores, and he celebrates the one who should have been excluded. Three gifts are worn. The fourth is eaten.

The order is not decorative. Identity first, then covenant, then freedom, and only then the feast. You do not celebrate a man you have not first restored. That is the order of salvation, and it is also the order of your twelve studies: coming (1), covenant and lordship (2), then the walk (3-4), then the table.

And the fattened calf leads to the Lord's Supper. It is no longer an animal: it is the Lamb (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8). The meal that seals the reconciliation (Exodus 24:11) becomes the bread and the cup (Luke 22:20). Note for the leader: do not develop the Lord's Supper here. Name it, and keep it for study 2, where the Lamb goes up on the altar.

The two questions that close the study

"Are you the elder son, sure of his own righteousness, unable to celebrate the other one's return?" "Or the younger son, crushed by his unworthiness, who prefers the servant's place to the son's?"

Do not answer for them. Let the question sleep in them for a week.

Practice. A: each person writes down what he thought he had to settle before coming back, and tears up the paper. B: no public confession, ever. Each person writes alone, on a paper nobody will read, what is keeping him from coming. He keeps it or burns it. Then one sentence said together, without anyone having to name anything: "I come as I am."

Challenge. Every morning: "Jesus, I come as I am, again today." B: especially on the days you relapse.

The tool for the doubter: the 7 steps to assurance of salvation

(from MacLafferty. To be known by heart. To be used one-on-one, never in front of the group.)

The rhythm is always the same: READ a verse · ASK a question. You do not preach. You get them reading, and you get them talking.

The diagnosis

The gift

The assurance

Two breaths to slip into the track (they are not decorative: they name what a person receives)

Peace, after "the gift": John 14:27. Joy, in the middle of "the assurance": 1 Peter 1:8-9. And to finish: Revelation 7:9 — a great multitude that no one could number. God has planned for you to be in it.

CORRECTION TO MAKE ON YOUR BOOKMARK. On the current print run, the headings are off by one against the verses: step 1 announces "nothing will separate you from the love of God" but gives Romans 3:23 and 6:23a, which are about sin. The table above is realigned. And 1 John 1:9 is used twice (steps 5 and 6): keep it for confession (6), and give Revelation 3:20 to step 5. Fix the file before you reprint it.

And when someone says "I can't say whether I'm saved":

Do not reassure him straight away. Ask him the question: "What is stopping you from believing that 1 John 5:13 is speaking to you?" Then go back through the 7 steps with him, one to one.

Guardrails (B)

Never promise immediate deliverance. "Come to Jesus and your addiction will disappear" is a lie that kills: at the first relapse, the person concludes that God has rejected him, and he never comes back. Tell the truth: he receives you today, whole, and he walks with you. Freedom is real, but it is often a road, not an instant. Do not set faith against help. An addiction often requires, on top of prayer, real support, sometimes medical. Refer; do not improvise. Do not tip over into permissiveness. Received as you are, you will not stay as you are. Both halves, never just one.

Each day… I give him back the wheel, including my attitude and my devices.

S · Savior: he saves me. I receive. M · Master: he teaches me. I learn from him, I imitate him. S · Sovereign: he is Lord, he commands. He has the wheel. The verse that holds all three: John 13:13-14.

Show interest. In pairs: "How did God help you to come just as you are?"

Connect (before the chairs) · the debt someone else pays. Have each person write an amount on a slip of paper: what he would owe, if it had to be paid. Collect the papers without reading them, put them in an envelope, and burn it or tear it up in front of them. One sentence only: "Someone has paid. It was not you." (Colossians 2:14: he canceled the record of debt that stood against us, nailing it to the cross.)

Connect. Three chairs in a row: the passenger, the student, the driver. A: "Which one are you sitting on in your actual life?" B: "Have you even gotten into the car yet?" You do not ask for the wheel from someone who has not gotten in. The S of Savior is enough for today.

THE LAMB ON THE ALTAR · the S of Savior

This is where, and nowhere else, you say what he has done.

Take the image of the track and go all the way with it. On Mount Carmel, Elijah rebuilds the altar — twelve stones, your study 1: coming. But a rebuilt, empty altar is of no use. Elijah lays an offering on it, and the fire of God falls (1 Kings 18:30-38).

