Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource you to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Eric, welcome back to the Life Group Leader podcast. Thanks for taking the time each series to walk us through what it is that God has put on your heart, what you are going to be teaching us out of God's word.
Always a pleasure to have you. Love it, love our group leaders, thanks for the time. Why don't you take a second and walk us through what God has given you for this fall series as we begin to talk about big problems, bigger God. All right, let me get the group leaders a little bit of an overview of how we think of the teaching plan for the whole year.
Is that cool? Yeah, that's a good idea. So, group leader, I think this will help you think about how the diet of the teaching at Mariners Church from the stage or the platform or the pulpit, the podium for language you use, how under the guidance of the spirit we construct this, is we think in terms of a balanced diet over a whole year, and big three big buckets that we think about as we plan out the teaching calendar is text, life, and theology. So text, meaning a sermon series that is just walking people through the text.
We just did Galatians in the spring, that would be an example of text. We're just walking people verse by verse through the scripture. Theology would be we're gonna hit some big concepts about the Bible, about worldview, about how people think. So theology means thinking about God.
It may not be a book in the Bible we're walking through, but we're hitting some weighty thoughts about God. So early 2022, it was begin with the ending, or start with the ending. It was a teaching series about how the world ends. So eschatology is a theological study of how the world ends of last things.
So that's theology. And then there was series that are life, where we start where people are, and then we apply the scripture to those needs. Now, all three of those approaches, we teach the Bible, we use real life practical illustrations to help people connect, and we have our sermons drenched in a Christ-centered theology. So we hit all three of those in every message series, but the starting point is kind of how we think.
Is this a text series, a life series, or a theology series? And over a year, we'll have a balanced diet of all of those. And I think that impacts you as a life group leader, because you're walking through Galatians with people, you for sure think, and hey, we're just walking people through the scripture. The series we did over the summer, The Holy Spirit, no, I'm helping people think accurately about the spirit, the spirit's not an object, not an id, but a person, not just a power, but a employee, but a person we enjoy, which is what we unpack.
And then you'll have a teaching series that is grabbing people right where they are, with life application issues. By the way, you see all examples of this in the scripture. You see instructions to teach the word. You see Jesus, that would be text.
You see Jesus starting where people were using modern day for him, parables, and grabbing people right where they were. And then applying truth to them. And then, theology, you really see Jesus teaching that way as well in the road to Emmaa, basically showing how all of the Old Testament points to him. So all three are valid.
There are some churches that do only one of those three. I appreciate all three of those approaches. We do all three and look to give you a balanced diet over the year. Okay, so that is just some background.
And all of that, that's a long setup. For this teaching series, this fall is definitely in the life category. So, spring was text, Galatians. Summer was theology, Holy Spirit.
This is, we are grabbing people where they are, with some big problems. And then seeing that God is bigger than these problems. The good news is, the Bible is not chlorinated or immune to these problems. These are real problems, but the Bible speaks to these real problems.
And we want to serve our people by speaking to these problems as well from the scripture. That's amazing. Thanks for that setup. Just taking the time to talk about that balanced diet approach.
I think it's always helpful for us to see the context of not only a weekend, not only a series, but really the whole year. Totally. We're on a journey together studying God's Word. And I think it's important that we remember that not just single topics or single weekends are intended to be the entirety of our experience.
Totally. And same thing for the group leader. Just like it would be really unhealthy if I thought, the totality of my feeding or teaching ministry is what happens this weekend. You as a group leader, you don't need to have that pressure on yourself at all.
The health of your group is not dependent on this next session. It's the long game of you shepherding that group of people. Yeah, that's so relieving. It is.
I need that. I need to know that. Yeah, thank you for preaching to all of us here on that one. All right, so starting on the weekend of September 10th and 11th, we are beginning with I Am Lonely.
God is community. Right? God is the one who creates community. He's a creator of community.
So you'll see in the series what we're going to hit six big problems. Loneliness, fear, addiction, anxiety, being overwhelmed and boredom. And all of those plague people that they have for centuries. I mean, this is not new to the human experience.
This is not of COVID or post-COVID reality. This is part of the human experience. So each sermon will have exposing a pain point and then seeing how God is the one who's bigger and brings healing and comfort and power and restoration to this pain point. So the first being, I'm lonely.
God is community. So even knowing God, I know the God who exists in an eternal relationship with himself. God, the Father, God, the Spirit. So in one sense, when you know him, you're not ever alone.
In another sense, even when Adam walked with God in the garden, and God said, it's not good for people to be alone. So we're going to see that the beauty of community is the church's God's gift of community to his people. So God gives us community. And we'll see that, hey, we're lonely.
