Before the Fire Discovery Course
A standing ten-week course that takes a believer from faith to their place in the body — discovering their gifts, their calling, and how the whole church works together, ending in a commissioning.
The course for after Alpha
Alpha, and courses like it, do something wonderful: they introduce people to Jesus and welcome them into the faith. But once someone has crossed that threshold, a question follows quickly — what now? Where do I belong, and what am I for?
The Before the Fire Discovery Course is the answer to that question. If Alpha brings a person to Christ, this course shows them their place in His body. Over ten weeks it walks every believer through the framework — the vision God is working toward, the truth that every believer is a minister, how to discern the gifts the Spirit has given, where those gifts are sent, and how the whole body plans and serves together under Christ the Head.
It is the natural next step: the discipleship course that turns a new believer — or a long-time member who has never found their place — from a spectator into a living, serving part of the body.
Ten weeks, one evening a week
Each session is a warm evening gathering — a short teaching, time to wait on the Lord, three discussion questions, and a simple step to take at home (the online gifts assessment, reading your gift profiles, requesting confirmations). Weeks 1–5 are the gift-discovery core; weeks 6–10 open out into the whole framework, governance included.
Vision, the royal priesthood, discerning your gifts, gift and calling, and confirmation by the body — a first pass through the assessment and a real sense of calling.
Christ the Head and servant governance, the household, mission, how the body plans and decides, and a closing week of prayer and commitment.
Where God Is Taking History
Every Believer a Minister
Hearing What the Spirit Has Given
From What You Hold to Where You're Sent
The Body Weighs and Affirms
Christ the Head and the Servant Eldership
The Family as the First Church
Commission and Mission
Seeking Direction from the Holy Spirit
Consecration and the Sending
Where it sits in the church year
The course is designed to become a regular part of the church’s rhythm, not a one-off event. It runs continuously as the on-ramp for newcomers — each cohort finishing just before the church’s annual closing week of prayer and commitment (Pentecost, or the start of the financial year), so everyone who has just discovered their gifts can step straight into their first annual cycle.
It maps directly onto the Annual Plan:
- Weeks 1–5 → Stage 1 (Discovery) — the gifts work that feeds the eldership’s review.
- Weeks 6–8 → the body, the eldership and governance, the household, and mission.
- Week 9 → the data review, the workshops, scoping the plan, and how the body decides.
- Week 10 → the closing week — prayer and fasting, the commitment, then sent into the year.
Culture-setting, then steady state. In the first year or two, many churches preach the same ten weeks to the whole congregation at once — the “Before the Fire” Sunday series — to set the culture together. Once the body is across it, the Sunday calendar is freed for a short annual refresh, while the Discovery Course runs on quietly as the standing course for everyone new.
Same ten-week journey; two settings. See how it runs from the pulpit →
Full delivery resources included
You are not handed a topic and left to build it. The course comes with a complete delivery kit — the printable documents and the full online toolset — so a facilitator can pick it up and run it well from the first night.
The printable pack
- Course Guidance Notes — for the eldership: how to position and run it, the week-by-week map, and where it sits on the Annual Plan.
- Facilitator Guide — how to lead each of the ten sessions.
- Participant Workbook — one per person, to write in across the ten weeks.
The online tools
- The five-movement Spiritual Gifts Assessment and the eighteen gift profiles.
- The Shadow Side Check, the Community Confirmations, and the Results & Next Steps.
- Everything a participant touches week by week — free for each member, on their own account.
Not a member yet? You might like to run it.
Because this course takes people from faith to fruitfulness, it is often the first thing a church runs with the framework. If your church isn’t part of Sonrise Revival yet, the Discovery Course is a natural place to begin.
The ten-week course — the facilitator guide, the guidance notes, the participant workbook, and the full online toolset — comes with an Elder membership, so any elder can lead it in small groups. An Engaged Church membership adds the Sunday “Before the Fire” preaching mode and the church-wide tools on top. Run one cohort, see the fruit, and build it into your year.