Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practice the spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Well, welcome to week seven of Habits for a Freeful Life, our summer series, looking through the book of Colossians. Glad to have you all joining us today and glad to have my good friend, the one and only Kirby with us.
What's up, Kirby? Hello, everybody. So glad to join. I'm Kirby.
I'm our guest experience pastor here at Irvine, but I also love groups so much and can't wait to be a part. I was going to say guest experience, but so much more. Oh, I'm sure so kind. Maybe no Kirby from all the roles that she's done here, but she, for, for, for her.
For a long time has lead the charge of all things groups that we did for us and she's so, so passionate about these things. Yes. I've heard. You know Kirby's been a while.
Absolutely. I love groups. I'm a part of an awesome life group. Shout out to Lauren if you're listening to my life group leader.
Love you. But yeah, I love being a part of the group team and love helping people have great life group conversations. I love your life group too, because I remember your life group happened to be house sitting for us, but else we were away. It's true.
And I got a text from you, wasn't it? Yes. My life group was also in our car house. Just take it out.
Yes. Great. Yeah. You were just in London, right?
Yeah. I love that. I love that. But so sweet.
Yes. Kelsey, she's staying over and was like house sitting and dog sitting for you. And I love that we got the opportunity. I mean, your house or dog are so cute.
How many of the animals did you experience? Honestly, just the dog. You've been over the before. Yes.
But I heard about a snake. I'm terrified. There's a snake. So we're full on.
You're talking about a guy who's like, no, I don't want any pets. I didn't grow up with pets. We can't have pets. Right.
And so what do we have now? Two dogs. A cat. A bunch of little fish.
And then all this is like, I want a snake. Oh wow. Right. Here we are.
It's great. And she takes care of it. It's a fun point. It feels like a really fun family experience.
It was fun. It was fun. Yeah. It was fun.
Totally. Well, I will say, you know, a life group, we love the fun and action. It was something to get it out and a great way to break the ice. We actually added three new members to our group over the last couple of weeks.
They're from Life Group Finders. I just wanted to add new people. But yeah, we added a couple of new people. So we're starting a new season of our group and it was fun to have such a cool place to hang and have some doggies, you know.
That's great. Bargain around. It was great. It was a good time.
We jump in. We just tell us a little bit about what is the topic of this week. Remember, we're going first by verse. We're getting our QU straight from the scripture.
But why don't we talk about this week and then why you want this episode? I think it's important for the content. Totally. Yeah.
Colossians has been such an incredible like serious press walking through. I feel like it's so much of, even the experienced team has been engaging with it a lot. But specifically, this scripture has so much to do with service and commitment and understanding of family and how we interact with the greater family that is church and whatever we do, right? That's kind of like the, I think so much of the theme of this is whatever you do, whoever you are, like undilored for him by him and do it with that humble, humble heart.
I'm excited for all of us to kind of engage with this message. I know Jeritata Irvine and other teaching pastors at the places of how to really engage whatever you do and also wherever God has placed you, how do you step into the family of God and be of service to others? So I do get to leave one of the largest, I probably say the largest ministry teams, volunteer teams here at Mariners. And so I love helping people find their place to serve.
And I think that experience is one of the easiest first steps for anybody. Totally. And you've got such a great culture of family around the team and caring for each other. And it's one of the things that people who maybe come into me for the first time, it's a big church.
It's an incredible large, large church. What you hear the predominant metaphor throughout the New Testament of the church is a family. Yes. And sometimes we think, how can that be possible?
Those two things are at odds. How can you have this large place and still be family? Right. That's true.
Yeah, we say that the culture that's built, and actually it's one of those things when it comes to the serving, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. No, we are. One of the ways that the church does feel like family is by serving. So true.
Of course, it's going to feel large and you're going to feel disconnected if you're not actively engaged. We love people here in lots of different stages and lots of different, but one of the ways you move from it being just a large church that you casually attend, to being family is definitely through serving. Absolutely. I so agree.
I'm just going to talk about this and I shared a little bit on this on the, if I had more time podcasts, but my personal story was about my understanding of church and even God was through serving. And that was my whole life. And so now being a part of the church in this way, like I love the opportunity to be able to invite people into that. So, and what is the first thing you love when you see someone who greets you?
It says hello. And then if it's somebody you've seen before, like, and you see the way they interact with each other, it's special. Yeah. It's a simple long, you can say, since a family speaking to family, lean in question.
What's your favorite sitcom family? That's a good way. Or you can live on a sitcom family. Oh, sit, come family.
Oh my gosh. I'm actually like rewatching friends right now, which they're not a family, but they're all friends who really act and feel like a family. And I like the dynamic of all these different personalities. And I'll say, yeah, they're not the perfect archetype of like, you know, like the breed of Adam's family or something like that.