Fire does not fall on bare stones. It falls on an altar where an offering has been laid.

RIGOR · Never say "the fire does not fall on the stones". 1 Kings 18:38 says the opposite: "the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust." The stones were consumed along with the offering. What is true, and verifiable: fire does not fall on bare stones. Without an offering, there is nothing.

Your altar has stones. Here is the Lamb. John 1:29 · "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

And it is the fattened calf of study 1 that becomes the Lamb. The father kills the best he has to celebrate the one who should have been excluded. God does the same, and the best he had was his Son.

Discover (the S) — four stations, in this order.

The line you do not cross. On Isaiah 53, read, and be quiet. Do not comment verse by verse. Ask one thing only: "Who is this text talking about, and who is carrying what?" Written seven centuries earlier, it describes a man who carries our sicknesses and our iniquities. Let them see it themselves. What you explain to them is forgotten. What they find stays.

Practice (the S). Each person writes one sentence, in the first person: "He died for ______", and fills in the blank with something true about himself. Nobody reads out loud. B: nobody is obliged to write.

And this is why the S comes first. A man does not hand the wheel to someone who has not first saved him. Lordship without the cross produces a slave. The cross without lordship produces a consumer. All three letters, in this order, or none.

Discover. A — Is Jesus for me only Savior, or also Master and Sovereign? One team per letter. Savior: Matthew 1:21 · John 4:42 · Acts 4:12. Master: Matthew 11:29 · John 13:13-14 · Matthew 23:8-10. Sovereign: Philippians 2:5-11 · Luke 6:46 · Matthew 28:18 · Matthew 26:39. Then: Ezekiel 36:26-27 · Colossians 1:27-28. B — Do you have to believe first, or can you learn by looking? - John 1:46: "come and see". He is not asked to be convinced, he is asked to come and look. - John 7:17: obedience opens knowledge; it does not always follow it. - Mark 9:24: doubt can pray.

Practice. A: name one area not surrendered, and hand it over. B: name, if he wants to, one single thing he would be willing to learn from him this week. No total surrender demanded of a man who is only discovering.

Challenge. Every morning, text yourself an S.M.S.: "Savior. Master. Sovereign." A: then "everything I am is yours, today." B: then "Jesus, if you are real, show me today." That is an honest prayer, and God answers it.

Guardrail (B)

Never demand lordship as the price of admission. A man who has not met the Savior cannot hand over the wheel. You would make him lie, or run.

Each day… I open the Word to meet a person, not to validate an idea.

Connect. A: (his treasure hunt) hide something valuable, hunt for three minutes, then give everyone a spoonful of honey (Psalm 119:103). B: put side by side an instruction manual and a handwritten letter from someone who loves you. "Which of the two do you read twice?" Then: "The Bible is not the first one."

Discover. A — What am I looking for in this text: information, or a face? John 5:39 · Psalm 119:103 · Matthew 7:24 · John 14:23 · 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 · John 16:13. B — What is this man like? No doctrine. You read one single scene, out loud, and you ask: "What do you see about him? What surprises you?" Scenes: Mark 1:40-45 · Luke 7:36-50 · John 4:1-26 · John 8:1-11. Texts: John 20:31 · Luke 24:32 · John 1:46.

Practice. A: one thing seen about Jesus, one thing to apply today. B: one single thing that surprised him. Nothing else. You do not correct his reading.

Challenge. A: look for a new image of Jesus each day and live out the application received. B: read one chapter of the Gospel of John a day.

Guardrail (B)

Do not give him the whole Bible. Give him one Gospel. The man who starts with Leviticus never comes back. And if he gets stuck on the ESV, read him the passage in a plain-English version.

Each day… I do not only talk to God, I stop in front of him.

Connect. Two volunteers: one talks for a minute without stopping, the other cannot reply. Then swap. "Which one was a conversation?" B, add: "To call your father, do you need to write a speech?"

Discover. A — What is the difference between asking, thanking, and praising? (his question) Psalm 5:3 · Psalm 100:4 · Jeremiah 29:13 · Isaiah 6:5 · 1 John 1:9. B — Does God listen to the prayer of a man whose life is not in order? - Luke 18:9-14: the tax collector does not dare lift his eyes and prays seven words. He is the one who goes home justified, not the religious man. - Mark 9:24: doubt can pray. - Psalm 51: David prays during his sin, not after repairing it.

