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. Hey, Life Group leaders, welcome back to our Life Group Leader podcast. This is Dallas here, and I have a special guest, a good friend of mine, someone that you all have seen before.
You may not know. I'm making you uncomfortable. It's J.C. our worship pastor.
Welcome. Hey everybody, it's me, it's J.C. I don't really do great with introductions, but you're very kind. And yes, I'm really excited to be here with you, man.
I'm excited that we have someone from a different part of our church. I don't really have all of us who groups. I get so fun to have someone from our worship team here. And I just have a couple questions for you.
We just go in, how long have you been a Mariners? What's your role while you've been here? It's a great question. I've been a Mariners for four years now, and I've been involved with worship in several different capacities, and I've loved every minute of it.
So awesome. So technically now, I get to one of our pastors here on staff leading with our worship ministries, and I get to help oversee our volunteer teams who are plugged in with our vocals, with our choir, with our musicians, and I get to help take part in how we craft all of our services, and how we tie them into the main theme of what we're talking about within a service. So this has actually been a lot of fun for me to help with crafting services, like setlists really, with this Daniel series. Because Daniel series, man, it's been a lot of fun for me.
Yeah, and how have you enjoyed this series? You get a different perspective. So you get to stand on stage, you get to watch people interact with the series, sing with the songs. Yes, and a lot of us are the ones interacting with it.
So how have you enjoyed it, and what's a different look on it? That's a great question. So what I love about Daniel is it's all about this juxtaposition of this earthly king, and then it's like our heavenly king. And like, who do we look towards?
Or who do we look to? Who do we give our allegiance to in some ways? And so even the two, your question, last week, we had an opportunity to start the set with just a hymn, I exaltate. We didn't start big.
We didn't try to do anything other than just have a harposter of like, we're going to look to our heavenly king and exalt him and make him the main thing, which was, I think, a powerful way to then go into the sermon. Because then you see, even, I don't know if I'm going ahead too much, but you see King Nebuchadnezzar even turning his eyes away from his own ego, his own kingship, and saying, actually, there's a king higher above than me. So it was cool because every song we had so much intentionality around how can we create that thread, tell that story of King Jesus and not ourselves as King. So, and it's interesting because I feel like this series really has been forcing us to get away from ourselves, and even in our worship, I've seen in our people just this, maybe abandoned is the word, just to say, you know what, it's not about me, it's all about you, Jesus.
Many people have been singing louder than ever than before, and it's so encouraging, it's so good for us to sing. There's a reason why the apostles told us to sing. There's a reason why Jesus is himself saying, because it's so good for ourselves to remind ourselves, even in concert, like the food got us. So, and the people who are listening are the ones who are singing, they are on tour with you, and I think it's just really cool.
Even, I don't always get to hear how you guys put together services, like, you all would be surprised, like, I'm not in those places. So I think it's really fun just for us to hear that, the intentionality that you all put behind the service. So, and for us as leaders, we get to experience that, and these leaders, they are your worship leaders right there with you. So it's fun to have you here and to share that side of it, because I think this series has been insane.
It's like mind-blowing. What has been your favorite thing so far in this series? I mean, we're five weeks in. So, it's a story.
I feel like there's heavy hitters of stories in Daniel. That's true. And it's like I've never read it before. Yeah.
Like the way it's been presented. I agree. And then this last weekend with Eric, teaching, my fingers couldn't tie fast enough. So people probably think I'm texting in service.
I'm not. I have the notes app open. And I couldn't write down, you know, it's fast enough. And I'm sitting down there with my wife.
I'm like, he is on fire right now. Like, this is a server. I want to sit in all five. Yeah, this is so good.
It was great. I found myself coming back to another service, and I agree with you, man. I mean, there was just something about, and I can see it. I can sense it even.
I think this is a series that resonates with our culture, even right now. I can sense it in people, even as you're sitting, wherever you're sitting, you can just hear it in people's audible or yes, or whatever it is. I mean, there was so much of that this week. Eric did an incredible job presenting it.
And I think this message just really, this whole series makes me connects with people right now. Who are you giving your allegiance to? What are you giving your allegiance to? Is it money?
Is it a job? Is it relationships? Yeah, we need to hear it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's good. And I know there's been some really great discussions with our live groups. So our live groups stay attend.
And then they come. We have a magazine, which I absolutely love. I love showing up to services and watching people show up with their magazines in hand. And every time I'm like, oh, man, I left at my office.
