How This Guide Is Different — Read This First (Q only)

The leader brief, in one line: every man names one specific man that the people around him have stopped expecting anything from. Then he names what it would cost him to stand beside that man, and the first move he’ll make this week. “I should probably reach out to some of the guys who’ve drifted” isn’t an answer. “Marcus. He got let go in June, stopped posting, and everybody at church quit asking about him. It’ll cost me Saturday mornings and probably some awkward silence. I’m calling him tonight” is.

The definition, in the leader’s words: Influence is the deliberate investment of your time, credibility, and belief into another man’s life. Strategic influence doesn’t try to reach everyone. It picks a few men, often ones others have overlooked, and pours into them on purpose. The leader who multiplies isn’t the one with the biggest following. He’s the one who went and found his man. Read it to yourself twice before you lead. Time, credibility, belief are the three costs, and they come back in Q3, Q9, and Q15.

Before the cold open: last Friday every man named his faces, what they’ll need from him in twenty years, and one Brick. Take the reports first. Keep it quick: “Did you lay the Brick? Did you look at the faces when the alarm went off?” An honest “I missed two days” is fine. Then say: “Last week we named the people we’re staying strong for. This week we name one more face: the man nobody is counting on anymore.”

A note on the chapters. Q2.7/Targeting has never been the main chapter in this series, and it was built for this QOW. It says a HIM keeps himself Right “by helping other men to Get Right and stay that way. By hauling Survivors into his boat (at least for a season) and helping Sad Clowns flip their boats into the upright position, the HIM reinforces the Guardrails that protect his own boat from capsizing.” That’s Emerson in QSource language. It compares Targeting to the 12th Step of AA: “By focusing on the sobriety of other men, the alcoholic finds his own sobriety is easier to maintain.” It calls Targeting “what Christ called the greater love, the laying down of one’s life for his friends.” And it contains the author’s own story of being the written-off man. When his boat was capsized he “had no inner peace,” he was “a distant and capricious father,” and “although I had a few acquaintances, no man could call me a true friend.” Then some men came and got him: “They also helped me get mine right through Targeting. They initiated Missionality in my life.” Read that section before Friday. It’s the QOW from the other side.

Q2.2/Influence (woven in on August 28, “Someone Is Already Following You”) gives the guardrail. “Movement must be voluntary for it to result in a true Advantage,” so “the HIM employs persuasion rather than compulsion.” Standing beside a man isn’t fixing him. It also has the picture of potential energy “like water impounded behind a dam.” The HIM “unblocks the dam to let the river flow.” And it describes the men who influenced the author: they wouldn’t “go along to get along,” their words were “clear and uncompromising,” their deeds “unselfish,” and they “would cast a light, if it were both possible and necessary, but would never curse the darkness.” Q1.8/Whetstone (May 1, June 12, July 10) gives the method and the payoff. “Sharpening does not happen by accident. It must be done with Deliberatude.” It needs the 3P: Proximate, Purposeful, Periodic. “Hard looks and straight talk (tempered by love) get results. That cannot be done virtually.” And the Stone gets something too: “nothing closes the hypocrisy gap for a man like having a Blade.” If you want one more line, Q2.1/Impact (July 3) explains why so few men ever make the call: Survivors “can’t Move because they are broken,” Sad Clowns “won’t Move because they are desperately clinging to a Status Quo they despise,” and that leaves the Servants “as the only men who can and will initiate Movement to Proximity.” Also: “A man cannot have IMPACT from afar.”

A note on the verses. Three things to know before you read them to the circle.

• Acts 11:25–26. Don’t read it cold. Read Acts 9:26–30 first. After his conversion, Saul tried to join the disciples in Jerusalem, and “they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.” Only one man vouched for him: “But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles” (9:27). When threats came, the brothers “sent him off to Tarsus” (9:30), his hometown. Then Saul drops out of the story, possibly for as long as a decade. Nobody went to get him. Years later the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch, and he found a revival too big for one man (11:22–24). He didn’t ask for a committee. He went and got the guy everyone had sent home. The Greek word for “look for” (anazēteō) means to search thoroughly, to hunt someone up. It’s the same word Luke uses for Mary and Joseph searching for the boy Jesus (Luke 2:44). Barnabas had to go find him. Then they worked side by side “for a whole year,” and “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” The man who went on to write thirteen letters of the New Testament got his start because one man went looking.
• Galatians 6:2. Read 6:1 with it. “If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” The word “restore” (katartizō) is the word for mending fishing nets (Matthew 4:21), and it was also used for setting a broken bone. It’s careful, hands-on work. Then verse 5 seems to contradict verse 2: “each will have to bear his own load.” It doesn’t. Paul uses two different words. The “burdens” of verse 2 (baros) are crushing weights no man can carry alone. The “load” of verse 5 (phortion) is a soldier’s pack, the daily responsibility every man carries for himself. Standing beside a man means helping with the boulder, not carrying his pack for him. That’s Q2.2 in Paul’s words: Movement must be voluntary.
• Proverbs 11:25. “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.” The Hebrew is earthier: the soul that blesses “will be made fat,” meaning well-fed, prosperous. The KJV renders it “The liberal soul shall be made fat.” Read verse 24 with it: “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.” This is Emerson’s quote, three thousand years earlier, and it’s the Whetstone’s payoff for the Stone. One caution: this isn’t a prosperity formula. Solomon isn’t promising a raise for helping a buddy. He’s describing how God built the world: men who pour out don’t run dry.

