Session 5 Participant Guide

1 · 25 MIN

The Frame

Check-in. The claim. Two truths in the title. Why it matters now. Reconnaissance, not therapy.

2 · 55 MIN

Map · Mine · Tell

Chapter titles. The Life Map. Your markers, read back. The genre. Why we write. The Witness Pair. What Surfaced.

3 · 10 MIN

The Hand-off

This morning becomes Charter §1.1. Two layers of homework. What Session 6 does with it. A benediction.

What it is

Mapping the ground you’ve already covered. Naming chapters. Locating turning points.

What it isn’t

Group therapy, confession, or fixing. You share only what you choose to share.

The posture

Curiosity over judgment. A scout’s eye. “Huh — look at that” rather than “what’s wrong with me?”

Nobody reads what you write this morning but you. What you speak aloud, you choose.

Your three markers. Which of the three was hardest to write — and why?

The Kitchen Table. One thing you heard at the Kitchen Table.

Your marriage practice. Read your one line.

Practice of the Week. One moment with “Her day first.”

And for fun — if your life were a movie, who plays you? (Your answer says more about your genre than you think.)

You are not a man who has a story. You are the story you tell.

PROTAGONIST

You are the one living it.

The hero who acts, chooses, achieves, endures. Forty years of agency live here — and it is a strength to honor, not pathologize.

CO-AUTHOR

You are not writing it alone.

God has been authoring this story all along — weaving your choices, your wounds, and your desires toward a plot larger than any single chapter. As Dan Allender puts it: He is a better novelist than we are.

THE GRAMMAR OF BOTH

Active voice — I do the thing. My agency. My choice. My responsibility.

Passive voice — the thing is done to me. God’s agency. I receive. I’m acted upon.

Middle voice — I do the thing for myself, and I am transformed by it. Both at once: the actor and the acted-upon.

INSTEAD OF

“Age 30–45” · “Second Job, Pittsburgh” · “The 2008 Layoff”

TRY

“The Years I Proved Myself” · “When Everything Cracked Open” · “Learning to Be a Father”

1

Chapter 1

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2

Chapter 2

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3

Chapter 3

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4

Chapter 4

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5

Chapter 5

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6

Chapter 6

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7

Chapter 7

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1

Draw it

Your life as a landscape — peaks and valleys, not a straight line. Career and life, not career alone.

2

Label it

Each rise and fall gets one of your chapter titles.

3

Mark the people

Who shows up in more than one chapter? Put their initials on the map. (They matter later — §3.2, My Rule & My Triad.)

4

Quiet

Shoulder to shoulder, on paper. Nobody reads this but you.

BIRTHTODAY

1

Circle one

Which marker still has heat in it? Tick the box below. That is the one you will bring to the Witness Pair.

2

Circle two

On your map — the moment that most defined you, and the moment that most surprised you. One sentence each on why.

☐ THE PEAK

What I was made FOR. Most alive, most myself, most capable.

☐ THE VALLEY

What I was made OF. A failure, loss, or wound that changed you.

☐ TURNING POINT

WHEN I became who I am. The before, the after, the difference.

The moment that most defined me — and why:

The moment that most surprised me — and why:

TRAGEDY

“My best days are behind me.”

Diminishment read as realism. It masquerades as clear-eyed, but it is a theological claim: that God’s story for this man peaked in his career.

THE INVITATION

Grief named is the door to the next arc — not a permanent address.

COMEDY

“Everything will be fine.”

Depth deflected with humor. Not malicious — protective. It produces pleasant men who are not growing.

THE INVITATION

Joy isn’t the avoidance of sorrow. It’s what sorrow gives birth to when faced.

ROMANCE

The quest you were made for.

The classical sense, not the sentimental one: a man made for something, shaped by everything, standing at the threshold of the chapter he was being prepared for.

THE INVITATION

Not triumph that denies the wounds — but reads them as preparation.

The arc I recognize — one word, and one sentence on how I know:

LISTEN FOR THESE WORDS IN YOUR OWN WRITING

Causal: because · why · reason · cause Insight: realize · understand · know · meaning

THINKING · WRITING · RECOGNIZING

Thinking loops around and around; the mind returns to the same place. Writing externalizes the fragments and makes them stable — you move from reliving to understanding. Recognizing sees the whole, and discovers the meaning was already there. Not the thinking, not the talking about it later: the writing itself.