Do you have all the magazines? I have all the magazines. I keep them ready. Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I keep all the magazines. I have all of them, but one. And I can't remember what it is off top of my head, but I feel like I need to find it. I could probably find it somewhere around here.
I mean, trying to collect them all. They're no service. And you can find it there. The point is don't miss out and don't lose your book, because once they're gone, you might not get it.
You might not get it back. Week three, if you didn't have a book, we ran out of it all the way. They were so cool. Yeah, so cool.
But what we do is we walk through these questions. Our goal is to get people talking with this first question. So we lean in. It's a safe question and you're a real facilitator.
Yes. So you've led. You understand kind of how we do this. I'm so clear.
Can you hear? Here's the lean in. Can you think of a time when someone warns you about a dangerous choice you were considering, but you did it anyway? Or maybe have you seen it as a parent?
Wow. Wow. Yeah, definitely as a parent. I have a six year old and a four year old.
And there's times where I tell my son or my daughter, don't lean on your chair because, man, that chair is going to just. And not too long ago the other day, they fell back and thankfully, it wasn't that far of a fall. But the funny thing is, is they still like to do it. Yeah, I don't know what it is.
And I feel like that's probably like me too, is even if somebody said, hey, man, don't eat that donut. Because you know, like you're focusing on it. You know, and it's like, but I'll still do it. Yeah, I'll still do it anyway.
And so not the donuts are bad. Please eat donuts are great. But if you have a goal and you have a mission, then maybe, you know, the donuts are the best thing for you. I think what I'm hearing too is sometimes we can see it.
It's easier to see things than other people than just to see in ourselves to lean your choices we're making. And you're like, don't do it. Yes, like Nemo, don't. I feel like when I was in high school, I had a lot more moments like that.
I had some interesting friends. And I was always the guy who was like, guys, we can't be doing this. They wanted to go into the school and play hide and go seek or something like that. And I had to talk them out of it.
I was like, guys, it's after dark. We cannot be doing this. I was always that guy. But you're the good influence.
I was trying to be. I was trying to become a Christian. And I ended up bringing most of the guys from the soccer team onto church and they could proceed. In your belt.
I guess so. Wow. I didn't think about that. I got to realize Daniel.
And then what we do is we look down and I love that all of our live creators. You can turn. So week five, the discussion questions are on page 88. You see I have it right here.
You can hear it there. But page 84, we have Daniel chapter five. And what I've done is I went in there beforehand. I underlined a few things.
So that first question, Daniel 5, 1 through 4, I was a king self-centered and sinful. And I just went and I underlined. Hey, he was under the influence of wine. He took things from the temple in Jerusalem, put them out.
I see wives. I see concubines. He drank from those things. So he's making mockery of, hey, I took over.
I took over these people and I go, let me just show you how big and powerful I am. And then he praised little jingods. So our hope is that you can look at scripture and people in your group are just pulling things out. And I'm really excited for Daniel 5 this week, because it's the writing on the wall.
We've all heard that. Every time I hear this story, I'm always thinking of the Adam's family, the hand. That's how my mind is always put it as a kid. Like, was it a thing or something?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Came in and wrote on the wall. But it's really an important story in the scripture. In Daniel 5, 5 through 12, sometimes I like to pick one or two, just depending on how much scripture you guys are reading.
But I like the question, how would you characterize the supernatural act? Was an act of judgment, warning or mercy? And just kind of let the group explain, let the group talk about it, let the group have a discussion, keep it really, really open-ended. And as a leader, I want to challenge you, what's the question to cause the conversation to go a little bit and deeper?
So back and forth there. And then, kind of where I want to talk with you, J.C., a little bit, we look out and then we look in. And as I'm looking at these questions, I see this theme of humility. So kind of a question that I would like to ask you for, I start by, is what's the importance of humility in your life and how do you grow or how do you practice humility?
Because I look at you as someone who's extremely humble, just even introducing you in this podcast. And you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I would love to like, what does that look like in your life? Yeah, I think for me is, I don't try not to believe everything people say about me, and that's the good things and the bad things. And so there's just like, needing to be rooted so much into who's I am, which is, you know, I belong to the Lord and his child.
And in who he says who he's called me to be. And I don't need to kind of try to do anything more than that. And resting in that is really, really important. So I think in that, because it's like I'm getting my identity and my, you know, who I believe I am because of God, that whenever somebody wants to give me credit for something or whenever I want to give myself credit for something, I just come in, this doesn't belong to me anyway.
