Harvest Charter: Core

Rewire Retirement

MY HARVEST CHARTER

A Personal Constitution for My Jubilee Season

The Core · eleven sections · written a few lines at a time

“They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.”

Psalm 92:14

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Galatians 2:20

Name:

Date Started:

Signed at Commissioning:

Pastoral Review & Blessing:

How This Charter Works

Your Harvest Charter is a personal constitution for your Jubilee season: who you are, where you are going, and how you will get there. It is not a retirement plan. And it is written from Christ, not toward Him. You are not building a self in these pages. You are describing the man Christ is living through in this season (Galatians 2:20).

Four parts, eleven sections

A few lines at a time

You never sit down to write the whole Charter. Most weeks a session hands you one section, usually about thirty minutes, and each section below tells you when. Pencil is fine. Unfinished is allowed until Session 13. At Session 13 you fill in the Charter at a Glance (the next page) from what you have already written; at Session 14 you print it; at Session 15 it is signed and witnessed.

Two small markers help on paper. ↻ Deepening Checkpoint asks you to reread an earlier page before you write. Written at tells you the session. When something changes after you have written it, do not erase it. Date it, initial it in the margin, and let the old line stay visible. A constitution is amended, never erased.

Three books

This is the Core, the book you write and sign. The Invitation, read first, explains why the work is worth it and holds your RoadMap. The Appendices are the optional shelf.

“At the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9

Charter at a Glance

Fill this in at Session 13 from what you have already written. No new writing. The pastors read this page before they bless you at Session 15.

My mission, the T-shirt line (§2.1)

My True North, in the top pocket (§2.1)

My two Core Values (§1.2)

1.

2.

The Signature (§1.3)

My faith, in one honest sentence (§1.4)

My Rule (§3.2)

Daily:

Weekly:

Monthly:

My triad (§3.2)

Something we want together (§2.2)

My Legacy sentence (§4.1)

PART ONE — FOUNDATION

Who Am I? — and Whose?

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” — Psalm 139:13

1.0 My Threshold

Written at: Session 2 · rewritten at Session 9 · four lines

Before the story can be told, the threshold must be named. This is the end of one chapter and the pause before the next. Name honestly what you are setting down, what you are carrying forward, and what still deserves to be mourned before it can be read as a gift. You draft these four lines by hand at the close of Session 2. This is where they stop being notes and become part of the document.

What I am setting down

What I am carrying forward

What still deserves to be mourned — and what mourning it might open

(Grief that is named tends to open a door; grief that is skipped tends to lock one.)

What I am asking Christ to carry

(“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” — 1 Peter 5:7)

Rewritten at Session 9 — three lines, one sentence each

(Read the four lines above first. What changed since Session 2 is the point.)

What I am leaving behind is …

What I am carrying forward is …

What will be true in five years is …

1.1 My Story: The Journey So Far

Written at: Session 3 (the Three Markers) · Session 5 (the story, 200–300 words) · read aloud at Session 6

This is narrative autobiography, not a résumé. Capture the meaning of your life, not just the events. If your life were a book, what would the chapter titles be? Dan McAdams calls the markers nuclear episodes: not the biggest events of your life, but the scenes you have replayed and drawn the most meaning from. Nothing you write here is spent once.

Step One · My Three Markers (Session 3 · three sentences each, no more)

1 · Peak Moment — what I was made FOR

(A time you felt most fully alive. What was happening? What does it tell you about who you were made to be?)

2 · Valley Moment — what I was made OF

(A defining hardship. What did it cost you? What, if anything, did it forge in you?)

3 · Turning Point — WHEN I became who I am

(A decision, a loss, a word, a meeting. What was the before? What was the after?)

Step Two · My Story (Session 5 · 200–300 words)

(Two paragraphs: Origins & Formation, then Building Years. What happened, and what it meant. Your three markers are the quarry.)

Step Three · One sentence: where was God in this story — including the stretches where He seemed absent?

1.2 My Compass: Life Theme & Two Core Values

Written at: the Christmas window after Session 6 (the two essays) · Session 7 (two values)

Two passes. First expand: two short essays. Then reduce: one Life Theme and two Core Values. A man who goes straight from “what happened” to a values card sort tends to pick his industry’s values; this page is how you pick your own.

