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 his spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Hey, life group leaders, welcome back to our weekly podcast. This is Kim, your host for today.
And I am so excited to welcome Nicole to our podcast. Nicole, could you introduce yourself and just let everybody know what it is you get to do around here? Yeah, thanks for having me. I work on our outreach team.
And so part of my role is working with regroup's life group leaders to set up service. So what does it look like to serve with their group and in working with congregations as well, to make sure that everyone there's an opportunity for them to serve with an outreach? That is so cool. And we benefit from your work over and over again.
Life group leaders, you may not think you know Nicole, but I bet you do because she's around campus all the time. And when you're on campus this next weekend, you're gonna see the whole outreach team out there. So look for Nicole and tell her and her team, thank you. They prepare a lot of space for us to be able to have serve experiences and realize how that will change us personally.
And we're just really grateful. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. It's a joy.
We get to look at our beautiful James magazines again, this week. I hope you have one for everyone in your group. There are a few left I hear. So if you don't make sure you get one this weekend and enjoy all the extra things inside them as well.
But this week is about James 1 18 through 27, more than hearers. And I am so excited Nicole is here today because we're talking about if we're more than hearers, we're doing and we're seeing people the way Jesus does and knowing her heart, I'm just really excited to experience this together and go through this discussion guide. So as we turn to page 48, you know, when you jump in with your group coming from a work day or a day with kids or whatever people are leaving behind as they walk in the door for life group, this lean in question is a great place just to take a breath and get everybody to talk and hopefully laugh a little bit together. So as we explore this leaning question, what are some of the worst case of false advertising you have ever experienced?
Not the worst, just a worst. What do you think? Yeah, I think for me is I the one that falls into ads on Instagram. So I have a toddler who's not a great sleep person.
I'm scrolling in the middle of the night and don't you need the shirt or those shoes or those baby items that you didn't know existed? And then in my sleep deprived, you order it and it comes with like, I definitely didn't need these shoes and they're not practical. And this baby item doesn't work the way that this ad told me it was going to work. And so I fall into that a lot.
But the two in the morning, it sounded like a 95%. I was a few. Yeah. So true.
The thing that comes to my mind is a hotel. We've had a couple of experiences where it looked beautiful and the pictures and you get there, you can't even see the ocean. I don't know what pictures they were at you, but there was no ocean and I don't even want to sleep in that bed. No.
So I was a fun with that talking, trying to get everybody to participate and make that a fun time. The word read it together, always read the word together. And I think my favorite is just to go around the circle and have everybody participate in reading a verse and pass the richness of God's word that way. So we're all participating as well.
For this discussion, let's look at the second question. Based on this passage, how would you explain the relationship between faith and works? Yeah, I think I've, if you are someone who was either high achieving or if you are someone who's had a family word in where you need to strive to get approval or to do things that will then either get you affirmation or something like that. Or even if that's just like kind of your nature, if you want to be told that you're doing a good job, you could feel like, am I doing enough?
Am I serving enough? Am I serving the correct way in the way that God wants me to? But really what this passage is talking about is because of our faith, because of what Jesus has done for us, that we are so overwhelmed by God's grace that we can't help but to serve, that the works come as a result of the faith that we have, not as a way to strive to achieve or to get approval or anything like that. Which takes all of the anxiety away, takes the heaviness away, 100%.
The overflow, it's just an outpouring of who you are. There's a lightness to that, a longing for it. And it's almost like walking, like you just, it's just natural. It comes from who you are and the longing that you have to know Jesus and help other people see him.
Yes. Like see him, hear him. This is who Jesus is in his kindness. Yeah, let's go on to the next section.
Actually, look out is to look at the world around you through the lens of the scripture. For today, we're gonna go ahead to the look in section, how we apply it. This is where the aha moments often happen. This is where action steps can come up within your discussion.
And I think this is where Nicole can bring a lot of insight in what serving does for us and our hearts. So the first question in the look in section, in what ways are you tempted to not live your life in a way that aligns with your faith? For me, I think it's always a I'm busy, right? That is a constant for everybody.
And it's even the excuse as Doug feels a couple weeks ago. We just say it because we think we should. Yeah, like that's our culture. That's who we are.
But honestly, sometimes it's uncomfortable. And saying I'm busy is safer than admitting. It just feels like it might be uncomfortable. And I'm a little fearful about stepping into that.
Which all of those are OK emotions to feel. But I think that's what comes to mind. What would you say to that? Yeah, I think along those lines of it's uncomfortable, there's also a part of it that is am I qualified?
Am I going to do a good job? Who am I to step into this event or ministry? Because I don't know anything. That's not my story.
I've never really been involved in that. So there's definitely uncomfortably in this effort. There is that I'm not qualified. I'm not good enough.
There's people that are going to be better at this than me, which is not true. And God uses all of us uniquely. And that's why we all meet each other. That's why the body exists because we all have different skills.
But the way that God will equip us in it and how we will see a bigger picture of who God is because and we stepped outside of our comfort zone is everything. And it's why serving is so beautiful. Because we experience people that don't look like us, that don't have a same background as us. And we get a bigger picture of who God is.
Because just like I am a child of God, the person I'm sitting across, that on paper I have nothing in common with, they are also a child of God. And we get to see that is God's heart and that is God's grace in our lives that we get to do that with each other. That is so beautiful. I love how you describe that.