Like, and I'm no one to be, you know, who am I to be leading these people, right? And so again, it kind of comes back to maybe like this king here, we can easily try and puff ourselves up and say, like, how big and bad I am. But then I maybe I've just lived long enough to know that that doesn't work out. And then, but it's definitely that encouragement back to like the kid.
You know, if I could tell anybody something is like, hey, man, don't give yourself all the credit for stuff that God gives you, you know, because none of it is ours. The voice that God has given me is not mine. It's a voice that he's given me the way I love to lead. It's all about being in his presence.
And I think that's the key man is like, I want, as a worship pastor, I want to encourage the listeners even to recognize that you yourselves are worship leaders. Yeah, you know, your worship isn't just when you're singing. Worship is when you're in a place of reverence and all of who God is. And man, you can find yourself in that place even now as you're, you know, with your, your life group.
Like there's moments where you just recognize who God is and you're just in all the grace that you, that he has for you because you realize how much worse off you can be if it wasn't for God. So I want to double click there. Yes. Like let's, let's dig into that a bit.
Play a really practical. Okay. How can you see a life group or a life group that you're doing that? Yeah, that's great.
So one of the things, you know, you have to ask yourself questions. Like, what is something that I feel, let's just go really practical, because everybody has stage jobs for the most part, right? Or everybody is whether you're, you say, how mother or you're, or you're working on nine or five or whatever job you do. When you get a moment where you're just, you feel like you're doing a great job.
And everybody's like, man, you're crushing it. Say thank you. That's really practical. But what are ways you can then go back and say, thank you, Lord, for the ability to do what I do, you know, and even in moments where let's say things aren't going very good and then you want to just pile that on yourself, let's say you're a say, home mom or you're someone that works on a five and work is not going good or things aren't going well at your house.
It's not necessarily always like indicative of who you are, right? You got to recognize, recalibrate and say, Lord, how can I give this to you and how can I do better in whatever it is I do? So always asking yourself, I think, Lord, how can I either give you the credit for whatever it is that I'm doing or recalibrate to make sure that whatever it is that isn't going great, I can do better because of who I am in you. Does that make sense?
Right? Yeah. I think what's really cool is if you are looking at the magazine, you have a life of discussion questions, we have our rhythm reminders and it's worship. Yeah.
So you like, you cheated all of us like, Hey, we worship God for what he has done, but we all do repent when we think of ourselves too much. Yeah. When we think of ourselves too much, we put ourselves on the throne. I'm reminded where we get every day that we just have in the week eight talk this week as everything that I have is a gift from God.
I steward. What's that saying? Sometimes people say like humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Yeah.
And I think whoever said that, I think that's true because even in worship, it's not about us. It's it's about who God is and even in repentance, it's less about us and all about who God is the fact that Jesus has his own ways done for us. So man, I love that. I love that a lot.
And I think life is leaders. This is a great way where you can set the tone, you set the tone for humility in a group, you set the tone for vulnerability, you set the tone for repentance. Yeah. You could have this conversation at the end of your group time where you're looking within yourself, looking out at the world and you're saying, wow, look it.
Look at where I fall in short here. Like, hey, I want to just go around. I'm going to start. I want to repent of here's here's kind of where I've made more of myself or myself over the king totally.
And I think I could be a really powerful experience. You could really challenge the people in your group and it could lead to a time of worship. Yeah. Meaning we say thank you not like we're breaking out of this song because worship is so much bigger than that.
But if you have J seen your group, you could or you could just start singing too. That's always good. You could worship is so much bigger. Absolutely.
That's a I would be an encouragement to all of you. I think this could be a really, really great conversation for your group around repentance, worship, humility. Yes. Oh, humility.
When you see people who have humility, you're just drawn to them. I think humility, if I may, for just real quick, humility has a lot to do with being honest to you. Like when Adam was was hiding from God, God's question to Adam was, where are you? And, you know, to be able to in your life group, when you're asking when you're looking in and God asked you, where are you today?
And for you to be able to be honest and say, Lord, this is where I'm this is where I'm at. This is how I'm feeling and being honest with that because God can take that. And you can't like you're not going to like you can't like you. You can't.
You can't not great. Well, I'm great. Yeah. Yeah.
But there is a humility in saying like, Lord, you know where I am and will you will you meet me here? Yeah. May that be the posture of our hearts? Life, your beliefs, may that be the posture of your heart and may it spread to the people in your group?
Imagine what our world would look like if people were a little bit more humble. We walked a little bit more humility. We walked in a little bit more surrender and reliance upon the Lord. Yeah.
Jayce, thank you. Thanks for asking our leaders. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.