My Workview (about 250 words)

(What is work for? Why do it? What makes work good — or hollow?)

My Lifeview (about 250 words)

(Why are we here? What gives a life meaning? What do you owe the people your life touches — and God?)

Where the two align — and where they collide

(Where Workview says “provide” and Lifeview says “presence,” a value is hiding.)

My Life Theme

(The thread through the whole story. Your Session 6 witnesses may have heard it first; borrow their words.)

My two Core Values (Session 7 · one sentence each)

(Name the value, then one sentence on how it shows up. The Source Question: beside each, mark where you received it — from Christ (C), your family (F) or your industry (I). Only one is finally authoritative.)

1.

2.

1.3 Strengths & Gifts, with The Signature

Written at: Session 8 (The Strengths Portrait) · gifts named at Session 9

Strengths energize you. You can be skilled at something that drains you; that is not a strength. Strengths are measured; gifts are given (1 Corinthians 12:7). Write both, and notice where they overlap. That overlap is usually where your calling is loudest, and it is rarely where your salary was highest.

Three skills I keep, from career or life

(What do you do uncommonly well?)

1.

2.

3.

My spiritual gifts, as my table named them at Session 9

The Signature (two or three sentences — the capstone of Part One)

The Caring Shift, in one line

(At 40 I cared most about … ; at this season I care most about …)

1.4 My Faith Foundation

Written at: the Wilderness Between (framed at Session 9) · two or three paragraphs, 300–400 words · read in the pastoral review

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10

Write your faith journey, who you are in Christ, and your calling in this season, with two or three anchor scriptures. If a sentence comes out the way you would have said it in Sunday school, ask: what part of that holds my weight now that didn’t at 40?

Paragraph 1 — Faith Journey

(How your relationship with God has developed — including the dry stretches and the detours)

Paragraph 2 — Who I Am in Christ

(Not what you do for God. What is already true of you because of what He has done. Adopted, not hired (Romans 8:15). His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). A new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Write it in the first person, as sentences you would say out loud to your triad.)

Paragraph 3 — Calling in This Season

(What do you sense God asking of you now?)

My faith, in one honest sentence

(It goes on your Charter at a Glance.)

↻ DEEPENING CHECKPOINT · From §1.4 to §2.1 and §3.1

Your mission has to grow out of this ground. Before you write it at Session 11, reread these paragraphs. A mission cut off from faith is ambition dressed in spiritual language.

PART TWO — VISION

Where Am I Going?

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” — Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

2.0 My Next Chapter

Written at: the Wilderness Between · a page · workshopped at Session 11

You deliberately left this blank in the fall. A man cannot write his next chapter honestly until he has read the prior ones and discovered what he is made of. Now, with your story, values and strengths in hand, sketch the direction you sense. This is a draft, not a verdict: it marinates across the break and is workshopped in the Clearness Room before it hardens into a Mission.

The next chapter, in a page

(Who it is for, what it asks of you, where it happens, who walks it with you, and what it is setting you free from)

2.1 My Mission and My True North

Written at: Session 11 (draft r1) · Clearness Monday (r2) · final at Session 13

Mission comes from the Latin mittere, to send. Nobody sends himself. A mission has three rungs, and the order matters, because each one answers a question the one below it cannot. Write them in pencil; unfinished is allowed until Session 13.

Rung 1 · Commission — whose I am

(Passive on purpose. The only rung that names the Sender.)

I have been sent to …

Rung 2 · Contribution — what my triad holds me to

(Specific enough to be asked about next Tuesday.)

I do … for … so that …

Rung 3 · The T-shirt — three or four verbs, ten words or fewer

My True North — in the top pocket

(One short line: the direction you want everything else to bend toward. Not the only thing in your life — the bearing you check the others against. Your mission is what you do; True North is what you lean toward. Mark its source: C, F or I.)

2.2 A Tuesday in 2031

Written at: Session 12 (begun in the room, finished that week) · Our Tuesday with your wife the same week · one page, present tense

↻ DEEPENING CHECKPOINT · From §1.0–§1.3 to §2.2

Flip back to your Threshold (§1.0), three markers (§1.1), two values (§1.2) and Caring Shift line (§1.3). Read. Then write.

