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, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. All right everybody, welcome to the Life Group Leader podcast. This is gonna be a fun one because we've got a new, not guest, but we've got a new member of our team who will be a reoccurring guest.
I haven't told him that he's gonna be doing this weekend and we got, I just wanna see his life reaction across the table, that's not true. But ladies and gentlemen, we are so excited to introduce our newest pastor to our discipleship team. Some of you may have seen him hanging around on the patio ready here at Mariners Irvine. This is Scott Kim.
What's happened, Scott? How much I'm thrilled to be here with you, John, and to join the team here at Mariners. I'm looking forward to just doing ministry with you. That's it, man.
We're so excited to have you on the team and particularly leaders here at Irvine, you're gonna get to know Scott and Iraq for Scott a little bit more in a week to week basis. But just give us a little bit of the background story, who you are, all those good things. And what brought you to Mariners, let's go for it. So I've been a ministry for about 27 years.
I grew up here in a community called Cerritos with UCLA and then was a worship leader for many years. So you're serving in kind of a local church around there. My wife, we moved to the San Fernando Valley area. We've been there for 21 years, serving in different churches as a small group pastor, adult ministry's pastor.
And then just this past year, we've been really praying about what our next season looks like with our family being here in the Orange County area. And we prayed, we discussed, and my wife and I, as my son is going off to college, we're gonna be empty in the stairs. Can you believe that? Yeah, we have one son and he's going off to New York and we really felt that God's calling us to the Ose area.
And Mariners Church was really number one on our list and God really opened the door for us to come and join the team. So it's truly grateful. That's awesome, man. We're so excited to have you part of the team and you're gonna have your hands in lots of different different areas and really helping us think through how to be cared for, particularly like a really well, what are the things that we put in place to care for them, particularly well, helping with some of our midweek things, with deep dive or new believers.
There's so many things that we're gonna have your hand in. And so man, we're just so glad to have you have you part of the team. Former worship leader, you said? Yes.
And I'm with the opinion that former worship leaders make some of the best pastors. Because I was one of those two. We had this conversation on the bus the other day. All time favorite worship song.
What was yours? Oh, well, my favorite album. I said it was an album by Hillsong called Blast. That's right.
And also Mad Redmond's French French and the Fear. Yeah, that goes back. That goes back to 1997. I'm dating myself.
Yeah, that's it. But Scott never put together that we had been in some of the same rooms being in Southern California for so long at different ministry and different worship leading events and all that fun stuff. So that's awesome. And I was well excited to jump into this week's conversation.
This is a week two on our series, How to Great Like Jesus. And we want to just so encouraging already. I mean, just the engagement, the enthusiasm for studying God's Word together. And this is gonna be great.
All of our series are great. But learning the discipline of prayer is foundational right in life of a Jesus follower. So I love our student time to do that. So we're gonna get into our passage in a moment.
But it's kind of similar to what's your favorite worship song? What's your lean in this week? I have no idea what you're gonna answer. What's your go to karaoke song?
You have one? I do. I mean, I actually love karaoke. Come on.
And I actually bought a little system from my home where you can follow along on YouTube. And I was a huge Neil Diamond fan. No way. I was Neil Diamond and Stevie Wonder, Kenny Rogers.
Yeah, yeah. I grew up with that. That's awesome. And I do.
And karaoke is sweet. Yeah, you know, that's always a crumb pleaser. I did not the wrong with that. Yeah.
How about yours? What's your go to? I don't want to say. Oh, I can't do that.
The people are gonna think of horrible. But OK. I was hoping you weren't gonna ask me that. People think that we script these things out.
And we're just going off the camera. So there's a song. Mine artist called Sir Mix A Lot. We need to edit this out.
I'll stop there. That my wife and I have memorized word for word, baby, got back. And yeah, we've been known to bust that one out of the career. Wow.
Every now and then. So I'm sorry. That's the way you're going to carry on. That's what I meant.
All right. We do need to have a career. We do. Team party.
Let's go for it. You've got the equipment. Let's make it happen. Let's do it.
You do have to jump into our passage, which is Matthew 6, 9 through 19. Come on, we refer to as the Lord's Spirit. We're talking about that. But just a reminder, it's often helpful to read the questions before you read the passage.
Group leaders, that's the tip we say quite often. We know I've got new people that are listening. Before you read the passage, read the questions. Why is that important?
Because it helps as your passage is being read, to be thinking about the questions, anticipate the questions. So a couple of questions here for our look down. It says, what stands out about the beginning of this prayer? What does Jesus include in his model of prayer?
What's significant about the order? What do you learn about the model and value of prayer from the passage? I mean, that could really be the, you can pull so much out just from that question. What do you learn about the model and value of prayer from the passage?
