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. Life Group leaders, my name is Dallas. This is the podcast, and I have a special guest with me, my friend Scott.
Welcome to the Life Group leader podcast. Hey, Dallas. Great to be here with you. Yeah, we're jumping in.
We have our James books, as you can kind of hear our magazines. They're here because we're using them. I'm writing in them, and it's so fun seeing each of you bring them on the weekend. But we're in week four of the series.
How are you enjoying? I'm enjoying this series, Scott. I've been really enjoying it. I love how practical it is, how in your face it is, and how it is.
I've been reading actually a lot of the articles in between weekly chapters as well, and it's been extremely encouraging. So I would encourage everyone to read through those as well too. It's super cool seeing how excited our church gets to read verse by verse through scripture. It is really cool, really special to see that each and every week, and we're on week four.
And we're talking about the relationship between fruit and faith. Christine Kane, she's talking about fake faith, verse real faith. It's a really great conversation, but you got to listen to the message. If you just read the passage and you start putting your own interpretation or letting people in your group, put their own interpretation, I think that your group time could be a little interesting.
It turns out like a theological debate discussion. So make sure you all get to church, and making sure your group gets to church with their magazines. But we're going to jump in. Lean in.
We want everybody to talk to answer this question. Again, just piecing together everybody's stories. So have you ever tried to plant and grow fruits or vegetables? How did it go?
Yeah, I don't have a green thumb at all, but I did try one time a couple of years ago. My friend gave me some tomato plants. Tomato plants. Yeah, so we planted some and my wife was like, don't do it.
You got to kill it. I was so excited. And sure enough, I was, I think it took about four or five weeks. My first tomato came out.
It was about two or three on that little tomato plant. Cut it all up and made a tomato salad. And then after a few weeks they all died. Oh, okay, great.
You had me in the first half, how can I? Yeah. But it was an experience. There's joy in that, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's a really good thing. It's better when you've grown them. Yeah.
Probably you. Have you had like vegetables or fruit trees? Yeah. Growing up, we had a garden and a while back when I was younger I was like, I'm pretty good at this gardening thing, but I was doing it with my mother.
She was the one who was good at it. And then we got married and living in Southern California, I don't have a backyard. So I had like a little plant on the ledge. And we could barely keep basil plant and a mint plant alive.
So I'm going to go with it. It did not go well, but I enjoyed it. Yeah. It definitely takes a lot of work.
Yes. Yeah. But it's much easier sometimes just go to the market. The farmer's market Saturday mornings at Marryers Irvine.
So I think that's going to be a fun question. Like who's a green thumb group? It could be a really fun way to continue to get to know people. Everybody talked.
And now you get to look down, look at scripture. So we're on page 86 of our magazine. But if you just go back to page 84, you can read the whole passage right there. Page 85 is where you are taking notes for everything that you are hearing how God is speaking to you and how you're interacting.
So as a group, take some time, read through the whole passage. And then you have some really great questions as I was prepping all the questions really good. I think they would all be really, really good for your group. So as a leader, you know your group, does your group need three questions that interact?
Or is it just two questions? Maybe it is all three because they're great questions. Plan ahead. Plan ahead.
Don't just walk in and wing it. Plan ahead. You know your group. What are the questions that you are going to ask?
So we'll kind of cherry pick some of these stick out to you as you were prepping as you were looking at the look down section. Yeah. So for me, this is something that I wrestled with personally growing up as a Christian looking at Paul's words in Ephesians talking about grace. It's all about grace.
And then looking at James's words about, wait, it works as well too. And I really did wrestle with that and growing up as an acidic contradiction. And that's something that I realized it is two sides of the same coin that were saved by grace. Paul is talking about the roots of our faith and four good works, which James is talking about the fruits of our faith.
So it is a both hand. But I think kind of quickly growing up, I saw a lot of hypocrisy in my youth ministry and it really turned me off because one minute they were saying, they were worshiping their hearts out and saying, I love Jesus. And then right after that, where's your time, I saw a difference in their character and their values and the way they behaved. And I could not for a long time really rectify and resolve what was going on there.