But that's been a lot of my experience of family, especially within the church is like, you have a group of people that are so close. Yeah. And they're so great friends that they feel like your family. That's awesome.
Yeah. I don't really have one. I don't know. The Simpsons city kind of.
Oh my gosh. Family matters. Talk about it. I think I would have got along.
Yeah, you can have a little circle. I don't know about it. I like it. I want to stop.
We want to camp around that. But you're going to see throughout the entirety of the passage that the way that Paul is talking about the different roles and responsibilities. So counter cultural. Yes.
I mean, the fact that he even says wife's first, and he says slaves first is so counter cultural to even listen in that order. He's very intentional about how he's subverting the cultural norms. And then you've got to read the passage of the entire entire to get the meaning of what's happening here. So why submit yourself to your husband's as fitting into the Lord and husband's love your wives and do not be bitter towards them.
Children obey your parents and everything. Again, like listing the week, the culturally, the weaker part of first children obey your parents and everything for this place is the Lord. Fathers do not exacerbate your children so that they won't become discouraged. Slaves obey your human masters and everything.
Don't work only while being watched as people pleasers, but work wholeheartedly fearing the Lord. And whatever you do, do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you'll receive the reward and inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ for the wrong girl will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done and there is no favoritism. All right.
So how would you interact with that passage? How would you help the leaders think about? Well, I mean, starting off with the kind of the so much we've talked about in our wives, husbands, children, fathers, et cetera. I think so often what I love about this is it's not saying, you know, husbands tell your wives or wives tell your husbands, but I think continuing to help people identify where are you in this passage, right?
Not where is your spouse or where is your dad or where is your boss, like, but really try to engage and keep your group focused on the personal and the individual, like challenge that they might feel for themselves. I think so easily it can be a point of finger or try to, it could derail in that way and a life group leader, a really good one knows how to keep the conversation centered on looking within yourself and seeing what the text is saying to you, not to your brother or whoever. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's good. It gets to pick up on the person of quote, unquote in power in a relationship is being called to a really subversive thing.
Don't use your power to exacerbate husbands. Don't be bitter towards them. Fathers don't exacerbate your children. There's a sense of which like don't use your position to exert your power over somebody else.
Yes. But use your position in a radical way to demonstrate humility and service because obviously that's my Christ did for us. Absolutely. And it uses power to rule it over us.
And that's the same way that we're called to do that. Absolutely. So it's a really rearranging of power dynamics and what it means to use our positions, not to grasp them all on, but to serve others. Absolutely.
It's so beautiful. And I think that's like the greatest challenge of all of us. Like, okay, what are the powers or things in our own life that we might have, you know, that we like might be tempted to use in it for our own gain, but how can we might use them to serve others? Yeah.
I think too, what I also love about this scripture, the whatever you do, I think it's so beautifully embodies like one of our fun values here on staff is like think big, small, but it's like no matter what you do, like even the small things we do, like it's a part of the greater picture of what God is doing and how he can write this love story for people or pursue people. And you get to be a part of that, even if you're reading on the corner or you're a parking person or you're holding a baby, you don't have to be up on the stage in a power roll to back to your point. Like we're using the power that we have with the gifts that we've been given in these beautiful small ways to actually reflect God's intention. Yeah.
So good. I love that you're pulling that out and why and how do we do that? Because we know that we'll receive a reward for the Lord and why because we serve the Lord Christ. That's what it's all about.
We're serving Him in every single way and every single opportunity. It's about service of Him. Yeah. So that's great.
I love that you're talking about that. That's a challenge there. I think in this culture, like, so it wasn't necessary, like a specific ethnic or race or ethnicity. But what I think is so even countercultural here is that that's one of the last things that He talks about and it's reminding us that, you know, all of us have a boss, all of us have a thing that Lord's own present in different ways.
But it is like it doesn't like whatever you do, you're not doing it for that person. If you're in a position of weakness, and I think even in this text, in Colossians, like specifically the audience is women, children, slaves, like, He's talking to people that aren't in positions of power and He's saying you're truly serving the Lord, you're serving when you work and that's like one of the most empowering things of someone that could be in a place of oppression or things. And I don't know, that just gives me so much hope and excitement when I read this passage, not something that someone who might have a different cultural lens might want to look and be like, I don't think I like parts of this. I'm like, well, this is an empowering scripture.
How can, where is this empowering for you? I think is a question I think of when I think of my group. It's good. Awesome.
Love it. So good. So good. Let's move to the lookout section.
A couple of questions here. How are the family relationships described here different from the family relationships in culture? How is this approach to work differently from what you observe from others on a daily basis? What's on down here?