A note on the quotes.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was the Concord, Massachusetts essayist best known for “Self-Reliance.” That makes this line worth a smile: the man famous for self-reliance is credited with saying you can’t help another man without helping yourself. The quote is widely attributed to him, though its exact source is hard to pin down. Fittingly, he did write a whole essay titled “Compensation” (1841). Notice the word sincerely. Help that’s really about your image doesn’t come back the same way.
• “Leave no man behind, but leave no man where you found him” is one of F3’s credos, and the men will know it. Every PAX has seen the circle turn back for the Six. The second half is the part we forget. Not leaving him behind is one thing. Not leaving him where you found him means you keep showing up until something changes. The first half gets him to the finish. The second half changes the man.

The traps in this QOW. There are five, and each one lets a man talk without answering.

• Trap one — the category. “Guys who are struggling.” “The homeless.” “Young men today.” A category isn’t a man. Ask: “Give me one. First name or ‘a guy at work’ is fine.”
• Trap two — the file. The opposite problem. A man names someone and then lays out everything wrong with him: the affair, the DUI, the bankruptcy. Name the man, not his file. First name or a role (“my neighbor,” “a guy from my old team”) is enough. Never name a man who is in the circle, and never say anything you wouldn’t say with him standing there.
• Trap three — the project. “I’m going to get him straightened out.” Q2.2 says Movement must be voluntary. Galatians 6:5 says he carries his own pack. Ask: “Is this about standing beside him or fixing him?”
• Trap four — the verdict. “He wrote himself off. He burned every bridge.” Sometimes that’s partly true, and the circle should hear it. Paul wrote off John Mark too (Acts 15:37–39). Barnabas didn’t, and years later Paul wrote, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11). Ask: “Is there anything left to stand beside?” (See the tone caution below for men who are genuinely unsafe.)
• Trap five — the free answer. “It wouldn’t cost me anything.” Then it’s not the man the question is about. Barnabas spent his credibility (Acts 9:27), his time (a whole year, Acts 11:26), and his belief (Mark, Acts 15:39). Ask: “Which of the three would it cost you?”

Five rules for the Q running this:

1. Go first, with a real name and a real cost. If you say “there’s a few guys I could reach out to,” every man after you will too. Name one man (first name), and say out loud what it would cost you.
2. Get three things from every man: the man (a first name or role), the cost (time, credibility, or belief), and the first move (one call, text, or visit this week).
3. Use the prompt every time. “What’s the first name that came to mind when you heard the question? You don’t have to explain it yet.” Ask it early, and let the circle say names before anybody explains.
4. Name, not file. Protect every man who isn’t there to defend himself. If a story starts turning into gossip, stop it kindly: “We don’t need his whole story. What would it cost you?”
5. Write it down and follow up. Next Friday, open by asking: “Did you make the call? What happened?”

The prompt, if you need to reset the room: What’s the first name that came to mind when you heard the question? You don’t have to explain it yet. Then go around the circle with just names. No stories yet. Hearing twelve names in a row does something to a room. The explanations come in Q3.

The close: Go find the man nobody picked.

One caution on tone. This QOW cuts in several directions, so watch the circle. Some men in the room are the written-off man, or were not long ago: the Kotter who just came back, the guy whose divorce made him a ghost at church, the man nobody calls since the layoff. Q6 is for them, and it should land as hope, not shame. Some men have stood beside someone and been burned: a brother who relapsed for the fifth time, a friend who stole from them, a son who won’t call back. Don’t let the room tell them they didn’t try hard enough. And standing beside a man is not the same as putting your family at risk. If the man a PAX names is violent, predatory, or dangerous to his household, the right cost may be distance plus prayer plus pointing him to people trained to help. Galatians 6:1 says “keep watch on yourself.” If a man names someone who sounds like he’s in real crisis, thank him, follow up after the circle, and help him think about getting that man to professional help. Don’t play counselor in the circle. The QOW can also go wrong two other ways: a cause discussion, where the circle debates homelessness, addiction policy, or “men today” (this QOW is about one man, not a cause), or a guilt trip, where the Q lectures everyone about the guys they’ve neglected and nobody says anything true. What we want from each man is a name, a cost, and a first move.

