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. Hello and welcome to Life Group Leader Podcast. My name is Kirby, and I'm the group's pastor here at Mariners Church, and we are so glad to have another great discussion prepping you for this new series that we're jumping into for the good.
And I have with me our women's pastor Esther Chung. Hey, guys. Good to be with you. So glad that you're here, Esther, to help us, women's life groups, and life groups, all of our life groups prepare for this new series.
It's only a two-week series. So you'll have a quick little chunk to kind of work through together, but we still have some really great content to talk through, as well as to inspire and encourage really rich conversation for you and your groups. Right now, we actually have Jared and Eric Geiger, our senior pastor, to talk through the heart behind the series and what they hope for you and your life group to experience as you learn from God's word. So let's tune in to their conversation, and we'll come back to the end to talk through the individual questions.
Eric, welcome back to the Life Group Leader Podcast. Super excited about this upcoming series for the good couple of weeks on outreach ministries. Thanks for joining us. Excellent.
Love our Life Group Leader. Good. Why don't you give us a quick overview on a two-week series. We rarely have a two-week series.
It's a two-week group. I think people are saying, man, quick, quick, quick, give it a such long series. There's 10 weeks in relations, 10 weeks in the whole group. How about a two-week group?
Let's see if you can knock out everything we need to know in two weeks. So we actually look at a famous passage in the storm on the Mount from Jesus where he talks about, hey, you as believers, you're this community who blesses those around you. You're a city on the hill. You're the light of the world, the salt of the earth.
So we're going to press into that passage over a two-week period of time. It's really beautiful because we're going to remind that as a community of Christians, we don't exist for ourselves. We ultimately, we're rescued by him, but then we exist for those outside of us. We are to be a city on the hill, the light of the world, the salt of the earth.
We are to preserve what's good in the culture. We are also to pull out the beauty. That's what salt does. We are to be the light of the world as Jesus is the light of the world.
We're tiny lights. We represent him in the culture. So what's it mean for a church to be that kind of people? What's it mean for a community to be that kind of people?
So what's it mean for a life group to be the most honest people? Yeah. So I'm going to share, at the top of my sermon, the very first week I'll share some new vision, slash direction of things we're going to be doing locally in Southern California. Cool.
Now I'll just share with the life group leaders that you get that early preview right now. Everything we're currently doing with outreach in terms of serving our cities and communities will continue. But we're really going to add three areas of focus for this next season. Number one, the prisoner.
Two, the unborn and the family of the unborn. And three special needs, families, children, and girls. So just real quickly, prisoner, unborn, special needs, prisoner. In the pandemic, we started Mariners, so sit here.
We've got worship services, all three really cool places to sunburst, youth military academy, Orange County Rescue Mission, senior living facilities, and also prisons. And our partner in prisons has been and is prison fellowship, which is an incredible ministry. And we're going to ramp up our partnership with them, basically asking how do we serve the families of prisoners? 90%.
No, no, no, I'm sorry, 75% of all prisoners who are released from prison are reincarnated within three years. Is that right? Yeah. And that there's a passage in the book of Hebrews that we, Chapter 13, that we remember the prisoner.
And so we want to do all we can alongside our partners to break that cycle of reincarceration, also to care for the families of those who are in prison. Yeah, that's amazing. They are image bearers of God. They carry the image of God in them.
We know that God's mercy and grace is bigger than our faults, our sins. And so when people are released after a certain age of sentence, we want to be a part of helping them make. One of the things I love so much about that is when someone gives their life to Jesus at our church, they are, they are free in Christ, but they need guidance and support and help in order to understand the decision that they made and what it means to live as a follower of Jesus. We come alongside new believers in intentional ways.
So when someone gets out of prison and they get to experience new freedom, we get to come alongside them as well. We have to do something so similar in that. And think about all the problems that happen to family when, when dads are prison. And so this Christmas, we're going to have an angel tree, which is where we provide gifts for families of prisoners.
We're going to actually host that mirror, Santa Ana, alongside prison fellowship. So that's one of the things I'll share. Second is the unborn. And I know some are probably here in this as a political statement.
It's not. I mean, anytime we talk about image of God issues for us, it's not political, it's biblical. Clearly in the scripture, we see that God places his image on people while they're in their mother's womb. So the unborn, those who are not yet born, but being carried by a mother, the God is placed on them.
So we want to come alongside pregnant moms, families who are wrestling with the decision to they carry the full term or do they make a choice to the board? And obviously we believe abortions and assault on the image of God. So we want to, but we don't want to just speak that. We want to serve people in the middle of the pain that they're in.
So if you look at those who care about justice for the unborn, they typically speak in three different segments. They'll talk about prevention, intervention and wraparound. So Mariners has always done a great job on prevention. The reason I say that is 70% of abortions take place in under resource communities where people feel like they're trapped.
