Passionate Manhood Part 4 Session Stories
Passionate Manhood Part 4 is the last of the series. In order to maximize the skill development in individuals and empower the Kingdom transformation, we changed from lecture format to a workshop format.
People were seated four to a table, sometimes with friends and sometimes with strangers. Each of the tables was color coded, as several groups worked on the same project.
For each session I wrote five different stories of fictitious people and distributed them according to the color codes. All the blue tables got the same story.
People had about 20 minutes to discuss the story and find language for the earned authority of the protagonist. The process was illustrated by the “V.”
The top left point of the V was the story I gave them. The bottom was abstract language for the authority. The top right point of the V was possible applications.
I used the story of my battle against suicide. That was the top left point. A reality. Not one I chose. One that required thousands of choices to stay alive a little bit longer.
That involuntary time in “the gym” resulted in my having authority over the spirit of premature death. That is the abstract concept at the bottom of the V.
Then that authority is not limited to someone with suicidal ideation. I can push back against the spirit of premature death in a marriage, a business, a church, a friendship or the calling of God on a life.
This kind of thinking was somewhat new to most of the people at the live event. The process of languaging it was hard. I went from table to table seeking to drill down on sharper language. Converting the choices from the top of the V to the authority at the bottom of the V was the most difficult part of the assignment for most.
And THAT is why we spent a whole day working on it. For people to watch me do it effortlessly would not have been transformational. For them to wrestle with the ideas themselves had the possibility of growing the skill individually.
For some, it was a traumatic experience having to solve a problem that did not have one right answer. Others absolutely thrived in the context of iterative, collaborative problem solving.
Thus, the workshop was hugely polarizing. The participants hated it or loved it.
Below are links to the stories we used in the four sessions. They are provided for you to follow along with the audio when the album is released.
AND for you to practice endlessly since there are many different kinds of authority earned in a single life.
The key point of this exercise is that if you can’t language the authority you have earned, you can’t use it intentionally. I carried the authority over premature death for many years while not seeing it. I just had shame and pain over the season of my struggle with suicide. I saw nothing good there.
But I HAD the authority. I HAD been to the gym thousands of times. I HAD stayed alive day after day.
But when I finally SAW what I already had accrued during a harsh, ugly season, I was able to use it against the enemy.
Session Stories