Facilitator Notes under each question tell you what to listen for, how to restart a stalled room, and where to push. You won’t use all fifteen questions. Pick 6–8 and give each one time. Q2 and Q3 are the QOW and the prompt, so don’t skip them. Q5, Q11, and Q15 are the leader’s follow-up questions. Q15 is the close, so don’t skip that either.

Q1: F3 says, “Leave no man behind, but leave no man where you found him.” Outside F3, when have you seen somebody go back for the guy everyone else had left behind?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the warm-up. It’s easier to tell a story about another man going back than to talk about yourself. Start there.
• Listening for: the PAX who circles back to run with the Six. A coach who kept playing the kid nobody else would. A boss who gave a guy a second chance after he messed up. A neighbor who kept checking on the widower down the street. A sergeant who refused to give up on a private.
• If the room stalls, ask a simpler one: “Who runs back for the Six at our workouts? Why does he do it?”
• Tie it to the QOW: point out that the credo has two halves. Going back is the first half. Leaving him better than you found him is the second, and it takes longer.

Answer: Every F3 man has seen the first half of the credo in the gloom. The fast guys finish and turn around for the Six. Nobody finishes alone. But the second half is harder: “leave no man where you found him.” That means you don’t just get him across the line today. You keep showing up until something in his life changes. Q2.1/Impact explains why so few men do it: Survivors “can’t Move because they are broken,” Sad Clowns “won’t Move because they are desperately clinging to a Status Quo they despise,” and that leaves the Servants “as the only men who can and will initiate Movement to Proximity.” Jesus told a story about two respectable men who saw a beaten man on the road and “passed by on the other side.” Then a Samaritan “came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion” (Luke 10:31–34, ESV). The phrase “came to where he was” is the whole thing. Somebody has to go to where the man is. Solomon says, “Woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:10, ESV). Concrete step: think of the last time you saw someone go back for the Six. What did it cost him? Would you have gone?

Why This Matters: Every circle has a Six. The question is who turns around. Be the man who goes back.

Q2 (THE QOW + THE PROMPT): Who is a man in your orbit whom others have written off? What’s the first name that came to mind when you heard the question? You don’t have to explain it yet.

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the main question. Run it as the leader’s prompt: go around the circle with just names. First name or a role (“my brother-in-law,” “a guy on my old crew”). No stories yet.
• Q goes first. Say your name and stop. Model the brevity.
• Give 20 seconds of quiet before you start. Some men will need it. The first name that comes up is usually the right one, and it’s usually the one a man wants to dodge.
• Watch for trap one: “a bunch of guys.” Say, “Just one. The first one.”
• Watch for trap two: if someone starts the story, gently say, “Hold it. Just the name for now. We’ll come back.”
• Never a man in the circle. Say it out loud before you start.

Answer: The QOW definition says strategic influence “picks a few men, often ones others have overlooked.” Notice the word picks. Influence starts with choosing. A man who tries to reach everyone usually reaches no one in particular. Naming the man is the first act of influence, because it’s the moment he stops being a category and becomes a person. God works the same way. When Samuel came to anoint a king, Jesse paraded seven sons past him. Samuel finally asked, “Are all your sons here?” Jesse answered, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep” (1 Samuel 16:11, ESV). David’s own father didn’t think to call him in from the field. But “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, ESV). The man nobody picked was the one God picked. Q2.7/Targeting says the HIM seeks to share the Joy of Serving “with other men through Targeting,” and Targeting starts with a target. Concrete step: say the name out loud. Don’t explain it. Just say it.

Why This Matters: You can’t stand beside “some guys.” You can only stand beside a man with a name.

Q3: Now go back to the name you said. What would it cost you to stand beside him: your time, your credibility, or your belief?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the second half of the QOW. Go around again. Now each man gets 60 seconds to explain: who he is (no file), why people gave up on him, and what it would cost.
• Read the three costs from the definition: time, credibility, belief. Ask each man which one he’d have to spend.
• Listening for: “Time. He’s an hour away and he only wants to talk late at night.” “Credibility. My wife’s family thinks he’s a lost cause and they’ll think I’m a fool.” “Belief. I’ve believed in him three times already.” “Comfort. It’s going to be awkward. I haven’t called him in two years.”
• Watch for trap five: “It wouldn’t cost me anything.” Ask, “Then why haven’t you done it?”