They have no other solution in their mind, but in abortion. And so 70% of abortions happen in those under resource communities. So all we do to serve the poor in our cities, which we do a lot with lighthouse community centers with providing meals and clothes to people who are under resource. That's part of prevention because we care for those who are impoverished.
Mariners also does a lot on the wraparound, which is the third phase. And that is when a family or a young woman or an older one makes the choice to have the child and it would be a difficult in their mind choice because of all the challenges. There's an organization that actually came out of Mariners called Fristers. And we have such a great relationship with Fristers and still in fact, they're going to they're open to a new chapter at Mariners, Santa Ana.
Oh killer. Which is awesome. So we have done wraparound really well. We have done prevention really well.
Intervention though is an area that we're stepping into. And that is the moment that someone is confronted with the choice, do they carry the child or not? And so we are a part of a task force and we're going to buy people an art church to be a part of this on how do we serve women really well with kindness and grace in that critical moment in their journey. So number one prisoner to unborn and three, the special needs community.
Yeah. The special needs community. There's a passage in the gospel of Luke where Jesus says, Hey, when you throw a party, don't invite those who can do something for you in return. That's right.
I invite the lame sick. The one who could never repay. One, you can't pay back at all. So we think about our special needs community when we think about that passage.
And we have special needs ministry, but we really want to see it in Tissa thought. Yeah. And that means respite days for families who have children with special needs. It means providing really great places in our kids, ministry, or youth ministry for children, special needs.
We have an adult special needs worship service. We want to see that increase as well. So those three I'll share. I'll like kick off the series saying, Hey, here's something to focus on.
And you may wonder why. And then I'm going to get to a passage. Cool. Yeah.
That's fantastic. So just as we close this episode, what is your heart for a group serving? Yeah, because we're about to launch a campaign that runs for six or seven weeks with tons of serve opportunities. Just give us a second on why you think it's important.
A life group serves together. Yeah. I would love my hope and prayers that our life groups would lead the way in this. And life group leader, you've probably heard people talk about that they go on a mission trip and it's a week long and they come back and they feel like they're tighter in a week than it would take three years in terms of the relationship develop.
Well, you can go on a mission trip here. And in Southern California, and it's not a week long mission trip. Sure. But if you do a couple of projects together over a year period, it would essentially almost be like a week.
So go on a mission trip without having to take off a work and get sleeping on bed. So there'll be a lot of opportunities that you'll see on these two weekends and the fourth of a good series that you can sign up as a life group and serve together. It'd be awesome. You spend a couple hours together.
And then the next time you gather, you're able to talk about what you learned. Yeah. So I just I encourage you don't get paralyzed by the choices. You're like, how many of which one do I do?
Yeah. Do I need to pull the group and send an email out half of a man served? I guess we can't do it this time. We'll wait till next time.
Yeah. If you keep doing that as a leader, you just never pull trigger. Yeah. So you as a leader, my suggestion is look at the list of opportunities, pull the trigger, choose one, go to your group, say, Hey, guys, we're doing this.
I hope everybody can make it and then those who make it make it. But that's what I think you do. Otherwise you might take six months trying to choose one. Yes.
And just the conversation gets exhausting. I'm just saying. I'm saying I've seen it a lot a lot. Not because yeah, in my group, but it's been a pastor for a long time where people just get paralyzed.
Just choose one and go. Right. Easy to sign up as a group now through the rock. Click a button.
Your whole group is signed up. Do it. You're ready to go. Go button and go.
All right, Eric, thank you so much for joining us on this. We'll see you next time. Awesome. That's so great to hear from Eric and Jared as they talked through some of the great things about what their hopes are for the fourth again.
And I love how they just at the end that it's all about finding a great time for you and your life group to serve. So hopefully this conversation will inspire you guys, not just in action and in motivation, but actually truly in the action to sign up for a serve. Esther, tell us have you served with your life group before? Yeah, we have.
And we, I remember the first time we did as a rooted group. Yeah, and our serve experience. That was pretty awesome. Awesome.
And yeah, we have other opportunities. Like I know recently we got packages for college students together as a service. So I feel like you're all in. It was kind of easy because there was an estimated person who kind of did all the work and we just pitched in.
I love that. I like that the variety of sometimes we get to actually go there or sometimes we get to give. And so it's been, it's been cool doing that. That's so sweet.
And that's so perfectly timely for this series. It's all about going and giving. So I love that you mentioned that. But let's go ahead and just jump through these questions.
So you, if group leaders can feel equipped for this week's discussion. So we had Eric preaching this weekend, which was so incredible. I love hearing his heart for our community and our city. And as we look to this first question, we learn, we hopefully will get to learn a lot about what God hopes for us as we care for our cities.