No, these questions I think are really trying to point out what we've been talking about, mostly the counter cultural aspect, the upside down kingdom. It's not your typical. I think that's where we get to challenge ourselves and like, how are we seeing things differently? And so that's the, both of these are talking about the differences in things.
And I like even that it calls out work, because I think so often, I don't know, you and I have the beauty of working in ministry and I say beauty because so many of my friends are like, oh, it's so cool that you are always working for the Lord. I'm like, yes, but it's a job like anything else. It can feel mundane at times and it can feel like whatever, whatever job you do. It's something you can do onto the Lord, whether you're a software engineer or a teacher or, you know, and your boss feels like the kids in your classroom or whatever it might be, you know, or your nurse, like whatever your job is, you're doing it onto the Lord.
It doesn't have to be ministry in these locations. It's all ministry is. It's every single part of it is ministry. The title, the place, regardless is every opportunity that we show up as Jesus followers is an opportunity for us to serve the Lord and the survivors, whatever field that you're in, whatever field that you're doing, it's all due to the Lord.
Yeah, I think too, the second question, like what you observe in a daily basis, I think too, people could bring up like, well, my boss is a real jerk, you know, and like, there might be some observations or maybe if you have lead a women's group and women feel differently inside their marriages or maybe a challenge with children, a young adult's group and they're in this, this harder figure. I can see that their observation, wow, this is, this is really different than what I've experienced, you know, and I think that that's a good thing to pull out in this discussion as well as being like, but do you see what the truth says here, right? Like, do you see what God is commanding people to do is, is to use their power for good. That's right.
Because you can point to so many different circumstances of abuse and where this is not handled well in and outside of the church, but yeah, there's a higher way that we're called to for sure. Really good. Also, in our look in sections, let's focus on maybe this third question here. It says, how would your approach to work be different if you chose to look at it as doing work for the Lord?
A couple of other questions there. But, you know, that might be one that you want to nail into as a life-related leader of how are you challenged by that, to think about in your job, in your everyday life, in your everyday role, how are you viewing that as an offering into the Lord? Where do you see that? How are you challenged by that?
And as I said, like people might have a temptation to think, well, it's easy to do that if you're a vocational ministry. Well, actually, as far as I know, everybody here at Mariners is a Jesus follower. Absolutely. And there's a part of it that misses working in marketplace and having that experience where it's like, no, actually, I got to be even more actively thinking about my witness and and how I demonstrate the fruits of the spirit in my everyday world role.
You know, my out there like on the lunch tables like preaching the gospel, maybe not, but it's in how we live and how we respond in ways that are different than how we're going to do it, which is really important. Yeah, when I got out of college, I didn't go straight into ministry. I was an engineer, very different field. I can see that.
Oh my gosh, you're too kind. But no, really, it was a challenge. It was a challenge. It really was.
There was a lot of very focused work time and I definitely enjoy being with people. But one of the things when I started that job, I said I had gone through kind of like a study around something like this about serving into the Lord and what that looks like in the workplace. And I kind of decided, okay, what's what or what's something I can do? And I was like, okay, I'm going to try really hard at this new job and this new career to not gossip and to not complain and see if I can still make friends or you know, like and see what and see if that would make a difference.
And it was hard at first because that's one of the first things that people do in jobs is they're like, oh, like I'm going to complain all the days long and I'm tired. I want to go home or you know, or I don't like what she's wearing or whatever. Like I think that's an easy win for people. But that was one of the ways I felt like, you know, I could like what you mentioned, I could really like have a strong witness and that maybe someone could see something different in the way I was serving, working, thinking in this different context.
But just little things like that, I think can help the group start to unpack. Like it's not just like telling everybody at your meeting that you're a Christ follower, you know, it's not like coming to church with me. Though that's a great thing too. Like if that's a relationship that people are fostering and they want to invite people into church, but there's a lot of things that people can do to be working on to the Lord, you know.
Right. And your everyday vocation and then certainly here using the gifts that God has given you to serve the body. That's going to be a part or if you're listening afterwards, that was a part of the call to action. Yes.
And then you jump in and serve. Many of those teams curvy you helped to leave. We've got opportunities for people to also jump in to leave the groups. And not just have the conversation this week through the sermon questions, but call back to that.
Hey, what did you guys do? Are we serving together as a life group? Could we do that? Could we own?
Like what if we all did parking together? Would that be awesome? Would we all do that? We have groups that will do that and do that all together or individually.
So we've got spots for you to lead, life group leaders. We love that you're leading. We've got as you lead to life groups. Many of you also lead and serve in other capacities too.
And we love that. But you know how you show up with enthusiasm to invite the whole of your group is that really matters. We've got spots for you for the church to come. Absolutely.
We want you. Awesome. Great.