THE STOREROOM · where the Father is waiting for you (Matthew 6:6)

Before the model, Jesus names a place. And the place is a scandal.

Matthew 6:6 · "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret."

The Greek word is not "bedroom". It is ταμεῖον, tameion: the store-room. The pantry. The back room, with no window, that you lock, where the provisions and the little you own are kept.

The proof is in your own ESV, in Luke 12. The same Greek word appears twice in that chapter: at Luke 12:3 the ESV renders it "private rooms", and at Luke 12:24 — twenty-one verses later — it renders it "storehouse": the ravens "have neither storehouse nor barn". Same word. This is not a guest bedroom. It is the larder. (And Luke 12:3 says it best: what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. It is the place where you say what you say nowhere else.)

Note on your English page: the ESV translates tameion in Matthew 6:6 simply as "your room". The NASB says "inner room"; the KJV says "closet". None of them is wrong. Do not argue the translation — teach the word.

What that changes, and it is the whole point of study 1:

It is not the room where you look good. It is the room where you are naked. No window, no audience, no posture. The room you hide in when you no longer want to be seen. And that is exactly where the Father is waiting for you. "Your Father who is in secret." He is already there. Before you walk in.

THE CHAIN THAT HOLDS EVERYTHING · he is always the one who moves first

Make them discover it, verse after verse. Do not summarize it: have it read, in this order.

The sentence to have each person say out loud:

"I did not go to God. God came and found me where I was hiding."

TWO POINTS OF RIGOR, AND YOU MUST KNOW THEM

1. The primary sense of Matthew 6:6 is SECRECY, not vulnerability. Jesus is setting it against the hypocrites who pray "to be seen by others" (v. 5). Vulnerability is a consequence, not the definition. So say: "the room where nobody sees you", and let them draw the conclusion themselves that it is also the room where you have no mask left. What they find on their own holds. What you impose on them collapses.

2. Revelation 3:20 is not addressed to an unbeliever. It is addressed to a CHURCH — Laodicea, which thinks it is rich and "needs nothing" (v. 17). Christ is outside, standing at the door of his own people. Do not deprive yourself of it: it is even stronger for you. The evangelistic use (Jesus knocking at the sinner's heart) is a legitimate application, and you can keep it. But the primary address is door A: the believer gone cold, the one who has everything and feels nothing. The day you say that to a lukewarm elder, watch his face.

THE LORD'S PRAYER · the only model Jesus ever gave

Do not start with a theory of prayer. Start with what the disciples asked for.

Luke 11:1 · "Lord, teach us to pray." They do not ask him to explain prayer. They ask him to teach it to them. And he does not give a lecture: he gives a sentence.

Have it read once, out loud. Then ask one question:

"Count: how many petitions are about God, and how many are about us? And which ones come first?"

Matthew 6:9-13 (Luke 11:2-4 gives a shorter form)

TWO WARNINGS, AND THEY ARE IN THE TEXT

1. Jesus gives this model RIGHT AFTER forbidding empty repetition. Matthew 6:7: "do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." Then he gives the Lord's Prayer. The irony is cruel: the one prayer he taught in order to spare us recitation has become, in the churches, recitation itself. So: do not have it recited. Have it dissected, then have them pray it in their own words, in that order. It is a skeleton, not a formula.

2. Do not build on the closing doxology ("for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"). It is absent from the earliest manuscripts; the ESV puts it in a footnote, not in the text. It is beautiful, it is ancient, but never build a teaching on it: the first person to open his ESV will not find it there, and he will wonder what else you are hiding from him.

And here is the bridge to study 5, and Luke builds it, not me. In Luke, the Lord's Prayer is immediately followed by the friend at midnight (Luke 11:5-8), then by "ask, and it will be given to you" (11:9-10), and all of it lands on one thing:

Luke 11:13 · "How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" In Luke, learning to pray leads to asking for the Spirit. That is exactly the order of your studies 4 and 5. Tell them: we did not invent it.

THE THREE, IN ONE PRAYER

This is where you teach the Trinity. Not as a doctrine. As an experience.