So the first question here, what are some of the things you like about living in or near a city, which I think is such a great question. Don't you think? Yeah, it's great. And I think generally I would assume that like groups kind of meet in the same area or live in the same area.
So maybe you've been talking about the distinctive of your particular city. That could be really fun to talk about too. So true. So true.
And even for those of you who are like spread out, you kind of know those centralize areas that you can care intentionally. And you know, there sometimes are different connotations to different areas or different things. But also seeing the full heart and beauty of different cities. I love the leader note here that even talks about what are some of the difficulties of living in a city to kind of help frame the conversation if it's kind of hard to think through.
I know our area, I feel like Orange County is so unique. Don't you think it's I'm from Atlanta originally, which is like very much like I say I'm from Atlanta, even though I'm not I'm actually from like the Metro Atlanta area, but everybody says you're from Atlanta. But in Orange County, there really isn't like one centralized city other than possibly LA, but that feels so far away. And but it's all of these like small little conglomerates of cities across.
And so really caring for our city in that city. It's actually that I think challenging for some of our people. Yeah. And I think one thing that could be awesome to bring up is like I love that our congregations are different cities that are distinct foods, distinct demographics, and like some are more family or it did some more retirement oriented.
And so I think each city is so unique. And so it's kind of cool to see what which one you know, what. But I do think regardless of us not having those we have all these different little cities, we still do have a lot of benefit of that big city feel because we are not sparsely populated. I mean, Orange County is so incredibly dense with people and culture and experiences and things to do that I think we really do get on the full experience of what it looks like to be a city life.
Yeah. So as we look down at God's word and we hopefully read together Matthew 514, we'll able to really see this metaphor come to light. And so the first question here that we see Esther is to say the disciples of Jesus are light implies that the world is in darkness. In what sense is the world in darkness and would people who don't follow Jesus accept this premise?
Why or why not? Where do you think this conversation is going to hopefully go as people talk about light dark people who are believers, people who aren't? Yeah. I think I think in a sense of like, I mean, people might disagree on if they think that humanity is dark.
Sure. We are sinful, but in regards to the consequences of darkness of whether it's a natural disaster or, you know, you could just watch the news once and see that there's a lot of things that are happening. And so I think that that could be an opportunity where we don't stray away from the main topic, which is God's word and the city, but you can quickly see how the world isn't perfect. Right.
You know, isn't full of light. And so I think that could be an easy start to this conversation. I totally agree. And I think, you know, as we as believers, and you can kind of clarify this for your people and your group, we as believers believe that people are sinful by nature, like that we are born into sin, that there's nothing that we, there's nothing that we can do that, you know, makes us godly apart from God himself dying on the cross-dress.
And so I think that, yeah, it's actually a very challenging question as we think about a non-believer might struggle with that as they see innocence of a child. But also, I think you're very right to say Esther, it's really hard to deny kind of the challenges that are faced in our world and how that might feel like darkness. So hopefully that conversation and this question kind of inspires that thought, but don't feel the pressure as a life group leader to tie this conversation to a bow, to say you believe this or you believe that. You're really hoping to provoke deeper thought about darkness and why, why we must be light is before we get to why we want to be light, we have to say, well, the world is dark and that would require us to step in, require us to act and be Christ followers and be light in the world.
So, I love even the leader note here, Genesis 6, 19, Psalm 14 and Psalm 59, these are some great things that you can point out truth about what scripture says about the world, darkness in our world as believers and God's role as our light. So might want to point to those as you have a deeper discussion or things come up. But the second question as we think about this metaphor from Matthew 5, 14 is why is city on a hill an effective illustration for understanding the nature and role of the church and the world and what conclusions can we draw about the nature and impact of Christians and the local church from the metaphor. I love this question because it really helps us dig into the metaphor.
What were you saying here, Esther? Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity because it's a look at God's word that when the scriptures were written, there was no electricity. So, where do we get our source of light? And especially at night when there is no sun and all you can rely on is the moon and that wasn't sufficient light for people to operate in different activities and you'll see in your leader notes that there's a mention of how most of the cities were made of limestone and how they would be up top of the hill and they would provide natural reflective light and I think it's a great opportunity for us to see scripture for when it was written in the second century Jewish times.
So I think that's such a great example. For us, we could be at home and it could be lit. But during that time they would have to depend on it. So they would have to look to it.
So it's even a reminder for people to know that people look to believers to be that example, to be that light, to shed light, to be in a reflective light, not the light itself. Absolutely. I love that you're even in a limiting the context and that's what that leader know. I think really hopefully emphasizes is the context of the scripture because we talked in the lean-in discussion.
We know that there's difficulties and we might not fully understand why would Jesus use the city as a metaphor. Like city to us is bustling and busy and crazy and traffic. But like a city at this time was a light. It was something that was drawing us close, was a point of refuge of safety and that's what we can look to in the description.