Because that's so true. The sort of events that you guys have designed, I'm thinking of the breakfast out of the crossing church, you have to make sure. And I've taken my route group there a couple of times. And just saying the word homelessness, we're going to go and be and hang out with people that are battling homelessness.
That phrase can make people very uncomfortable. So pulling up, you can see the nervous energy and the girls as we're all walking from the cars and getting in there. But it is within five minutes that that is gone easily. Because of the atmosphere that you are very intentional to create.
And it's just about people. It's not about how you perform, doing it right or wrong. It is people meeting other people. There's just the sense that people want someone to relate to.
And when you say it specifically, that's what we're talking about homelessness, everyone automatically has a picture in their head of what that looks like. But when you're sitting at a table and you're talking to someone who is often neglected, often overlooked, actually people will walk the opposite way so they don't have to pass them on the street. When you don't have it, when you're sitting at a room, you realize like, we actually have more in common than I thought. And you just want to be heard.
And sometimes I just want connection. I'm looking for some connection as the one that's there, thinking I'm doing the serving. But how about as many, how this person is meeting and I didn't even know that I had, as I step out and serve, is something that I can only come from a place when we do step outside of that, a factor of why. You know, that makes me think, I grew up with my dad was a pastor, so I grew up around church all the time.
And I served my whole life. There's a substantial difference between when you serve, like you show up and you do a task, like painting or serving a meal, making a meal, which are all amazing. But it is completely different when the goal is to connect with people. The feeling you live with, the life change that can happen, it's just, it's not a day, the difference.
And I don't know that I always realized that. It wasn't tangible for me to understand until I think even maybe the first time going to the cross-assert. Yeah, yeah, God created us as relational humans. That's how we're designed as humans to be.
And so one of the things that we talk about a lot is this idea of being versus doing. There's a lot of doing that needs to happen. Setting up the table, serving the food, painting the fence or whatever it is. But the life change that you're talking about comes when you get to connect with people.
Could your life be changed because you had a great experience? Paintings, of course. God can use anything. But the true, deep part of it is when we get to connect with others, what God will do with that, how we will view others, how we will view our relationship with God, but our own intentional relationship with God is where that life change can come is from serving by connecting.
Because the being is who God is creating us to be. Christian, who's one of our global arts, has always says God created us as human beings, not human doings. And so who God is calling us to be in relationship with him and with others is way more important than what he's calling us to do. And sometimes those get confused because we do need to do stuff.
We're talking about more than years, how do we doers of the word? And yet, I need to do stuff. And a lot of times that doing is really being. That's so powerful.
Awesome. So good. I know we're getting to that. So this is so exciting.
I just love for you to share with the leaders. The heart of that and how life groups can be involved and why. Yeah, so see the good is what we call our fall campaign that we do every year. And it's basically where we get to put outreach on display and invite people into taking either their first or their next step into serving with outreach.
And the way that we look at it for life groups specifically is yes, do the individual thing. Like if you guys are passionate about different things, I want to serve. But how important it is for life groups to serve together? And we intentionally set up things in the fall.
So once we launched it this weekend, and there's a lot of opportunities because we know that statistics show the more that life groups serve together. When they get outside of what's happening just in their little group, they will actually increase the longevity that the group stays together. And so it just shows us again when we say like, we're not the center. So that goes for us individually, but also the group.
We're not the center of what's happening. So when we get to look outside of that of what is God's heart. So this week we specifically heard about God's heart for the orphan and the widow. And next week we're going to hear about more in the next kind of passage.
But when we get to focus on what is God's heart for that? We call it the quartet of the vulnerable. The orphan that immigrated the poor in the widow. Then we get a bigger, again, we get a bigger picture of who guys.
And who is calling us as a group to be? How is he calling us as a group to exist in the world? That's not just us meeting in our own little group. And then we go home and then we don't come back until next week.
But we get this bigger picture of what God is doing, who he is. And there's that life change that happens for us corporately as a group when we get to serve together. That's so good. I remember trying to teach my kids that it's not just about you.
Yeah. It was really important when they're growing up. And it is as important for our life group. It's more exciting.
It keeps life interesting. Once my kids got the idea of giving to others, or asking other people's questions instead of talking about themselves, it was a little thing as a toddler and an elementary school student. But as a life group, when you look beyond the four walls that you always meet in and the comfortability of that, and you step out and experience other people's lives instead of the space that they're in, whatever that is, and bring that back, it changes the DNA of your group in such a beautiful way. So how can the groups get involved?
What can they do? Yeah, so we have a lot of opportunities for life groups to serve together on page 49. There's a QR code that life group leaders or search champions can scan. And it will take you directly to our life group leader portal, which is where either a life group leader or a search champion can register the whole entire group.
So that's helpful. So we know that you are a life group, and when we're either creating stations or something at an event, we will all put you guys in the same place so you guys can be together. And there's plenty of opportunities from Christmas parties to Thanksgiving events to whole block parties that we're going to put on. And we would love to see your group there.
That is so cool. So cool. Check it out Life Group Leaders. Look at the QR code on page 49.
Seek the good. You're going to see them out on the patio again this weekend. And if you want to talk to one of the team out there, I'm sure they would love to help you. Yes, I know that's the best.
And it creates space as we walk into Thanksgiving and into Christmas to do that with a grateful heart and an expanded heart that comes out of overflow with knowing what Jesus has done personally, that we get to share that with other people. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
God bless you guys for praying for you. Have a great time together with your group.