Never say the word "Trinity" first. Have them discover it. Write Ephesians 2:18 on the board, and ask: "How many persons are at work in this one verse?" Let them count.

Ephesians 2:18 · "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." Three. In one sentence. On one single act: praying.

The shape of all Christian prayer:

TO the Father · he is the one you address. It is the first word of the Lord's Prayer. Matthew 6:9 · John 16:23. THROUGH the Son · he is the one who opens the door, and there is no other. John 14:6 · 1 Timothy 2:5 · Hebrews 4:14-16. IN the Spirit · he is the one who prays in you when you have no words left. Romans 8:15-16 · Romans 8:26-27 · Jude 20.

Then say it, once, and simply:

"When you pray, all three are at work. The Father listens, the Son opens, the Spirit carries you. One God — and you have just experienced him."

The texts where the three are named together (to be given, not proved): Matthew 28:19 (the baptism) · 2 Corinthians 13:14 (the benediction) · Matthew 3:16-17 (Jesus' baptism: the Son in the water, the Spirit descending, the Father speaking).

GUARDRAIL · Do not manufacture three gods, and do not manufacture one in disguise

Error A: the hierarchy. Say "we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit" often enough and people end up hearing: the Father is the real God, the Son is the pass, the Spirit is the assistant. That is false. Correct it immediately: Deuteronomy 6:4 ("the LORD is ONE") and John 10:30. They do not divide up the work like three employees. They are one.

Error B: forbidding prayer to Jesus. Some will tell you that we pray only to the Father. The text says otherwise: Stephen prays to Jesus as he dies (Acts 7:59), and the last words of the Bible are a prayer addressed to Jesus (Revelation 22:20). So: the usual model is to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. But you may speak to Jesus, and there is nothing more to say about it. Do not turn a habit into a law.

Error C: the demonstration. Do not open a Trinitarian debate. The Trinity is not proved on a whiteboard; it is met on your knees. If a man objects, write down his question, say "I don't know everything, I'm looking into it, I'll get back to you", and go back to prayer.

PASTORAL WARNING · You will meet the objection

There are dissident Adventist currents that reject the Trinity, and they are active, including online. One day someone will bring you their arguments, often leaning on the nineteenth-century pioneers. Do not debate. Do not despise them either. The position of the Adventist Church is clear: the Trinity is its Fundamental Belief no. 2. Say it calmly, once, and go back to the experience: "Tonight you are going to pray. Watch who carries you. We'll talk about it afterwards." What convinces a man on this point is never an argument. It is an answered prayer.

Practice (the Trinitarian prayer). Each person prays one sentence, quietly, with all three: "Father… in the name of Jesus… Spirit, help me to…" B: nobody is obliged. He can listen to the others pray. Listening is full participation.

Practice. A: pray in the order of Psalm 100:4. B: pray seven words, his own, quietly or in silence. Nobody is obliged to pray out loud.

Challenge. A: five minutes a day asking for nothing. B: one honest sentence a day, even "I don't know if you exist, but I'm talking to you".

Guardrail (B)

Never correct a clumsy prayer, and never force anyone to pray out loud. A prayer that is laughed at, even kindly, is a prayer killed.

This study has two halves, and they are not interchangeable. First half: you learn who he is. Without that, people ask for a power, not a person. Second half: you ask for him. Without that, you will have taught one more doctrine, and nothing will have happened. Never do one without the other. A study on the Spirit with no asking produces a man who is informed and dry. An asking with no teaching produces a man waiting for an emotion.

Each day… I ask for a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself received it every day.

Connect. (His illustrations, kept as they are.) Pour water onto a big stone: it runs off. Onto a sponge: it drinks. Then fill a cup until it overflows into the basin.

Connect (variant) · Four figures of the paraclete

Ask, before any reading: "What does someone look like who stands beside you when everyone else backs away?" Let them answer. Then give the four:

WARNING TO THE LEADER · Do not bluff on these four figures

Two are documented, two are images. Say so, or say nothing.

The advocate is the attested sense. The standard lexicon of ancient Greek (Liddell-Scott-Jones) gives paraklētos: "one called to one's aid, in a court of justice" — legal assistant, advocate. Attested in Demosthenes, 4th century BC. That one you can assert. The broad sense, "one called in to help", is equally solid.