So hopefully this discussion is able to kind of reveal that, that we think of the city like this and that might be good for us. But when this scripture was written, the city was a metaphor of hope. It's good. A hope for our people.
And so we can too understand that as we look to this word. So of course, I'm just throwing a very simple verse here of Revelation. No, we love Revelation. But sometimes these things are hard to parse through.
It's still really helpful and we never want to shy away from God's word. So read together Revelation 21, 9 through 11 and 22 through 27. And the question for the scripture is how does the depiction of this city make you feel about the coming of Jesus and New Haven and New Earth? How does the subscription of the heavenly city inform our desire as a church to be a city on the hill that could not be hidden?
Well, these questions are hitting it real hard for us, aren't they? Which I appreciate and I hope that they are really clearly directing us towards the intention of the scripture. Would you agree? Yeah.
I love that. And any other things that you notice here about this question and maybe I think it's really, I think the question is kind of just pointing and the leader note really reveals a lot of what we hope for in this conversation. Yeah, I would really encourage all the leaders to really lean into the leader notes. These are great.
Giving context to the passage. And so what a beautiful, yeah, what a beautiful hope. Yes, absolutely. And I hope that as you read Revelation, this will really confirm what we've been talking about.
And so if you've been getting through the conversation, what we don't like about a city, what God's hope is as he uses this analogy of the city, revelation really confirms what we want to be and what we hope to see God do through our cities. And now as we look to look in, we want to apply God's word to our lives. And so I love that we even put right in another verse here for us until Matthew 5, 16, in the same way, let your light shine for others. So they miss your good works and give glory to me.
Oh, wait. Sorry now. Good glory to your father. Jesus equates your light with your good works.
And your experience, are there any good works that have had a positive impact in the dark world? As we're trying to see in the group discussion as we ask this question. I think we can, well, one show and share some of the things as leaders, what mariners is doing to already impact our community. So true.
I think we don't have to think of something original, but we can come alongside the momentum of what the church is already doing. Sometimes they're spiritual, like joining prayer teams or the Wednesday chapel services to, it could even be, yeah, service experiences to Christmas trees for single moms and, and December. There's just a lot that God is doing here at Mariner. So true.
And there's a lot of people doing the heavy lifting. So it could be spiritual to practical. And so I think that that's one place that we can kind of shed some light. Absolutely.
In a firm, the different places that we've seen are like, you said our own church, being able to step in or our own people in our group, being able to step in to different service opportunities. I love that. And I'd love to clarify for you, like group leaders, that our hope is that every individual feels like they have a ministry home and team, you as a life group leader, this is your ministry home on the life group team. But we do hope that everyone has a serve team within our church, but this message and this call that we're really wrestling with on God's call for us to be light in the world is how not we're serving at church, which is a great thing.
Big thumbs up if you saw my, this is my nonverbal cue here, but serving at church is incredible. But this call is what we're talking about is how we can serve our community and be a light to those around us in the world. So it kind of pushing into this next question. How's the discussion about like any areas that now you want to serve or see an opportunity to serve for the first time in a new way?
So as we think and consider, okay, how can I spread light in my workplace or how can I step in a community that I've never stepped into before? I mean, there's a homeless, you know, a homeless guy that lives in the corner that I've never talked to or maybe there's just a neighbor that you haven't addressed. But more importantly, as we go all the way down into look out as we really start to apply God's Word, but then identify where it's relevant. We actually will have specific serve opportunities for you and your group as a group to serve together to impact the cities and communities around us.
So in that second last question, are for the good efforts, this season provide a number of of opportunities to serve in which of these do you plan to participate in? So as you can see, the conversation helps people identify in themselves. You know, where am I going to be calling them to seven and then here are the actionable steps. So you or your serve champion can log into your minor in this account and select one of the 15 different serve opportunities that are available to you if you're at Irvine.
And then we have, I think, three to five based on your different congregation, if you're a life group leader or one of our other congregations. But we've lost opportunities and you life group leaders have a first chance to sign up for these serves before the rest of our church. So we highly encourage you to log in and sign up for those serves. And you know, what do you think is different Esther, but there's between serving on your own or serving with your group?
What do you think that we hope for our life groups? Yeah, I think there's something beautiful about remembering that we're the body of Christ. And so the hands and the feet and the eyes, they only need each other and we all need each other and we have different giftings that we bring to our group. Personalities, giftings, talents.
And so I think that when we serve as a group, we're able to contribute together as a group with the different sets of gifts that we have. It's beautiful. I totally agree. And that's what I hope for you guys.
You will see more of the body of Christ as you guys serve together in our communities. So hopefully you guys sign up to serve and we would love to support you in any ways that we can. So reach out to us on your life groups teams as you need be. And we will see you over the weekend and at your serve opportunities.
God bless.