Answer: Barnabas paid all three costs for Saul. He spent his credibility first. When the church was afraid, “Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them” Saul’s story (Acts 9:27, ESV). He put his own name on the line for a man who had been dragging Christians to prison. He spent his time: he went all the way to Tarsus to hunt Saul down, and then “for a whole year they met with the church and taught” together (Acts 11:26, ESV). And later he spent his belief on John Mark, the young man who had quit on the first mission trip (Acts 13:13). Paul refused to take Mark again, and Barnabas split with Paul over it rather than give up on him (Acts 15:37–39). Every real investment in a written-off man costs something, and usually it costs the thing you’d most like to keep. Q1.8/Whetstone warns that this kind of relationship “will cause pain, and it is man’s general hardwiring to avoid pain.” That’s why so few men do it. Proverbs says, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it” (Proverbs 3:27, ESV). Concrete step: name the cost honestly. If you can’t name what it would cost, you haven’t pictured actually doing it yet.

Why This Matters: The cost is why he’s been written off. Everyone else decided it wasn’t worth paying.

Q4: How does a man actually end up written off? How much of it is his own doing, and how much is everybody else quietly deciding to stop expecting anything?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the diagnosis question. Keep it general. Don’t make it about any specific man named in Q2.
• Listening for: the layoff that turned into isolation. The divorce where the friends picked sides. The addiction. The guy who’s just hard to be around. The man who got hurt, stopped posting, and nobody noticed. The FNG who came twice and vanished. The man who said something wrong and never lived it down.
• Push deeper: “Was there a day it happened, or did people just slowly stop calling?” Almost always it’s the second one.
• Use Q2.1’s two categories. The Survivor (broken, can’t Move) and the Sad Clown (stuck, won’t Move). Ask which one the circle sees more often.

Answer: Most men aren’t written off in one dramatic moment. They’re written off one unreturned text at a time. Something knocks the boat over: a job, a marriage, a bottle, a diagnosis, a public failure. He goes quiet. People check in once or twice. Then everybody gets busy, and nobody decides to abandon him. They just stop expecting anything. Q2.1/Impact describes the two men who end up there. The Survivor “can’t Move because” he is “broken.” The Sad Clown “won’t Move” because he is “clinging to a Status Quo” he despises. Either way, he won’t come to you. Jesus met a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been an invalid “for thirty-eight years.” When Jesus asked if he wanted to be healed, the man said, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool” (John 5:5–7, ESV). Thirty-eight years in a crowd, and no one. God’s charge against Israel’s leaders was not cruelty alone. It was neglect: “the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought” (Ezekiel 34:4, ESV). Most write-offs aren’t decisions. They’re drift. Concrete step: look at the name you said. Was there a day you decided, or did you just stop calling?

Why This Matters: Nobody has to push a man out of the boat. All we have to do is stop rowing back for him.

Q5 (LEADER FOLLOW-UP): Think back to a time you waited for a man to ask for help instead of going after him. What happened?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is one of the leader’s follow-up questions. It’s the honest-inventory question. Expect some heavy answers.
• Listening for: “I told him to call me if he needed anything. He never called.” “I figured his family had it covered.” “I knew he was drinking again and I didn’t say anything.” “I waited, and by the time I called, he’d moved away.” And sometimes: “I waited, and he took his own life.” If that one comes, slow down, thank him, and follow up after.
• Push deeper: “Why did you wait?” Usually fear: of saying the wrong thing, of intruding, of what you’d find.
• Don’t let it become a pile of guilt. End on what each man would do differently now.

Answer: “Call me if you need anything” is one of the most common things men say, and one of the least useful. The man who most needs to call is the one least able to. The Survivor is too broken, and the Sad Clown is too proud or too stuck. That’s why Q2.1 says forcible contact is “Proximity initiated by Movement,” and the Movement has to come from you. Q1.8/Whetstone says the Stone “must be deliberate to ensure periodicity. Otherwise, his Blade will drift away to something easier.” Jesus didn’t wait for the lost sheep to find its way home: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4, ESV). Notice “until he finds it.” Barnabas didn’t send Saul a message saying the door was open. He “went to Tarsus to look for” him (Acts 11:25, ESV). Waiting for a struggling man to ask is a polite way of leaving him behind. Concrete step: retire the phrase “let me know if you need anything.” Replace it with a specific offer and a time: “I’m picking you up Saturday at 0530.”

Why This Matters: He’s not going to call. Somebody has to go to Tarsus.

Q6: Have you ever been the man others wrote off? Who came and found you, and what did he do?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the turn of the hour. Some men in the circle have been there. For many it’s how they ended up in F3: somebody EH’d them when nobody else would have bothered.
• Read the author’s story from Q2.7 (it’s in the Answer). It gives men permission to tell their own.
• Listening for: the man who EH’d him into his first workout. A coach, a pastor, an uncle, a sponsor, a boss who kept him on. And occasionally: “Nobody came.” Honor that one. Then ask, “What would it have meant if someone had?”
• Push deeper: “Did he ever know what it meant to you? Have you told him?”