The wounded soldier and the commander rallying his men are not in the lexicons. They circulate in preaching. They are true in substance, but they are not documented uses of the word. Present them as images, never as history.

And "exhort, instruct" comes from the verb, not the noun. Parakaleō (the verb) means to exhort, encourage, console. Paraklētos (the noun) is a passive verbal adjective: "the one who is called alongside". Same family, different sense. Say "the word family", not "the word means".

Why this rigor? Because your "skeptical intellectual" profile will check. And because your own rule is: never bluff. A leader who gets ahead of the objection is believed. A leader who is caught out loses everything true he had said as well.

FIRST HALF · THE TEACHING: HE IS MY C.I.T.

As Jesus is my S.M.S., the Spirit is my C.I.T. He is not a force, not an atmosphere, not an energy. He is someone, and he holds three offices.

THE WORD THAT CARRIES EVERYTHING: "ANOTHER"

John 14:16 · "I will ask the Father, and he will give you ANOTHER Helper."

Greek has two words for "another". Heteros: another of a different kind. Allos: another of the same kind. John writes allos. A second one, exactly the same kind as the first.

The consequence, and it decides the whole study:

Jesus is Savior, Master, Sovereign (S.M.S., study 2). The Spirit comes "like him", of the same kind. So he is all three too. The C.I.T. is not a list of services rendered. It is a lordship that comforts, that intercedes, that teaches.

He is God, in the same right as the Father and the Son. To lie to the Spirit is to lie to God (Acts 5:3-4). We baptize into the name of the three (Matthew 28:19). He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30): you do not grieve an energy.

And the guarantee that nothing will drift is given by him:

John 16:13-14 · "He will not speak on his own authority… he will glorify me."

A spirit you could use for your own ends would speak about himself. This one never speaks about himself. He teaches what Jesus taught (John 14:26), he brings you back to Jesus, he refuses to be the destination. That is why you cannot use him: he is not the one at the end of the road.

The sentence to have them remember, word for word:

"He is my Comforter, my Intercessor, my Teacher. And I am not his master: he is the one who leads me." (Romans 8:14: "led", not leaders.)

PARACLETE · Never argue the translation. Teach the word.

In John, the Spirit is called paraklētos: John 14:16 · 14:26 · 15:26 · 16:7. The word is built from pará, "alongside", and klētos, "the one who is called". Literally: "the one called to be at our side."

Translators have decided differently, and that is exactly why arguing about it is sterile:

Take note, because it will happen in the room: your ESV does not say "Comforter". Someone who has heard the word all his life will open John 14:16 and read "Helper", and he will think his Bible is missing something. It is not. The KJV said "Comforter", the ESV says "Helper", the NIV says "Advocate" — none of them is wrong.

What the leader says, and he says it BEFORE anyone asks:

"Your Bible may say 'Helper', another says 'Comforter', another says 'Advocate'. None of them is wrong. The Greek word means: the one you call to stand beside you. Defending, comforting, helping: that is what someone does when he is beside you."

And that is why the C.I.T. holds. These are not three functions picked at random: they are three ways of being beside you. He comforts alongside. He intercedes alongside. He teaches alongside. That is also why "He is my Companion" is exactly right — not because of the letters, but because of the Greek: pará + klētos, the One called to stand beside you. The word and the office say the same thing.

The three questions of the C.I.T. (the order matters: comfort, then prayer, then truth)

"Where do you need to be comforted, and who have you told?" (C) "What can you not manage to ask God for, because you have no words?" (I) — then read Romans 8:26: he does not need your words. "What can you not manage to understand in the Bible?" (T) — then John 16:13: it is not an intelligence problem, it is a question you put to him.

Discover. A — What are the five steps to being baptized daily with the Holy Spirit? (his exact question) John 7:37-39 (coming thirsty) · Acts 2:38 (repent, be baptized in water) · Acts 5:32 (obey) · Luke 11:13 (ask). (Yes, MacLafferty puts water inside the five steps, and our track puts water afterwards. Do not hide the tension: name it. See the note on Acts 2:38 at the end of this guide. The order in Acts varies; ours is a pastoral choice.) The two results: Galatians 5:22-23 (the fruit) · Acts 1:8 (the power of the witness). B — If I cannot change myself, who will? - Jeremiah 13:23, revisited from study 1: no, you cannot. - Ezekiel 36:26-27: the new heart, and the Spirit put in you, who causes you to walk. It is not you doing the walking. - Luke 11:13 · John 7:37: the only condition is thirst.