I'll read it, but then we'll interact with it a little bit together here. It says, therefore, you should pray like this. Our Father in heaven, your name, the honored and whole. It's hard for me to not hear the King James.
I know. That's how it would be that. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our guests as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us in temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. All right, Scott. So from you and then anything that will opt for the message this weekend from here, what do you learn about the value and model of prayer from the passage? Yeah, I feel like just from the very get go of this prayer, it really helps us to focus first on God.
And acknowledging him as our heavenly Father, that we can go to him as our compassionate, gracious Father. And there's such intimacy in the language as our Father. But he's also the King. He's the Lord of Lords.
And so really understanding the intimacy that we have with our heavenly Father, but also that he's this infinite God. He's the Alpha and Omega. So really starting out with giving him the focus in a culture in a world where we oftentimes just focus on ourselves. And sometimes even our prayers can be so self-focused.
And so that's the first thing that really stands out to me of Jesus' model. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's great. And of course, God wants us to come to him in prayer with our needs, our desires.
He wants us to do that for sure. But you're so right. The structuring of it. And here talks about this and his message.
When we think about the structure of it, it's not the exact words. This is it. Pray these words every time you pray. Pray in this way, meaning what?
Pray with these values in mind, reminding ourselves that God is holy. He stands alone, to be help, to be right, to be reverent. But as you said, he's a Father. He's intimate.
He's also close. And even before we start thinking about our needs, it's like, man, you're will. You're will. You're a king of the rule and reign, not just in the world but in my life.
It's orienting ourselves around who he is. That's King of Savior and his Lord. And again, that's great. And again, it's not formulaic.
It's not prayed this prayer every time that you pray. I love what Eric said in the message about, obviously, this could have been Jesus's prayer, because forgive us our debts. He's sinless. He's blameless.
So he's modeling to us a value set of prayer. What else do you see in these verses? Yeah, another thing is it's just the importance of repentance. There's that word where we're called metanoia.
And it's really just turning around and saying, God, I've got my own way. And I need you. And I need you to cleanse me and forgive me. And I think about that order of repentance before we can really truly have that kind of connection with God, there needs to be that forgiveness of sins.
And so we know that when we come to Christ, Jesus has forgiven us. But yet, we still, on a daily basis, I don't know about you, but I fall short. Obviously I do with my curio-key. So I'll also watch this.
So that's where I'm going. Yeah. And I think about even my relationship with my son. There are times when our trust is broken, when he will make mistakes or fall short in a way of our relationship.
And before we can continue on, he's accepted as my son, but there needs to be forgiveness and confession for us to be restored in our relationship. So that's kind of the second thing that I see in this model. That's great. That's awesome.
Yeah, it's clearing that way, clearing that path. And it's not like everything's already has been forgiven. But as you said, it's like drawing in awareness in our own selves, our own brokenness. The barriers, the walls that we still put up, even though God has broken them all down.
But we, perpetually, are building this thing up with our own rebellion, our own wandering. And it's reminding ourselves of me. I need that. I need to erase me the gospel in my life.
And my life's still coming to him in independence. And that's what that's about. That's great. Awesome.
Fantastic. Well, what do we move down to our lookout section? A couple of questions here. It says, what does it look like when our prayers become too formulaic?
And then what are some of the most common times and places that people pray? And just having to think about prayer and culture at large, whether people can call themselves Christians or not. What does it look like when it's formulaic? What are those times and places when people pray?
Yeah, I mean, I think even as Christ followers, we can struggle with this. Our prayers being formulaic, especially growing up in a Christian background of family, where we pray right before a meal or just kind of going through the routine of things. And I think it becomes simply words when we do that. And we don't speak out of authentic, genuine heart felt prayers that we want to pray.
And so I think for me, I'm just speaking personally for me, is just talking to God, just having a conversation with God, a dialogue, rather than just following a certain format. And so that has really helped me in my prayer life to really not just see it as wrote things that I'm doing right before a meal or right before going to bed. But throughout the day, having conversations with my Heavenly Father who loves me and who wants to lead and guide me in every area of my life. Yeah.
And with that understanding that it's about relationship, it's a relationship, it's a relationship that we can have because what Jesus has done. He was for because we can enter in. We can enter in. That's it.
And yeah, you don't want that to be rigid or formulaic. At the same time, there are traditions that we can pull from and prayers and liturgies that can help give voice to our prayers. And just even praying the scriptures. I mean, praying the songs.