Answer: The man who wrote Q2.7 says plainly that he was the written-off man once. “When my boat was capsized I had no inner peace.” He was “an undependable and selfish husband,” “a distant and capricious father,” and “although I had a few acquaintances, no man could call me a true friend. Empty as I was, I had nothing to pour into a younger man.” Then some men came for him. It was “the strong effect of the forcible contact of the men who helped me flip boat to upright” that let him see the Truth. “They also helped me get mine right through Targeting. They initiated Missionality in my life.” Most men who are strong today can point to somebody like that. Saul could. Before Barnabas he was the man the church was afraid of. After Barnabas, he was the apostle Paul. And Paul did the same for others. He sent back a runaway slave named Onesimus, whose name means “useful,” with this note: “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me” (Philemon 11, ESV). Paul writes that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted” (2 Corinthians 1:4, ESV). The man who was found is the man best equipped to go looking. Concrete step: if the man who found you is still living, text him this week and tell him what it meant.

Why This Matters: You’re in this circle because somebody once picked you. Pay it forward to the man still standing by the fence.

Q7: Be honest: why do we write men off? What does it protect us from?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the self-examination question. Turn the lens from “him” to “us.”
• Listening for: “I’ve been burned before.” “It’s easier.” “I don’t know what to say.” “His problems scare me.” “Being seen with him costs me.” “Honestly, he’s annoying.” “I’m barely keeping my own boat upright.”
• Watch for trap four: the verdict. Let the circle admit that sometimes writing a man off was the wise call. Then use Barnabas and Mark (in the Answer): even Paul got this one wrong.
• Push deeper: “What would have to be true for you to give him another shot?”

Answer: Writing a man off is efficient. It saves time, protects your reputation, and keeps you from being disappointed again. And sometimes there’s real wisdom behind it. Paul had good reasons not to take John Mark on the second trip. Mark had “withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work” (Acts 15:38, ESV). The disagreement was “sharp” enough that Paul and Barnabas split up (15:39). But Barnabas, Mark’s cousin (Colossians 4:10), took him anyway. Years later, from a Roman prison, Paul wrote, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11, ESV). Even the apostle Paul wrote off a man who turned out to be worth keeping. Q2.2/Influence describes the men who influenced the author as unwilling “to go along to get along, even when the getting along was to their individual Advantage.” Writing a man off is usually going along to get along. Everybody else stopped, so you stopped. Q2.2 also says the best of them “would cast a light, if it were both possible and necessary, but would never curse the darkness.” Writing a man off is cursing the darkness. Concrete step: name what you’re protecting by keeping your distance from the man you named, and decide whether it’s worth protecting.

Why This Matters: Most of our reasons for writing men off are really reasons to protect ourselves. Barnabas was willing to be wrong about a man rather than give up on him.

Q8: The QOW definition says strategic influence “doesn’t try to reach everyone. It picks a few men.” Why does picking a few beat trying to help everybody?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the strategy question. It pushes back on the idea that influence is about reach.
• Listening for: “When you try to help everybody, you never go deep with anyone.” “The guys who changed my life had time for me specifically.” “You can’t be Proximate to a hundred people.” Coaches, sergeants, and teachers will have good answers here.
• If the room stalls, ask a simpler one: “Who’s the one man who poured into you the most? How many other guys was he pouring into at the time?” Usually just a few.
• Tie it to the Whetstone 3P: Proximate, Purposeful, Periodic. You can only do that with a few.

Answer: Social media taught us to think influence means reach. The QSource says otherwise. Q1.8/Whetstone says sharpening must be “Proximate, Purposeful and Periodic.” You can only be Proximate to a few men at a time, and “Hard looks and straight talk (tempered by love)… cannot be done virtually.” Q2.1/Impact says the same thing more bluntly: “A man cannot have IMPACT from afar.” Jesus had crowds in the thousands, but He “appointed twelve… so that they might be with him” (Mark 3:14, ESV). Then He took three of those twelve, Peter, James, and John, into the moments that mattered most. The most influential life in history was strategically narrow. David’s mighty men started as a band of misfits: “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them” (1 Samuel 22:2, ESV). He didn’t recruit the best men. He made the men he had into the best. The leader who multiplies isn’t the one with the biggest following. He’s the one who went and found his man. Concrete step: stop thinking about “the guys” and start thinking about one guy.

Why This Matters: A hundred men who barely know you won’t change. One man you pour into on purpose might.