Feelings of loneliness is normal. I mean, there's like half of America right now in some surveys that are saying they feel lonely. You can feel lonely in a big crowd. Being alone is objective, feeling lonely is subjective.
So you can feel lonely in a 3.2 million people in Orange County, Southern California, big. You can feel alone there, but that's for the Christian. The feeling of loneliness is actually an invitation to be reminded that you're never alone. So feeling hungry is to go to eat, feeling thirsty, to drink, feeling lonely is actually a God-given feeling.
To remind you, I was made for something more than just myself. Does that pattern of feeling lonely, does that pull all the way through? I feel afraid. I feel anxious.
Does that pull all the way through? Where what we feel is an invitation to be reminded that God is with us in each of those things? That's good. Jared, I don't have all the sermons prepared yet.
So I'm about halfway through in my prep. That's good. I don't want to answer definitively. We'll see.
But here's what I can say that for each of them. So I'm lonely, but God is this. So I'm afraid, but God is above my fear. So I'm addicted, but God is the conqueror of my addiction.
I'm anxious, but God is peace. So we'll see that God's bigger than the restle, the struggle, the problem we have. Yeah, of course. That's amazing.
One of the things I love so much about a life group who has chosen to walk through the CERNiline content with us is that they not only get to hear the message, worship God at a weekend, but then days later, they get to sit down with their group and they get to discuss it. How do you see us as a life group processing these topics together? Anything we should be aware of? What do you even hope for a life group as they process through these topics?
This hopefully will be a time where the group relationally gets a bit deeper because of the vulnerability that can happen with these topics. Absolutely. Yeah. So as I shared earlier, there's walking through a book.
I love walking through a book of the Bible. Sometimes vulnerability doesn't come as easily when you do that as opposed to this. Now, you have to be careful. Sometimes with this kind of topic, every kind of approach has an upside and upside.
The vulnerability can be higher when you start with this. You have to be careful you don't move into just shared feelings and not looking at the scripture. In other words, you can't spend the whole group time just having a moped session about loneliness and not spending time in the word and allowing the word to refresh you. Same thing with anxiety.
You can't just be a session where we only talk about that and not look and see that God is peace and God is joy. So my hope is for your group is that you will have an increased level of vulnerability. If on a scale of two to 10 right now, your group's a zero to 10. If on a scale of zero to 10, and the vulnerability scale right now, your group's a two.
By the end of the series, it could be a four. Or if it's a six, it could be a seven. You don't need to feel the pressure to swing it from a two to a 10. And the way to do that is as you look at the content, you can see which of these have you wrestled with the most.
Or there's a subset. So week two is I'm afraid and God is above. I'm going to expose some common fears that people have. And when I teach, I'll share some of my fears.
Fear of failure has been a fear of not providing for my family has been a fear that I've wrestled with. So I think the more you as the leader are vulnerable, the more that will pull out some vulnerability from your group. Yeah, and I would encourage life group leaders for you to attend each weekend so that you can hear how Eric outlines what it looks like to share a vulnerability, not oversharing. It doesn't have to cover every detail.
And yet we can be vulnerable and guide a conversation. We can actually model for our group what healthy vulnerability looks like. I know we have some of our group leaders who attend one week, watch online a week, attend one week, which I love that. We have such a vibrant online community.
If you can attend in person, I think you probably will sense it's a one extra click of vulnerability for me. Because it just happens organically. I feel the room trusting me. I feel the people nodding.
I feel safe. When I'm only speaking online and I'm not seeing people eyeball me, I don't feel as safe as I do when I'm among people who love me at our church. And so you'll get a little bit deeper of a click of vulnerability if you're at the live services. Yeah, a good invitation.
Why not be there? Lastly, just anything that our leaders should be aware of. We're talking about some really important things here. And some heavy subjects.
So I'm looking at the six weeks right now. I'm putting myself in a life of your pleater's shoes. Lonely probably. It can bring some things to the surface.
But that's not going to be one that I think is the most challenging. I'm going to pull out two of the six leaders that I think will be the most challenging for you to lead and navigate. So week one is lonely. That won't be the most challenging.
I don't believe week two of afraid or fear will be. Week three and week four, I think, will be the two that you want to be the most prepared for in terms of not even being surprised at what you even hear from people in your own group. And that is a week on addiction and a week on anxiety. So for those, I also want you to know, you don't have to feel the pressure of being resource for every question that comes up.
You are part of a community at Mariners that has resources for both of those. And so Jared's going to give a little bit of insight. So what if somebody says, hey, I'm addicted to pornography in your group, or I'm addicted. I haven't shared this with anybody.
Hey, Phil, since COVID, I did drink two cocktails over dinner a week. And now I'm drinking every night to go to sleep. What do you do if someone confesses that in your group time? That's the addition.