I mean, the song book of Jesus, praying this reading songs and earning some praying that over yourself in your own situation that we shouldn't be afraid of two different extremes right now. We should be afraid of an informality in prayer because it should be relationship, meaning with our Heavenly Father. And we could be too afraid of a formula, a formulaic way of approaching God in prayer, through written guided prayers. That God can use both of it.
Both of those are methods to what is the means. It's to be a relationship with God. To hear his voice. Prayers are just about like, here's my list.
I want to get my needs met. Not my deepest need has already been met in the sacrifice of Jesus. And now I get to enjoy his presence. And my prayer is God.
You're really done in and through my life. Yeah. I think that's why it's important, important to really praise and worship him. And giving him the honor that he's due.
And so a lot of times, even my prayer, I mix in worship as well too, where I'll either turn on worship music or my guitar, just thanking him and praising him for who he is and all that he's done. It's awesome. Yeah. I'm going to make sure you're doing that in your house in between Sweet Caroline and the curious.
You're picking up the guitar and the friendship and fear too. That's awesome. Great. Well, then you go to the lick end.
In the message, Eric, he gave his helpful acronym that you might remember because we've all been through rooted. It's a part of your rooted journey as well. The prayer card, the prayer acronym. So peace starts for praise.
R is repent. A is ask, why is yield? Why is yield? So Scott, maybe just walk us through those different movements of prayer and how those can be helpful, how can we incorporate those in our individual life or even in our life groups?
How would you navigate through the acronym in our groups? Yeah. I know some of this where we already kind of talked about. But as we come in prayer, we can think through this acronym of pray, peace stands for praise, R stands for repent, A stands for ask, and Y stands for yield.
And I think for us, we can look at this as a model where we can integrate these elements throughout our prayer life. So one of the things I said is we don't have to just focus on one element. Sometimes we can think, OK, we're just going to be asking God for this, which is important. One sort of prayer is the field that moves the heart of God.
So prayer does make a difference. But he also wants us to give him the things and the praise, come to him with confession and repentance, and to surrender everything to him, yield ourselves, especially in our world that where so much is going on, so much anxieties, and uncertainties, and to be able to say, God, we trust you, we know that there is a real enemy, we know that there is a culture that oftentimes goes against our values, but we want to surrender it all to you and to know that it's not by our might, not by our power, but by his spirit. And so those are things that I think we can incorporate through our prayer life looking at this model of prayer. That's good.
That's good. I think if I'm meeting a biker too, that last question here, what would a yielding look like for you this week? I think maybe spend some more time on that one about keeping great. What does that look like for you yielding?
What are the things that God has invited you to put down? What are the things that he's invited you to pick up? What are the things you know that God is speaking to you about? What is he calling you in towards?
Or is he calling you into a greater trust of him? What does that look like? And of course, just even that question alone could go around quite often. And I think also just like the habit of praying together with our groups, how many times have we been in small groups that we've led or been a part of?
And you have a really, really good, robust conversation. And then you get to the end of it. We have time for prayer, especially during this series. What a great opportunity to carve out that time, to really not only hear the needs of those of that or in your group, but to spend time praying with each other.
And you might want to even think about if you're not already doing something like this in your group, a texturist that's not just the funny memes and all the things, but it's devoted towards prayer requests in your group. Start a WhatsApp channel, start something that's devoted towards that. What are the needs? What are the prayers?
And then how has God meeting you in that? To be encouraged by how those things are being met. So awesome. Great.
Scott, love that you're here again. Love that you're part of the team. We can't wait to see how God's going to work in through here and your leadership to encourage our church, encourage our leaders and God's doing great things. And love that you're here part of it.
So amazing, man. I'm looking forward to it. Anything else we need to say or know? What's going on?
Before it a lot about you're ready. Karaoke, empty nester, just live in the dream, man. Pickleball. Pickleball, right.
That's it. I have an injury right now on my thumb. Trying to heal from that, but once that is healed, I'm ready to launch into the pickleball world here in OC. That's it.
If you're laughing, you're listening and you get a pickleball game. Calm down. On the bad, he's going to be able to play. What's your number ranking?
Is that a thing? The super score is called. The UPR. I don't know what that stands for, but it's about 3.5.
That's kind of average. What's the best? I think it goes up to like 6.0. Okay.
I don't know. You're on your way. Okay. Less than a year, but I'm obsessed with it.
That was a tennis player. Yeah. So I had a ping pong player. Pickleball, I feel like it's kind of in between those two things.
That's right there. That's awesome. In the 2028 LA Olympics, maybe that'll be a thing and maybe we'll see you there. Perhaps you have to get your duper score up though, first.
That's right. All right. Awesome. Well, thanks guys.
Thanks for the time. We'll see you on the weekend and we'll catch you on the podcast next week.