Group Guide
for Just-Do-It Sessions
Freedom Season, April 13 - May 28, 2025
"Readily recognize what [God] wants from you, and quickly respond to it" (Romans 12.2, The Message)
When it is your turn to lead the group, you may skim this Guide ahead of time if you wish, and see FAQs at the bottom if you need more details. However, don't worry if you don't get it read beforehand. It will work even if you do it cold.
If you would like an idea of the flow of the group session, note the three sections that are the same every week--warm-up, Bible passage, Just-Do-Its. Only the Scripture passage changes as shown in the list below.
If you doubt your ability to lead, ask God to make it work, and watch what happens. Don't over-prepare and don't dread it. Just do it.
Why do you have to lead a session at all? Because God wants the message of Jesus to go viral through you, which means he will probably want you to start your own Just-Do-It group eventually. You will never do that if you refuse to take your turn in leading the group you already belong to.
Leader's Guide for our Just-Do-It Group during Freedom Season
Part 1 - Warm-up
Start with icebreaker questions about how everybody is doing
Ask each person, “In a minute or so, what is one thing you are thankful for this week?”
Ask, “What is a challenge you are facing?”
Ask, "How did we do with last week's Just-Do-It assignments?" (Keep cheering people on as they answer.)
Read this to review the group purpose:
Why did we get together today? To listen for our next assignments in God’s POTF Campaign and to cheer each other on as People of the Future.
Pray for good listening and cheering, using the following prayer or your own:
Thank you, God, that we can get together today. Thank you that you masterminded a campaign to connect, heal, and bless the world and that you included us in it through Jesus and his Spirit. Help us listen well for our next assignments as People of the Future, and help us cheer each other on every week. In the name of Jesus and for the sake of a better world we ask these things. Amen.
Read these bullet points to remind the group about what we have agreed on
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We want a better world, and it will get a little better every time we listen to God together and cheer each other on.
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Nobody is teaching anything or preparing anything for this group. We take turns leading the group by using this group Guide.
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We stick to the Bible verses we read; we don’t bring in other verses.
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Our goal is to get better at hearing what God wants us to do this week; we are not here to satisfy idle curiosity or to push our own opinion.
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We expect that at some point God will nudge us to start other groups to get more people listening and cheering. When he does, we will just do it, even if it means we leave this group.
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Part 2 - Bible
[Say] Now let's listen for what the Scripture is saying to us.
Use the following prayer or your own. Pray that the Scripture will speak to us:
Lord, we are coming to you to listen for your voice in the Bible and through your Spirit. Give us whatever assignments you have for us this week as People of the Future, and make them clear enough that we don't miss them. Make your thoughts our thoughts and your will our will so we can just do it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Find this week’s Scripture
Apr 13-19 Mark 11.1-11. Jesus is hailed as the Liberator
Apr 20-26 Mark 8.27-38. The cost of the Messiah's freedom
Apr 27 - May 3 Mark 15.24-39. Jesus's six hours on the cross
May 4-10 Romans 5.1-11. Living in the freedom Jesus won for us
May 11-17 Romans 12.1-8. Set free to serve Jesus and others
May 18-21 (Sun-Wed only) Romans 14.1-12. Free from judgmentalism
May 22-28 Galatians 5.16-26. Free to leave the old life and live the new one
1. Read the Scripture to the group, then ask, “What stood out to you? It could be a main point or just something that jumped out at you.”
2. Ask someone else to read the Scripture, using a different translation than you read. Then try to summarize it together without looking at it. Pretend you are doing this to inform someone who arrived late. It doesn't have to be perfect.
3. [Ask] “How much would we know about God's "People of the Future" Campaign if these verses were all we had heard about it?”
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Part 3 -- Just-Do-Its
[Say] Now let's get ready to listen for our personal assignments for the week, our Just-Do-Its.
Read this description of "freedom activists":
Those Bible verses are supposed to help us see ourselves as freedom activists. Jesus called us to spread the word of his death and resurrection so that more prisoners of the past can discover the freedom of the future. Let's go on high alert for his Spirit right now. Let's pay attention to whatever he wants to tell us in these next minutes about helping other people discover his freedom.
Use the following prayer or your own. Pray for the Spirit to speak to us:
Jesus, please put our personal assignments into our minds now by the Holy Spirit. We are at your service. Let the truth of your Freedom Declaration ring in our ears. May your sacrificial death set us free from our past. May the power of your resurrection set us free to enter your future. Give us assignments that will make us good activists in your campaign to free the world from its curse.
Allow time for listening to the Spirit (use your judgment about how long to wait)
[Then ask] "What do you feel your Just-Do-It assignment is?"
[Ask] "How will we get our Just-Do-Its done?"
[Say] "Let's each set a reminder right now (whatever kind works for you)."
[Say] "Let's pray right now for God's help."
Pray, using the following prayer or your own:
Thank you, Lord, for giving us our People of the Future assignments for the week. Now please give us the courage, skill, and spiritual power to do it. Please prepare situations for us so that people get connected, healed, or blessed as we do our Just-Do-Its. Let them be our small contributions to a better world because we listened to you together in this group. In the name of Jesus, who issued the Freedom Declaration, we ask these things. Please let them happen. Amen.
[Ask] "Whose turn is it to lead next week?" Confirm the meeting time.
Close the session by saying (or having the group say together) the slogan in the box:
Bottom line
Don't forget your Just-Do-It.
Don't over-think it.
Don't avoid it.
Don't wait till you feel like it.
Just do it.
FAQs for leaders
What is Freedom Season?
The third of the seven seasons in the SYNC annual cycle.