Q9: Barnabas spent three things on Saul: his credibility (Acts 9:27), his time (Acts 11:26), and his belief (with Mark, Acts 15:39). Which of the three is hardest for you to spend, and why?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the cost question, deepened. Q3 asked what it would cost with one man. This one asks what each man guards most in general.
• Listening for: Time: “I’ve got three 2.0s and a job. I don’t have Saturdays.” Credibility: “I’ve worked hard for my reputation. I don’t want to vouch for a guy who’ll embarrass me.” Belief: “I’ve been let down too many times. I don’t have any left.”
• Push deeper: “Which one did someone spend on you?”
• For the man who’s out of belief: this is where grace comes in. Q14 will speak to it.

Answer: The definition names all three: “the deliberate investment of your time, credibility, and belief.” Most men can spare one. Very few will spend all three on the same man. Time is the most obvious, and for a busy man it’s real. But Barnabas didn’t send Saul a book. He spent “a whole year” beside him (Acts 11:26, ESV). Credibility is the one that scares leaders most. When Barnabas vouched for Saul in Jerusalem, he was saying, “If I’m wrong about him, I’m wrong in front of all of you.” Belief is the one that runs out. You believe in a man, he lets you down, and you protect yourself the next time. Barnabas believed in Mark after Mark had already quit once, and he was right. Barnabas’s real name was Joseph. The apostles nicknamed him “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36, ESV), and the first thing we see him do is sell a field and give the money away (4:37). He was a man who held things loosely. Paul writes, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4, ESV). Concrete step: name the one you guard most, and spend a little of it on your man this week. Spend first the thing you’re most tempted to keep.

Why This Matters: A man can tell what you’ve invested in him. He knows the difference between your spare time and your name.

Q10: Q2.2/Influence says, “Movement must be voluntary.” The HIM uses persuasion, not compulsion. How do you stand beside a man without turning him into your project?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the guardrail question. Watch for trap three. Some men will want to rescue, fix, or lecture.
• Listening for: “Show up and don’t preach.” “Invite him to something, not into a program.” “Ask questions instead of giving advice.” “Do things together: a ruck, a ballgame, fixing his fence.” “Let him say no and keep coming back anyway.”
• Push deeper: “How would you feel if you found out you were somebody’s project?”
• Read Q2.2’s dam picture: the energy is already there. Your job is to help him release it, not to supply it.

Answer: Q2.2 is direct about this. A HIM “might be tempted to compel Movement through the force of his will,” but “he knows that it will not work.” It “is the use of Influence to convince a man to want to Move rather than the exertion of power to make him move.” The chapter gives a picture: a stuck man is like “water impounded behind a dam.” The energy is already in him. You don’t pour it in. You help him open the floodgates, “primarily through example, by the way he talks and the things he does.” The HIM “Influences by word and deed.” Paul gives a balanced instruction: “admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14, ESV). Different men need different things, but everyone needs patience. And Jesus is described this way: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3, ESV). A written-off man has already been handled roughly. Don’t add to it. John says, “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18, ESV). Concrete step: plan your first move with your man as an invitation, not an intervention: coffee, a ruck, help with a project. Then let him decide.

Why This Matters: Men can smell a project a mile away. Stand beside him like a brother, not over him like a supervisor.

Q11 (LEADER FOLLOW-UP): Emerson said “no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” When has investing in someone else come back to strengthen you in ways you didn’t expect?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is one of the leader’s follow-up questions. It’s the reward question, and it often surprises men.
• Listening for: “Coaching my son’s team made me a better dad.” “Sponsoring a guy in AA kept me sober.” “Teaching the new hire made me finally understand my own job.” “When I Q’d for the first time, I got in better shape than I had in years.” “I started checking on a widower next door, and he ended up being the one who helped me through my dad’s death.”
• Push deeper: “Did you see it coming?” Usually not. That’s Emerson’s point.
• Tie to Q2.7 and Q1.8: the 12th Step and the hypocrisy gap.

Answer: Emerson called it one of life’s “most beautiful compensations.” The QSource names it three ways. Q2.7/Targeting compares it to the 12th Step of AA: “By focusing on the sobriety of other men, the alcoholic finds his own sobriety is easier to maintain.” By “hauling Survivors into his boat,” the HIM “reinforces the Guardrails that protect his own boat from capsizing.” Q1.8/Whetstone says the Stone, “in fulfilling his natural desire to pour into younger men,” accelerates “his own pursuit of proper personal alignment,” because “nothing closes the hypocrisy gap for a man like having a Blade.” “By talking the talk to his Blade, the Stone finds himself more Prepared to walk his own walk.” Solomon said it first: “one who waters will himself be watered” (Proverbs 11:25, ESV). And Jesus said, “give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over” (Luke 6:38, ESV). Paul quoted Him again: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35, ESV). Notice that Barnabas went to get Saul because the work in Antioch was too big for him alone. He needed Saul as much as Saul needed him. Emerson’s key word is “sincerely.” If you help a man only so you’ll feel better, you’ll miss the gift. Help him for his sake, and the gift comes anyway. Concrete step: name one way you need the man you named. There’s almost always something he can teach you.