SECOND HALF · THE ASKING

This is no longer a study. It is a prayer. Change your voice, change the pace, close the notebook.

Practice. Each person asks out loud, in his own words, for the baptism of the Holy Spirit for today. Three supports, and nothing else:

"I come thirsty." (John 7:37) "I ask you for your Spirit for today." (Luke 11:13) "Be my Comforter, my Intercessor, my Teacher."

Then be quiet. Let the silence stand. Do not comment on what has just happened. Do not ask anyone what he felt.

Variant B: in silence, never out loud, never in front of the group. And he is not obliged to pray that day. "Nothing this week" applies to this too.

Challenge. Ask for it every morning. In the evening, note one fruit and one testimony from the day. And once during the week, ask yourself: which of the three — C, I, or T — was at work today?

Guardrail (B)

Promise no sensation. No obligatory tears, no shivers. The man who feels nothing is not deprived of the Spirit: he received him by promise, not by emotion. Letting people think otherwise manufactures Christians who believe they have been rejected because they felt nothing.

Guardrail (leader)

You cannot lead this session if you have not asked for the Spirit for yourself this week. This is not a rule of piety, it is a rule of truth: you are about to ask a man to pray a prayer you have not prayed. Go back to it alone first.

Each day… I live out what my baptism signed: I have died, I have been raised.

Connect. Bury a seed in a pot, in front of everyone. Next to it, a plant already grown. "One has to die for the other to exist."

THE THREE NAMES COME BACK · a recall of study 4

Matthew 28:19 is the only place in the New Testament where the three names are joined in a formula: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Make the link out loud, in one sentence:

"In study 4 you prayed the three. Today you see that you are baptized into the three. This is not a theory: it is your name going into theirs."

Do not develop it. Do not prove anything. Name it, and move on. (And note: "in THE name", singular, not "the names". One name, three persons. Do not lecture on it: let the word do its work.)

Discover. A — What did my baptism commit me to, and am I living it? Acts 2:38 · Matthew 28:19 · Romans 6:3-4. B — Is baptism a reward for a clean life? - Acts 8:36-38: the eunuch asks what prevents him from being baptized. Nothing prevents him. - Acts 16:30-33: the jailer is baptized that same night. He did not get six months to become presentable. - Romans 6:3-4: it is not a diploma. It is a burial, followed by a resurrection. - Acts 2:38-41.

Practice. A: "On the day of my baptism, I promised…" B: nothing is asked. Each person may ask one question about baptism. You answer, you do not push.

Challenge. A: every morning, "I died with Christ, I walk in newness of life", and do one act that proves it. B: look up the baptism accounts in Acts himself and note what they have in common.

The purpose of this study: to inform, and to create desire

This study asks for nothing. It gives the information and it opens the appetite. Nothing obliges a man to wait: in Acts, people are baptized the same day. The jailer at midnight, the eunuch at the roadside. If someone is ready in week 5, he is ready.

The rule of the eunuch

Look closely at Acts 8:36: it is the eunuch who asks the question. "See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?" Philip did not ask it for him. He preached Jesus, the man saw the water, and he asked.

"What prevents me?" is a magnificent question when a man asks it of himself. The same question, asked by the leader of the participant, in front of the group, stops being a question: it becomes a summons. And the man who says yes under that gaze is not saying yes to Jesus: he is saying yes so as not to disappoint you.

The day he asks the question himself, you have won. The day you ask it for him, you have started to lose him.

Guardrails (B)

No public baptismal appeal in this study. No raised hands, no "who wants to stand up". Group pressure produces baptisms that do not hold and a lasting shame in those who stay seated. The decision is made with the pastor, in private, without haste. A person struggling with an addiction is not disqualified: baptism asks for repentance and surrender to Christ, not for perfection. But the decision must be free, informed, unhurried. Know what actually prevents a man, because it is almost never information. The cost (the rich young man knew everything, Jesus loved him, and Jesus let him go). Shame, which is not guilt: guilt says "I did wrong" and leads to repentance; shame says "I am wrong" and leads to hiding, like Adam. The fear of not holding on, in the man who knows his own relapse record. And God's timing (John 6:44), which is not yours to control.