Yeah. I mean, I think what we have seen is the first and foremost is when a person does share something like that, that we are receiving it with grace and understanding there's not a hint of judgment or condemnation, but a very empathetic, sympathetic, compassionate perspective to say, thank you for sharing that. Totally. We want to help.
We are with you in the room. That's the best. And then afterwards, where do we point people, you know, that's awesome. Remedy is our best solution, which I think is huge.
So listen, to be a group leader and know you have Remedy, I think it's really encouraging. Yeah. So just a quick overview on what Remedy is. It's every Monday night at Mariners Irvine, we have professionals and volunteers who are here to help put a name to anything a person is struggling with going through.
So we can take you through a process of going from a large group gathering into a support group to help you through anything that is happening. I do believe that Remedy has increasingly become a topic of conversation on the Mariners Irvine patio. I talk to people all weekend. Where I'm listening to somebody going, OK, should I recommend rooted or should I recommend Remedy?
Yeah, it's good. It's just a common conversation. And one thing we're trying to do in group leaders, I want your help in this, is we are trying to demystify what Remedy is, which is our recovery groups. And here's, because sometimes people are embarrassed.
So some of you are in your group struggles with an addiction. They would really be helped if they came to Remedy on Monday night. But perhaps they feel like there's a stigma attached to it. So what I've said to people is, hey, all of us, as believers, and are recovering from something.
All of us, we all have sin patterns. We all struggle. Some of us just get applauded for our addictions. So the workaholic gets applauded for being a workaholic in the Western culture.
I'll tell a story in that sermon about the Roman gladiator games, and people got addicted to those games, going to those games. But that was applauded in that culture. So there's some addictions that we pat people in the back for. And then there's some.
So there's some addictions that are celebrated. And there's some that people are afraid to share. And we cover those up, whether that's some type of substance abuse addiction or sexual addiction. But the problem is, if it's covered and it's not brought into the light, it grows.
And it light will disinfect it. It will bring it into light is what will bring healing to people. So we want to help these people get into recovery, into remedy, on Monday nights. But if they hear us talk about remedy, like, oh, it's for the people with their really bad stuff.
It's for them. It's for those people over there. We're actually going to cause people to keep their addictions in the dark longer. So I'm just sharing this because I'm imagining there's some conversation in your group.
And you'll want to say something like, hey, listen, if anyone struggles with any addiction in here, Monday nights, our church has this incredible thing called remedy that you may want to go through for a short period of time. So that's week three. And then week four is anxiety. We did a whole teaching series last year called my anxious thoughts.
That was super helpful for people. And we had workshops that hundreds of people went to after it. We'll have some of those kinds of resources as well. So that's week four.
Tell us about that. Yeah, we will have resources as well for that. We did workshops that led into different types of peer groups. That just allows us to process through those things.
And so while I don't have the exact information, I know that that's coming up. We do have them. We'll have those readily available for life to leaders. I'd say pay attention to your weekly emails.
We'll put links in there for each of those things so that you have on hand the correct information for all of those things. Great. And then week five is I'm overwhelmed with God is alive. And week six I'm bored, but God is thrilling.
So I think they're all going to meet people right where they are all six of those weeks. Life, your leader, I would be a bit more prepared, prayerfully. And no one would appoint people for week three and four, addicted and anxious. Yeah.
Well, Eric, we're so grateful. This is a series that I know we need. Yes, we do. Just as we have all spoken with so many people, we're walking life.
Or we are just living our own life. And we listened to these and go, I can't wait to hear what God's word says. Yeah, amen. I also believe that this is an incredible series to invite people to.
We know that there are people in every friend group, in every workplace, every neighborhood that are waiting to be asked to be invited to church. And so true. I mean, if the data is right, that half of America has feelings of loneliness right now, think about how many people on your street, in your workplace, in your friend group. Feel that problem right now.
Yeah. And so we have a very good thing we do. We just do. We have the antidote, right?
We have a beautiful picture of grace and love and acceptance of who they are. And so I'd encourage you to invite. I'd encourage you to encourage your life group to invite. This is a great series that I believe will open people up, soften their hearts to the gospel.
And people will meet Jesus because of this. So Eric, thank you so much. Would you, as you have been doing in the last time, would you close your time for our groups? Yeah, I'd love to.
Thank you for these group leaders. And I pray you give them wisdom for this important teaching series and the conversations they're going to have with their groups. I do pray that at the end of this, that each group would be closer. They would feel more connected because of vulnerability and openness.
And then those who are open and vulnerable, I pray that you would use your people, as you always do, to shepherd one another, to encourage one another. And do a gracious work where we ask. You know what I'm doing, right? Amen.
Thanks so much, Eric.