Why This Matters: The man you go find may end up holding you up. You don’t pour out and run dry. You pour out and get filled.

Q12: Acts 11:25 says Barnabas “went to Tarsus to look for Saul.” Saul had been sent away and forgotten. What does it take to go looking for a man instead of waiting for him to show up?

Facilitator Notes:

• Read Acts 9:26–30 and 11:22–26 out loud. Tell the backstory (it’s in the Answer and the note at the top). The men need to know Saul had been sent home and forgotten.
• Explain the word: anazēteō, to hunt someone up, the same word for Mary and Joseph searching for the boy Jesus (Luke 2:44).
• Listening for: “You have to actually get in the truck.” “Find out where he is now.” “Show up at his door.” “Ask his wife or his buddy how he’s doing.” “Go to where he is, not where you wish he was.”
• For men who aren’t Christians: “Who’s a guy who used to be in your life that you’d have to go out of your way to find now?”

Answer: When the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch, he found something remarkable: “When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad,” and “a great many people were added to the Lord” (Acts 11:23–24, ESV). He needed help. He could have asked Jerusalem to send someone. Instead he remembered the man everybody had been afraid of, the one “sent… off to Tarsus” years before (Acts 9:30, ESV). Tarsus wasn’t next door. It was days away. And Luke’s word for “look for” means to hunt a man up. Barnabas may not have known where Saul was living. He went looking anyway, and he didn’t stop “until he had found him.” Then came a year side by side, and “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26, ESV). Every time you read Romans or Galatians, you’re reading the fruit of a trip to Tarsus. Q2.1/Impact says, “Proximity… does not occur in stasis. Some sort of Movement… is required by at least one person.” Going looking is the Movement. Concrete step: find out where your man is right now. Not just his phone number. Where he works, where he spends his Saturdays, what’s going on in his life. Then go there.

Why This Matters: You don’t know what God has put in the man you go find. Barnabas went to Tarsus for a helper and brought back the apostle Paul.

Q13: Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” But verse 5 says, “each will have to bear his own load.” How do you tell the difference between carrying a man’s burden and carrying what’s his to carry?

Facilitator Notes:

• Read Galatians 6:1–5 out loud. Then explain the two Greek words (in the Answer): baros (a crushing weight) and phortion (a soldier’s pack).
• Listening for: men who’ve learned the hard way. “I paid his rent three times. He didn’t need money, he needed a job.” “I kept making excuses for my brother. It didn’t help him.” “Sometimes the burden is just being there at 2 a.m.”
• Push deeper: “For the man you named: what’s his boulder, and what’s his pack?”
• Watch for the enabler and the drill sergeant. The answer is in between.

Answer: Paul isn’t contradicting himself. In verse 2, “burdens” translates baros: a crushing weight, a boulder no man can lift alone. Grief, a lost job, an addiction, a wrecked marriage. In verse 5, “load” translates phortion: a soldier’s pack, the daily responsibility every man carries himself. You help with the boulder. You don’t carry his pack for him. That matches Q2.2: “Movement must be voluntary.” It also matches what Q2.1 says about the Survivor, whom the HIM pulls into his boat “for a season.” That’s a season, not forever. Verse 1 tells you how: “restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted” (Galatians 6:1, ESV). “Restore” is the word for mending fishing nets and setting broken bones. It’s patient, skilled, hands-on work. And “the law of Christ” is the law Jesus lived out: He carried the heaviest burden in history, our sin, so that we could be restored. When you carry a brother’s burden, you’re doing in a small way what Christ did for you completely. Paul ends the passage with this: “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, ESV). Concrete step: for your man, write down two things: his boulder (what you can help lift) and his pack (what he has to carry himself).

Why This Matters: Carry too little and you’ve left him behind. Carry too much and you’ve left him where you found him. Help with the boulder, and let him carry his pack.

Q14: Before any of us went looking for a man, someone came looking for us. “While we were still weak… Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). How does being found change the way you look at the man everyone else has written off? And what about the man who has written himself off?

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the deepest question. It moves from strategy to grace.
• Some men in the room have written themselves off. This question is for them too. Don’t rush it.
• Use Luke 19:10. Jesus said His whole mission was to seek and save the lost.
• For men who aren’t Christians: “If someone believed in you more than you believed in yourself, what would that change?”

