The purpose of a fourth-day talk is to provide encouragement to other pescadores in their fourth day by witnessing to the active presence of Christ in your life. The talk should be a brief (about 10 minutes) personal sharing of your life with Christ at the present time. Although you may talk about elements of your life before the weekend, the emphasis should be on your fourth-day experience — what your life has been since your weekend. The talk should not be instructional regarding the Tres Dias method.  It should, however, provide witness as to how the Tres Dias experience (the weekend itself, sharing groups, applying piety, study and action) has aided you in living your fourth day.

Your talk must be positive. This does not mean that you should avoid discussing any difficult experiences during your fourth day. Everyone — both the Christian and the non – Christian — will experience hardships and problems. The difference, for Christians, is in how the support of Jesus and the love of other Christians help them deal with those problems.

The following is a suggested outline for the talk:

• Introduce yourself; give your town, the number and year of your Tres Dias weekend, and the table name (if you can remember).
• Choose a recent experience (an important decision, crisis, joyful occasion) and explain how you felt Christ’s presence during that experience. 
• Share how the support of your brothers and sisters, during your weekend and from your contact after the weekend, helped you directly or indirectly be closer to Christ. 
• Tie in scripture or something you learned from a Christian book if it is appropriate. 
• Close with a summary statement of what you learned, either about Christ or yourself, as a result of the Tres Dias experience.

And, please conclude with a “De Colores”! Remember, a short, clear witness will be remembered best. Ask the Lord, in prayer, to guide you. He will!  

The Essentials of Tres Dias specify that a “floating reunion group” (a term that sometimes causes confusion) should follow the fourth-day talk. Usually, this means asking those attending the secuelas to divide into smaller groups to discuss some theme mentioned in the talk. For example, if the speaker talked about how faith was tested during a crisis, the members in the small groups might be invited to share stories about times their faith was tested.

Editor’s note: These guidelines combine ideas from documents used at several communities and do not constitute an official best practices paper.