You say one thing, but you were doing another. So I don't know what your experience or how you gathered from those passages. I want to dig in on that a little bit because a leader sitting in their group and someone has a very similar answer, like grace, but I see people with their works don't match up. It's frustrating.
There might be some wounds there. How would you, how would you shepherd? How would you guide a leader who's listening if someone in their group brings up something like that? How can we help prepare our leaders for potentially one of those conversations come up?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, to listen and empathize because there are people who come with some negative or a bad church experience. They have seen hypocrisy or maybe hurts from leaders or from members.
But I think really going into the scriptures and what the word has to say about grace and works and how they work together in a sense. Because it's, we do need to affirm the experience that people have had, the hurts that we've experienced. But at the same time, to understand what God's truth God's word says about grace and works. I think it's something that we need to focus on.
It's like understanding the grace that we have from sitting in that. Understand the grace we have from Jesus. Something that I've heard this before and if I finally have a phrase that I can kind of sum it up in is, Jesus invites us to come as we are. So, hey, come with all your brokenness, all your pain, your questions, but don't stay as you are.
Sit in that moment and the whole point is that Jesus means this exactly where we're at. But he also calls us as something deeper. Story Peter. Jesus met Peter exactly where he's at, but also called him, hey, this is who I've called you to be and called him to something greater to remind him of his calling.
So, sitting in that with people is, and that's a tough part as a leader is sitting with people there. Now, how do you challenge, encourage people to get into their words and continue living out the math that God has that is found clearly in Scripture? Yeah. And I think what I also realize as you were sharing with that is that we are all works in progress.
That I went through that same grace that saves us is the same grace that sustains us as well too. So, God is continuing to shape and mold us and transform us. However, what are we doing to live out of faith, to actualize our faith as well too? So, yeah.
I think it's a beautiful conversation for your groups to have and you could even bring up as we're talking about works. We have so many serve opportunities for our left groups. Technically, that is doing works. But doing a serve opportunity isn't going to get you closer to God.
He already loves you as much as he can right now. That's your fully loved exactly where you're at, but it's going to define you as a Christian when someone at work said, hey, what'd you do over the weekend? Actually, I went to a serve opportunity with my group. Like, what?
And you're hearing the stories of who knows what they did. I just sat around the house, right? I did this. I did that.
I went to a party. And you did this. So, it's like your works didn't save you, but it's what defines you and sets you apart as a follower of Jesus. Yeah.
So, it's really like it's a response. It has to be an overflow because of what God did for a study that saved us and rescued us. In response to that, we move into action. And so, it's not because of the works that we are saved and rescued.
So, the people know me as a leader, not because I have faith, which I do have faith, but when they come and say, wow, you are living out your faith. Look at you, there's something different. And kind of that theme, if you go back to Ephesians, is to live differently. I hate being a follower of Jesus means you live differently.
Don't live how the world is living. Live differently. You have faith. Then it's not because your works don't save you, but they define you.
It's kind of the same thing. It's kind of the same thing. It made it work to me how you operate and live your life in a different way from the rest of the world. May that define you as a follower of Jesus.
Yeah. That's good. But you don't rush through these conversations. Sit in a little bit of silence.
Maybe ask some follow up questions to really dig and you're not picking on anybody, but you're enhancing the conversation. That's really good. I think sometimes we as group leaders, I think we all understand this, but to not be more than that teaching mode. But to, like we just said, sit in that space, sit in the tension and allow people to be able to express some of the tensions and struggles that they have with the passage and experiences.
Because we know that the pastoring people, a lot of them just sit and listen and then I'll ask a couple questions. And once someone says something out loud, many times like, oh, that's, yeah, that sounded weird. I don't think that's the right way to go. And many times all I'm doing is just being available to just listen.