Answer: Every man here was once the man nobody picked. Paul says it without softening it: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8, ESV). God didn’t wait for us to ask for help. He didn’t wait for us to clean up. He came looking. Jesus described His own mission in one sentence: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10, ESV). He said it in the house of Zacchaeus, a tax collector the whole town had written off. Ephesians says, “even when we were dead in our trespasses,” God “made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:5, ESV). That changes how we see a written-off man. If God came after you when you had nothing to offer, you can’t look at any man and decide he’s not worth the trip. And it changes how a man sees himself. If you’ve written yourself off, hear this: God hasn’t. James writes, “whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20, ESV). That works in both directions. Some of you are called to go find a man this week. Some of you are the man, and somebody in this circle is about to come looking. Let him. Concrete step: tonight, thank God that He came looking for you. Then pray for your man by name.

Why This Matters: Barnabas went to Tarsus because grace had already gone looking for him. You go find your man because Someone already found you.

Q15 (THE CLOSE + LEADER FOLLOW-UP): Picture the one man you could pour into this year. What’s kept you from making the call? Name him, name the cost, and name your first move this week.

Facilitator Notes:

• This is the close. Every man answers, and nobody passes.
• Give 60 seconds of quiet first. Ask each man to picture his man’s face, and picture himself making the call.
• Three parts, every man: the man (first name or role), the cost (time, credibility, or belief), and the first move (one specific call, text, or visit with a day attached).
• Ask the follow-up out loud: “What’s kept you from making the call?” The honest answers are usually fear, busyness, or old hurt. Name it so it loses its grip.
• Write it all down. Next Friday, open by asking each man, “Did you make the call? What happened?”
• Read the commitments back before you pray.

Example answers — what a real answer sounds like:

• The busy dad: “Marcus. He got let go in June, stopped posting, and everybody quit asking. What’s kept me from calling is honestly that I don’t know what to say. It’ll cost me Saturday mornings. My first move: I’m texting him tonight that I’m picking him up for the ruck Saturday at 0530.”
• The man with the hard brother: “My brother, Danny. The whole family’s done with him. It’ll cost me credibility with my parents and probably some money I won’t lend. What’s kept me from it is that I’ve been burned three times. My first move: I’m calling him Sunday just to talk. No lecture, no loan.”
• The Respect: “A young guy at my church, Tyler. He’s the one everybody thinks is a flake. I could pour into him, and it’ll cost me time. I’ve been telling myself he’s not interested. My first move: I’m asking him to breakfast Tuesday.”
• The workplace leader: “A guy on my crew everyone’s given up on. If I start standing up for him, it’ll cost me credibility with my boss. My first move: I’m taking him to lunch Wednesday and asking him what he wants to be doing in five years.”
• The man who’s been the written-off one: “Honestly, it’s me. I’ve been the Kotter for a year. But there’s a guy I used to post with, Ray, who disappeared about the same time I did. It’ll cost me admitting I disappeared too. My first move: I’m EH’ing him to the gloom next Friday.”

The test: a real answer includes a man, a cost, and a first move. Push back on these:

• “I should reach out to a few guys” → Which one? First name?
• “It won’t cost me anything” → Then what’s kept you from doing it?
• “I’ll let him know I’m here if he needs me” → What day? What will you actually say or do?
• “I’m going to get him straightened out” → Are you standing beside him, or over him?
• “Nobody comes to mind” → Go back to the first name you thought of in Q2. That’s him.

Answer: Barnabas didn’t have a strategy deck. He had a name, a cost he was willing to pay, and a trip to Tarsus. That’s all this takes. The QOW definition says it plainly: the leader who multiplies “is the one who went and found his man.” Q2.7/Targeting calls this “the greatest gift a man can provide, the freedom to move beyond himself.” F3 says leave no man behind, and leave no man where you found him. Emerson says it will help you as much as it helps him. Solomon says the man who waters will himself be watered (Proverbs 11:25, ESV). And Paul says, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone” (Galatians 6:10, ESV). This week is the opportunity. You don’t have to change his whole life. You just have to make the first move. Go find the man nobody picked. Concrete step: say your man, your cost, and your first move out loud, right now.

Why This Matters: The call you keep putting off is the one he’s waiting for and will never ask for. Make the call. Pay the cost. Report back next Friday.

“F3 is not a religious organization but we do ask that you believe in something higher than yourself. I am a Christian, so I will lead us out in a Christian reflection and prayer.”

Closing Prayer

Father, thank you that you came looking for us when no one else would have picked us. Forgive us for waiting when we should have gone after a brother. Bring to mind the man each of us named today, and give us the courage to go find him and stand beside him. In Jesus’ name, Amen.