Each day… I ask God to operate on my heart before I try to change my family.

Connect. Each person tears a sheet of paper in two, then tapes it back together. It holds, but the scar shows. "Reconciliation does not make the mark disappear. It makes the sheet usable."

Discover. A — Who do I have to go and see before I claim to pray for them? Malachi 4:5-6 · Luke 1:17 · Ephesians 4:29-32 · Matthew 5:23-24 · Ephesians 6:12 · Ezekiel 36:26-27. B — two cases. Know which one is in front of you. - The one who destroyed his family (alcohol, absence, violence, lies). His question: how do I face the people I hurt? Luke 19:8: Zacchaeus makes restitution, concretely, without being asked. Luke 15:18-21: the son prepares a speech, the father cuts him off. The repair is real, but it does not buy the forgiveness: it flows from it. - The one who was destroyed by his family. His question: must I forgive the person who broke me? Ephesians 4:32 · Romans 12:18, which lays down two deliberate qualifications: "if possible, so far as it depends on you".

Practice. Each person writes one name. One only. And one sentence he will say, or that he chooses not to say yet.

Challenge. A: go to the person, do not argue, ask forgiveness for your own part. B: the same, unless a guardrail below applies.

Guardrails (B) — the most important in the whole track

NEVER send anyone back to reconcile with an abuser. If there has been violence, abuse, coercive control: the first step is not reconciliation, it is protection. A pastor who sends a battered woman back to "forgive and go home" is taking part in the evil. Forgiveness can be done at a distance, in the heart, without seeing the person again, and without her knowing it. Do not confuse forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness depends on me. Reconciliation depends on two, and presupposes that the other person has changed. A move toward repair must not become a manipulation. A man who asks forgiveness in order to get his wife back is not asking forgiveness: he is negotiating. Know the difference. If danger appears, you step outside the frame of the study and you refer to the competent people and services. That is not a spiritual failure, it is responsibility.

Each day… We stop together before God, in our own home.

Connect. Set a real table in the middle of the group. Put the open Bible in the center, nothing else. Everyone comes and sits down.

THE SHEMA · why this is where the Trinity lands

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 begins with "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is ONE." And immediately afterwards, in verse 7: "you shall teach them diligently to your children."

Look at what the text does, and do not explain it: it does it. First the oneness of God. Then the handing on, at home. That is no accident. What gets handed on in a house is not a doctrine: it is a God who is one.

The loop of the three closes here:

Study 4 · you prayed the three. · Study 6 · you were baptized into the three. · Study 8 · you hand them on at home. You do not argue the Trinity at the table. You live it at the table.

The evening benediction, to be given at home (2 Corinthians 13:14, to be said word for word, with no commentary):

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The three, in one sentence, over the people you love. B: the man whose household is hostile says it over them in silence, without their knowing.

Discover. A — When, where and how should the Word circulate in my house? Deuteronomy 6:4-9 · Romans 13:8 · Jeremiah 32:17. B — What if nobody at home wants to hear about it? - 1 Peter 3:1-2: won without a word, by conduct. Especially when the talking has already been discredited. - Mark 5:19: "Go home to your friends, and tell them." Not what they should believe. What he did for you. - 1 Corinthians 7:12-16: you are not an intruder in your own home.

Practice. Each household sets the time, the place and the length of its worship. B: the man whose household is hostile sets his own altar, and the name of one person he will invite one day.

Challenge. Keep it every day. Short and successful beats long and endured.

Guardrail (B)

Never impose family worship on a household that does not want it. A man who has made his family suffer and comes home imposing evening prayer is not staging a revival, he is staging a takeover. Credibility is rebuilt by duration, not by a brandished Bible.

Each day… Before doing anything for him, I stay with him.

Connect. Take one ember out of the pile and set it to one side. Watch it die while the others glow.