THE TELLER · 4 min

One chapter title. The marker with heat in it. The arc you think you’ve been living.

THE WITNESS · listen only

No advice. No “me too.” One job — reflect it back: “What I heard you say was…”

What my witness heard that I didn’t:

The story changes in the telling. That is where the work happens — not on the page, but in being heard.

HEARD

In his story

What did you hear in your partner’s story that he didn’t hear himself?

PATTERN

In your chapters

What kept appearing that you didn’t plan for — something that seemed to follow you?

PEOPLE

On your map

Who showed up in more than one chapter — and what does that tell you?

AUTHOR

In a valley moment

Where do you now see the hand of something larger than your own plans?

HEARD INTO BECOMING

1 You speak it aloud. And in the speaking, you hear yourself.

2 The witness listens. Not to fix. Not to agree. Just to receive what you’re saying.

3 He reflects it back. “What I heard you say was…”

4 You recognize yourself. And in being heard, you become more fully who you were already becoming.

CALLBACK · WHICH CHAPTERS GO IN THE KNAPSACK?

Your story is both: the foundation you built and the chapters you are about to write.

First half · Your story so far. Proving, struggle, victories, defeats. All of it shaped you. Not all of it comes with you. Some chapters stay at Basecamp.

The choice · Carry the wisdom, not the weight. Which chapters go with you into the second half? You are the protagonist, and the Author is not finished.

Second half · Your next chapters. Redemption, wisdom, witness, presence. New chapters need room in the Knapsack (the pack).

Your Charter isn’t your whole story. It is the chapters you chose to carry.

2

Origins & Formation

Step Two, paragraph one. Where you came from — and what it made of you.

2

Building Years

Step Two, paragraph two. What you built, and what you built it with.

3

Where was God?

Step Three. One sentence — including the stretches where He seemed absent.

LAYER ONE · PRIVATE

The raw writing.

Three sittings this week, 20 minutes each. Two to three pages by the end. Don’t edit as you go. Nobody reads this. Ever. That is what lets it be true.

LAYER TWO · SHARED

The Charter draft.

From the raw pages, distill §1.1 Step Two (Origins, Building Years) and Step Three (the God sentence). 200–300 words. This is what you read aloud at Session 6 — and you share only what you choose to share.

PRACTICE OF THE WEEK · ASK FOR A STORY

How: “Tell me about a time when…” Then listen for the turning point.

From the Toolkit: 2 · Ask

Rooted in: David Brooks

Tried it this week ☐ · Bring one moment to the room.

This week you write your own story; the practice turns the same skill outward.

SITTING

THE PROMPT

WHERE IT LANDS

SITTING 1

The What

Origins and formation — where you came from and what it made of you. Facts and unfiltered feeling. Who was there? What did you lose, gain, or leave behind?

§1.1 Step Two · ¶1

SITTING 2

The Who

Building years — what you built and what you built it with. Alternate “I felt…” with “Looking back, the reality was…” Notice how that younger man adapted.

§1.1 Step Two · ¶2

SITTING 3

The Why

Return to your valley moment. Keep writing until you reach what it made of you. Use “I now realize,” “the reason,” “because.” What did it teach you about your strengths, your blind spots, what you value?

The turn Session 6 reads for

THEN

The Author

Read the three sittings back. Title the book. Write the one sentence: where was God — including where He seemed absent. Then distill it all to 200–300 words on the next page.

§1.1 Step Three + the read-aloud draft

OPTIONAL STARTERS, FROM MCADAMS’ LIFE STORY INTERVIEW

Sitting 1: an early memory that stands out as especially good — and one that stands out as hard. · The Author: a moment you felt something like the presence of God, or of something larger than yourself. Describe it. What does it say about your life?

Step Two, ¶1 · Origins & Formation

Childhood, family, early influences, defining experiences that shaped who you became.

Step Two, ¶2 · Building Years

Career, marriage, major decisions, turning points — what happened, and what it meant.

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

One sentence.

CARRY THIS — DON’T WRITE IT

What has your story been fleeing — and what has it been seeking? — Dan Allender. Over coffee, on a walk, in the shower. Let it compost.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD. — Jeremiah 29:11 “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