You just watch people kind of go and process. I asked a couple of pointed questions about it and I'm like, oh man, that was so helpful. I just kind of said, how are you doing? Okay, what does that mean?
Hey, help me. I asked a couple of questions. That's it in letting people process and letting the whole spirit do the whole story's work. So you've interacted with the passage more there.
We look out and then making sure we're safe time for looking in. We kind of talked a little bit about that. How does it make you feel when others' actions don't line up with what they say they value? I really think that could be an opportunity for you as a leader to do some shepherding.
We aren't just facilitators that when you have people in your living room and there's pain, you get to shepherd people. What a joy. I think leaders can model the way too. As I was looking at that question, I think about why weakness is and what I struggle with.
Oftentimes I can say, I trust in God, I believe in God and he's my everything. But sometimes in the way that I live out my life and my interaction with my wife or with my son. I have to really take a pause. If I truly say he's the Lord and the Master of my life, how am I treating those closest to me?
Would they say that my dad, my husband, is an authentic leader and he's living out his faith? Those are some challenges. When you look at the rhythm reminder, they're repentance. Hopefully we are one too.
Pastor Eric always says, when we mess up when we fall short, fall fast. We fall to your knees fast in repentance. Are we modeling that as a great reminder? A really tough question to ask yourself.
But a good one. And then looking in, I really enjoyed that first question because hopefully in group time, I don't want people just to see like, wow, look at all the ways I am falling short. I'm not doing it. I don't do any works.
I also want people to see the other side of, hey, here's nothing I'm just knocking it out of the park. But hey, I am. There's fruit here. The Lord is doing something in my life.
And sometimes maybe it's even affirming that in the people in your group. So as I was writing my own answer, what kind of fruit have you seen God producing in your life? I've seen a submission. I read a book called The Making of a Leader in Rock My World and part of that is submission.
And I'm seeing fruit in that right now. And it's really beautiful. Just submitting before the Lord, submitting before the leaders. And I looked back at my life a couple of years ago.
I'm like, I would not have submitted it in this way. And I'm seeing fruit in my life. I'm like, oh, I still got a long way to go. But learning and growing.
And I want the people in your group to experience that side of both ends. A balanced approach for your time. That's good. That is good to talk about the affirmations or the things that the Lord is doing in you and through you.
I think for me, yeah, you're right. I can always be like, I can be better. But the Lord is transforming my heart in this area of caring for friends. It's so easy to just be so focused and about your family and about your needs.
And I think the Lord's been showing me like, hey, care for people. And call up that friend, text your friends to see how they're doing. And so I love that. Just affirming the putting fruits that are happening in your life.
And leader, if someone brings something up and you've seen that in their life, I encourage you to, as soon as they're done, affirm that. Hey, I so see that in you. And this could be a really beautiful time. You're kind of jumping out on one.
I'm like, I kind of see this as a little bit. I'm a little insecure to answer this question. And an affirmation can go such a long way. And I see it enrooted whenever I facilitate a group, we get to affirmations.
And when I see a grown man crying, because it's the first time he's ever been affirmed in a group, sometimes our culture can be lacking in that. So there could be a really powerful moment for your group this week. We're doing that tonight. And our route of great.
There you go. Week 10. Beautiful time. So which means there's going to be an incredible route celebration coming up leaders.
We want you guys to be apart. And we celebrate. Remember what the Lord did in all of your lives with your group through a group. Rooted isn't what did it.
It's just a tool. But remember what the Lord has done through rooted. So we're going to celebrate that. We're thankful for you as leaders.
We're praying that you have a very fruitful conversation at the time. And any final words of encouragement or anything for our leaders? I'm just grateful for all of our life group leaders. For you to know that we're praying for you.
And we believe that God has given you all that you need to be able to pour out and serve the people, serve your group members. And so we're cheering you on. We are believing that God has amazing things in store. We're meeting.
Well, thank you. We love you leaders. Take care. Catch you on the next episode.