Do not write in domains. Do not write in goals. Write a day. It is an ordinary Tuesday, five years from now. Nothing special is happening. Write it in the present tense, as if you are living it. Let these find their way in on their own: your wife · a friend who actually knows you · someone you are helping · your body · your faith · something you are learning · something you do for no reason but joy. Start with the morning. End with what you are grateful for when the light goes off.

My Tuesday

Four lines to close

(Read your Tuesday to your triad without stopping. Then, this same week, take it home for Our Tuesday, below. Going deeper, one domain at a time: Appendix C.)

What I am already living:

What I am still reaching for:

What I have gladly set down:

One step this week:

Our Tuesday — with your wife, the same week

(Your Tuesday is yours; your season is shared. Read your page to her, all of it, without defending it. Then ask for hers: what does an ordinary Tuesday five years from now look like to her? Listen first; the Great Listener Card helps. Write these lines together, in her words as much as yours. Not married? Do this with the person whose Tuesday is most bound up with yours.)

Where our two Tuesdays already agree

Two or three things we want together in this season

One shared practice

(It becomes a line in your Rule, §3.2.)

One thing I will set down so she has more of me

(Bring this page to First Fruits, the dinner with wives. The line you most want to keep goes on your Charter at a Glance.)

PART THREE — ACTION

How Will I Get There?

“Faith without works is dead.” — James 2:26 (KJV)

3.1 My First Steps

Written at: Session 13 · copied from your First Steps Card

Everything at Session 13 lands on one card. This page is the card, copied in so it lasts. Set down before you pick up: nothing new goes in until something comes out. “Let us throw off everything that hinders” (Hebrews 12:1).

My whole life first — the ten-domain scan

(Before you choose, look at all ten. One tick per domain; about five minutes. Then circle the three that become your priority domains below. The other seven are tended, not abandoned.)

My three priority domains — what I set down, and my first step in each

My one or two big goals — the next 12 to 24 months

(Most men need only one. A big goal is the one your Tuesday cannot happen without. Write it so your triad could ask about it next Tuesday. Full goal templates: Appendix D.)

1.

2.

My experiment

(A prototype, not a vow. “Here is what I learned” counts as a result.)

What I will try:

How I will know it is working:

I start on (when, where, with whom):

Before Friday, I will …

The open hand — Galatians 2:20

(If God halted this tomorrow, could I yield it without losing my peace or my identity? Name one thing you are still holding with a closed fist, and tell your triad.)

3.2 My Rule & My Triad

Written at: begun at Session 4 (one practice for your marriage) · finished at Session 13 · reviewed in triads at Session 14

A Rule of Life is a trellis, not a cage. The Latin regula first meant a straight stick, the frame a vine grows along. Choose one small practice for each rhythm, and tie it to a priority domain where you can. Your Session 4 practice for your marriage, or the shared practice from Our Tuesday (§2.2), is usually one of the lines. The whole Rule has to fit on your card; if it doesn’t fit, make it smaller.

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” — Dallas Willard

My triad

(Names)

How often we meet — our check-in rhythm

(Write down what you actually agreed: a text on Mondays, coffee every other week.)

Our triad project

(One outward-facing project of about three hours, told at First Fruits.)

What · for whom · date:

One thing I will keep learning

(The next 90 days: one appendix or one book.)

PART FOUR — LEGACY

What Do I Leave Behind?

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation.” — Psalm 71:18

4.1 One Letter or a One-Page Testament

Written at: Session 14 · begun in the room · about a page

Legacy is not what we leave to people; it is what we leave in them. Start with one sentence. Then write one of two things: a letter to your wife, to your children as a group, or to someone else who matters; or a one-page spiritual testament. More letters, the stories for your grandchildren and the full ethical will are on the shelf (Appendices I, J and K), with no deadline.

My Legacy sentence

(“I hope ______ will carry ______.”)

My letter or testament

(To: ______________________ )

Signed and Witnessed

Session 15 · Commissioning

Pastoral Review & Blessing · offered to every man, required of none

Reviewed by · role · date

What I saw in this man’s Charter

One thing I invite him to sit with further

A blessing spoken over this season

“At the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9