Intake
What we ask
Six instruments, one conversation, and no surprises.
Intake is one conversation, then a second one a week or so later. In the first, a coach sits with you — on a call or across a table — and you fill these in yourself while he walks you through them. He never types into your forms. Then you pray, and you book the second meeting, and nobody decides anything in the warmth of the first.
Every instrument is below: what it asks, why it asks, and who reads the answers. Nothing here is a test and none of it is scored against another man.
Your position
Instrument A — where you serve by gift
- What it asks
- Five positions — Eyes, Hands, Feet, Mouth, Heart. You score yourself on each, then name your primary, your secondary, and the one where you are weakest.
- Why
- A squad is a body, not five copies of the same man. Knowing where you carry weight tells your squad what to lean on you for — and the lowest score matters more than the highest, because that is where you will need brothers.
- Who reads it
- Your coach and your squad. Three brothers are asked afterwards whether they see the same thing you do; where they differ, that gap is the conversation.
The alignment wheel
Instrument B — twelve points, your baseline
- What it asks
- Twelve points across four quadrants — Upward, Inward, Homeward, Outward. You score each one to ten, against written descriptions of what each band actually means, and then answer five questions about the shape.
- Why
- A wheel cannot roll with a flat spot. This is not an average to raise; it is a shape to read, and the collapsed point is what is about to cost you everywhere else. You take it at intake and at the end of each cycle, always against your own past.
- Who reads it
- You and your coach. It is never compared with another man's — there is no leaderboard, no ranking, and no squad average anywhere in this system.
Where you want to grow
Instrument C — three areas, named plainly
- What it asks
- Three areas, in order, the one that costs you most first. For each: what growing here would actually look like, what stands in the way, when it usually happens, and — the field that matters most — what comes just before it.
- Why
- This is where the invitation and the honesty have to sit together. The question is where you want to grow; the naming stays plain, with no euphemism, because a thing named vaguely cannot be fought or recognised when it is starting. And the precursor is what every drift entry you log for the next two years is matched against. You are not writing a confession — you are building the instrument that will catch you.
- Who reads it
- You and your coach. Not your squad, and never another man.
Your Close Witness
The one who sees you unguarded
- What it asks
- One person outside the programme who sees you with your guard down — usually a wife. Their name, how they know you, and their consent to be asked how you are doing.
- Why
- Self-report has a ceiling. Someone who lives near you knows things about your temper, your absence and your phone that you will not think to mention.
- Who reads it
- Your coach. What they tell us is not shown to you — that rule exists to protect people who would otherwise not speak. If there is no one, say so: that answer matters more than any name you could invent, and it is the thing this step most needs to surface.
Health
Yours to write, read by two people
- What it asks
- Conditions, medications, sleep, exercise limits, and four specific questions: eating disorder history, blood sugar, heart or kidney or liver or blood pressure, and whether nutrition affects your mental health. What your doctor has said about fasting.
- Why
- Because fasting is part of this and a coach clears fasts. He needs the decision and the flags before he clears one, and there is one answer that closes food fasting permanently and opens a different track built with him instead.
- Who reads it
- You, your coach, and the head coach. Nobody else — not your squad, not an administrator. You are the only person who can write a word of it, and no coach can edit it in any circumstance.
The covenant
Recorded by your coach at Covenant Day
- What it asks
- Nothing, from you, on a form. You speak it out loud before your squad; your coach records what the room witnessed.
- Why
- It is the one record that is an account of an event rather than a self-report, which is why you do not write it. A witnessed fact attested by its own subject is not a witnessed fact.
- Who reads it
- You, your coach, and the head coach.
What none of it does
None of it produces a rank, a percentage, a streak or a comparison with another man. There is no leaderboard and no squad average anywhere in this system, and there never will be — the scoreboard measures training, not righteousness. Your wheel is read against your own past and nothing else.
And none of it gates you. An unfinished instrument is unfinished, not a barrier. The only thing that must be in place before a man becomes active is a named pastoral contact — a real person, outside the software, responsible for his care.
The full terms — what this costs, what it does not, and how you may leave — are on Count the Cost. Read that first.