Discover. A — Why did Jesus call the twelve? Mark 3:13-14a gives two reasons, in an order. Luke 6:12-16 · Matthew 4:18-20 · Isaiah 50:4. B — this is the most accessible study of the track. Tell him so. - Mark 3:14: he appointed twelve so that they might be with him. They did not believe first and then follow. They followed, and then believed. - John 1:38-39: "Come and you will see." They spent the day with him. That is all. - You do not have to believe before being with him. You have to be with him, and faith comes.

Practice. Each person sets the exact time of his daily appointment with Jesus, and puts it in his phone in front of the group.

Challenge. Keep that appointment every morning. B: even without knowing who he is talking to. Being there is enough.

Each day… I train someone who, in turn, will train another.

Connect. One lit lamp. Each person lights his own from his neighbor's. Then put out the first one: the others are still burning.

Discover. A — Does Jesus make disciples, or makers of disciples? Mark 3:14b · Luke 9:1-2 · Matthew 28:18-20 · 2 Timothy 2:2. B — What do you need to know in order to speak about him? - John 9:25: "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." That is the whole qualification. - Mark 5:19-20: the delivered man is sent home the same day. Not to preach. To tell. - John 4:28-29: the Samaritan woman speaks to her town before she has any theology at all.

Practice. Each person writes one name: the person he is going to walk with, and the first thing he will do with him.

Challenge. Contact him this week. Do not invite him to a program: invite him to walk.

Guardrail (B)

Do not make a freshly restored man a leader. 1 Timothy 3:6. He can tell his story. He must not yet lead. Confusing the two will break him.

Each day… I serve with what God gave me, not with what I admire in someone else.

Connect: the mission compass, Nehemiah's 4 questions. (taken from STEPS. It replaces the toolbox, and it is better.)

Discovering your gift does not start with "what am I good at". It starts with "what breaks my heart". Nehemiah wept before he built (Nehemiah 1:4; 2:1-8).

Hand out a sheet. Silent, individual writing, ten minutes.

1. What brokenness do you see around you that brings you to tears, as it did Nehemiah?
2. Which people would you like to help?
3. What gifts do you have that could meet that need?
4. Which trusted adult can walk with you?

Then, as a group, you share ONLY question 1. The answers to 2-4 are private. Do not push. If nobody wants to speak, that is fine: the question has been asked. On your own: write all four. Keep the sheet. Read it again in six months.

Discover. A — What did God know about me before I was born, and what did he make me for? Psalm 139:1-6,13-16 · Ephesians 2:10 · 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 · Romans 12:6 · Ephesians 4:11-12 · 1 Peter 4:9-11 · Exodus 31:1-5 · James 1:5-8. B — And if my life is a disaster, what do I have to offer? - 1 Timothy 1:15-16: Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners, and says that is precisely why he received mercy, so as to serve as an example. His worst past became his ministry. - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: we comfort with the comfort with which we ourselves were comforted. What you went through becomes what someone else needs. - Your wound is not an obstacle to your service. It is often its location.

Practice. Each person names a gift he thinks he has. Then the group tells him what it sees in him. Both are written down and compared.

Challenge. Ask for wisdom every day (James 1:5), and perform one act of service with the gift identified.

Guardrail (B)

Do not turn a fresh wound into a ministry. The man who has just come out must first stand up. Serving too soon out of your wound is the shortest road back to relapse. The scar serves. The open wound does not.

Each day… I look at the field God has given me, and I go into it.

Connect. A handful of ripe grain in a bowl, passed around. "The field is not waiting to be ready. It is ready. What is missing is hands."

Discover. A — What does Jesus see when he looks at the crowd, and what does he command first? Matthew 9:35-38 · Matthew 10:16 · Luke 6:12-16 · 1 John 2:6. B — Where is my field? - Mark 5:19: "Go home to your friends." Your field is the people who knew you before. The only ones who can measure the difference. - Matthew 9:36: he is moved with compassion because they are harassed and helpless. You know what that is. That is why you are being sent.

Practice. Each person names his field and sets the first visit.

Challenge. Pray every day to the Lord of the harvest, naming three people. Make the first visit before the end of the week.

Guardrail (B)

Do not send someone back too soon into the setting of his addiction. Going back to "witness" at the bar, in the old circle, is a classic trap and a major cause of relapse. The field starts at home (Mark 5:19), not at the place where you fell.