The Posture that Receives
Early in every TPM 301 Immersive, Brooke asks the room to picture a filing cabinet.
Every drawer full — scripture verses, teachings, techniques, the things you’ve learned to tell yourself when your heart hurts. It’s a good cabinet. Years of faithful discipleship built it. But when someone arrives with every drawer already packed, there’s nowhere left for anything new to land. They’re so busy matching what they’re hearing to what they already know that they can’t actually receive it.
Then the question is asked that lays the foundation for the weekend: What if God doesn’t want to teach you something new — He wants to give you what you already know, in a fresh way?
Not a Better Immersive. The Same Posture, Still Working.
If you were with us in May, you know that what God did in you then was real, and it was good. This isn’t a post about how July improved on May. It’s a post about what happens when a team — and a room full of people — actually live the thing we teach, rather than just teaching it.
Because here’s what’s true: we could have opened the same folder in July that we used in May. Nothing would have required us not to. But a posture that receives doesn’t stay still. When you’re actually listening for what the Spirit wants to do next, you stay ready to move when He redirects — not because the last thing failed, but because obedience has a next moment, and you’re still paying attention to it. May was faithfulness to what He was doing then. July was faithfulness to what He was doing now. Same posture. Different day.
Here’s the part I almost left out: the coaches’ drawers had to open too. Months and years of our own faith being refined, our own minds being renewed, left room for the Spirit to fill with more than there was before — not new information, just space for something different. What came out the other side wasn’t just fresh content. It was the principles, purpose, and process of TPM finally integrated, instead of taught as isolated talks and exercises the cohort had to piece together on their own. They could see the whole thing work together, not just hear about each piece separately.
That’s true of us as leaders. It turned out to be even more visibly true of the cohort.
Confidence Isn’t Something You Practice Into
Nearly every person in that room walked in Thursday afternoon tentative about the idea of mentoring anyone. Some were openly anxious. By Saturday, those same people could see themselves as mentors, ready to keep building toward it.
Some might think that shift came from repetition — enough practice sessions and eventually the nerves wear off. I don’t think that’s it. What actually happened is closer to what Saturday morning’s teaching named directly: You are not responsible for transforming yourself. You are only responsible for staying close enough to the fire to let Him.
Their confidence wasn’t manufactured. It was overflow. Every person who walked out more ready than they walked in had spent three days being the one who receives — sitting in the mentee’s seat, letting the Spirit persuade them of something true about themselves and about God. Not just hearing that we’re meant to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind” (Romans 12:2) — experiencing it. You don’t stay afraid of holding space for someone else’s process once you’ve encountered the Lord yourself as someone else held space for yours.
That’s not a technique. That’s fruit.
One Room, Every Starting Point
Joel first learned this work years ago under an older name — Theophostic Prayer — and came back to receive it again in its current form. Julia, Sarah, and Debra arrived at three different points in their own training. Kim had already been mentoring faithfully for three years.
None of them were behind. None of them were ahead. Carol has a picture for this: the stakes driven in beside a newly planted tree, holding it steady until its own roots take hold. Nobody’s expected to stand on their own before they’re rooted enough to. You’re not on your own until you’re actually ready to be on your own — progression happens at each person’s pace, because the goal was never to get everyone to the same place at the same time. It was to meet each one where they were.
Kim’s story is the clearest picture of it. A year ago, I asked her to consider co-leading our 201 course. She said no, not now. This week, she called — not because I’d asked again, but because somewhere in this Immersive, God showed her she was ready. I didn’t do that, and neither did our material. Something in her actually received what He was offering – His truth and perspective – and it changed what she believed was possible for her to carry.
What the Pictures Show
At our last gathering, I looked around and saw small clusters of people deep in conversation — two here, three there, four more out on the porch — the easy, unhurried kind of talk that only happens after three days of being honest with each other.
That’s not something you can build into a schedule. It’s what tends to show up on its own, once people have spent a weekend actually receiving from God and from each other instead of performing for one another.
Meeting You Where You Are
Not everyone reading this is ready for a 301 Immersive — and that’s exactly the posture this whole weekend was about. Meeting people where they are, not where we wish they were.
Never experienced TPM? Sign up for a session.
Don’t know what TPM is? Start with TPM 101.
Ready to begin learning TPM for yourself? Start with TPM 201.
Ready for the principles, purpose, and process of TPM to make more sense? Join our 8-week TPM 301 Zoom course.
Curious to experience an immersive for yourself? Fall 2026 and 2027 dates release in September.
Contact: Barbara at [email protected] or 346.388.3632.