You don't need to know the season or the cycle in order to participate in a Just-Do-It group, but if you are in a group for more than one SYNC season, you will see that the Guide changes slightly with the seasonal emphasis.
If you want more details about Freedom Season, see the Freedom Tool Kit in the menu under Resources, but don't try to explain Freedom Season during a Just-Do-It session. That would violate one of the key rules for Just-Do-It Groups: "Nobody is teaching anything or preparing anything for this group."
What is God's "People of the Future" (POTF) Campaign?
Refer to the God's POTF Campaign in the menu. God's POTF Campaign is a core idea in Just-Do-It Groups because all our Just-Do-Its are part of it. But don't try to "teach" the idea during a group meeting or the meeting may get off track. People will catch on to it gradually through the prayers they use in the Guide each week. If they want more details, they can look up God's POTF Campaign for themselves on this site.
Does God really have a personal assignment for me this week?
Ask him. We know he is definitely recruiting people for his campaign and giving them assignments. And we know he will hear your question.
He can get back to you through his direct line to the deepest level of your inner self. His method of letting you know your assignment will vary according to how you are wired, which he totally understands.
The Just-Do-It discovery process creates a good listening atmosphere so you can "hear" from God in whatever way he is letting you know things. It raises our expectations. Our problem is that we aren't expecting God to have anything personal to say to us so we aren't regularly listening for it.
We relegate God to timeless commands like, "Love your neighbor." That was just as much a command thousands of years ago as it is now. But "Go say hello to your neighbor over the back fence while he's mowing his yard," is a personal and immediate Just-Do-It assignment. God puts thoughts like that into people.
But is that how God wants us to operate--depending on those thoughts? Not by themselves. We don't wait to say hello until we get a specific nudge from God to do that, but neither do we rule out the idea that God may sometimes nudge us, letting us know something specific that he wants us to do in the next day or two. And we set aside some time to give him a golden opportunity to nudge us if he wants to.
God has a master plan, and he did not leave any loose ends. He knows our names, our trajectories in life, our situation this week, and he saw it all coming. "He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." (Ephesians 2.10)
We are all aware of a little voice in our heads that sometimes tempts us to do something we know is not the right thing to do, something we would not do on our good days. A weekly (or daily) Just-Do-It discovery session gets us into the habit of listening for a different voice that drowns that negative voice out and gets us busy doing the right thing.
Isn't it more authentic to pray in our own words than to read a prayer?
Usually it is. In this case, please do at least read through the prayers ahead of time in order to see how they reinforce the core ideas and purposes of Just-Do-It groups. If you use your own words, be sure to get these ideas and purposes in there.
Why can't we mention any Bible verses besides the ones we are reading?
Because it interferes with both listening and cheering. When we start comparing verses, our brains take over and our ears get blocked. We start figuring things out, explaining things, studying things, and before we realize it, we are lost in a pile of timeless truths, no longer listening to what God is saying specifically to us in the moment.
The other effect may be even worse. Our extra Bible verses easily make others feel second-class or even excluded. Whether they think we are showing off or just trying to be helpful, the effect is still that they see us way above them and they see themselves as very deficient in biblical knowledge. That never cheers anybody on!
There is a time and a place for comparing various Scriptures to develop our theological knowledge, but a Just-Do-It group is not it.
Where do we get another Bible translation?
One source (leaving this site) is biblegateway.com. It has a long pick list of translations. Two of the easiest ones to hear read aloud are The Message and the Good News Translation.
What if someone doesn't hear or sense any Just-Do-It while we are listening to the Spirit?
The people who do get some guidance from the Spirit should go ahead and describe it. Sometimes that helps others to realize what the Spirit is saying to them.
If that does not happen, then the person's Just-Do-It is to stay alert through the week until he/she gets the guidance they didn't get during the meeting.
The person might want to reread the same Scripture, spend some more time praying and listening, or the Spirit may create a particular situation so the person realizes, "Oh, this is God prompting me to do such-and-such."
The person should not fret or be embarrassed as they wait. It is God's job to communicate our Just-Do-Its, not our job to figure them out. He's very good at it because he knows how we are wired. He customizes his communication, and his timing is impeccable.
Does anyone take notes about our Just-Do-Its or other things we share during the meeting?
First things first--set a reminder for yourself so you don't forget your own Just-Do-It after the meeting. That's the basic problem for most participants.
Taking and circulating a few notes is a nice extra if anyone in your group is good at that. It helps you pray for each other during the week and cheer each other when you next meet. Each group has to figure out whether the help that notes give to their cheering is greater than the harm that note-taking causes as a distraction from listening. Here is a template for simple note-taking to download if you decide to try that.
What if my Just-Do-It assignment is too big to finish in a week?
As you were listening for your Just-Do-It assignment, you may have had a familiar thought like, "I need to be more generous," or "I need to control my anger better." People often think like that when they try to "apply Scripture to their lives", but don't mistake any such thought for your Just-Do-It assignment. You will not finish an "assignment" like those in a week, a year, or a lifetime, and every time you work on them, you will feel you are falling short.
If a never-ending assignment came to your mind as you were listening for a Just-Do-It assignment, ask the Spirit to narrow it down for you so you have something you can finish this week.
For example, "This week I will find some way to be generous to someone God is putting on my mind right now," or "God has put someone on my mind just now. I'm often angry at this person/jerk. This week I will put a daily reminder on my phone to ask God to bless him/her."
By asking God for a specific Just-Do-It assignment like that, you get to celebrate finishing it. The joy is important because it makes you eager to listen for your next assignment, not discouraged because you fell short. Joy empowers; shame cripples.