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. Welcome, Life Group leaders to this special edition. This is our series overview of a brand new series coming this weekend.
Life making the most of it. This is going to be an incredible series as we look at the different aspects of what it means to live and steward our life well. And as we do during the series overviews, we have got our senior pastor Eric Geiger with us. I'm back.
I am back. I'm all the way. That's it. I'm amazing.
I'm the first one here at Mariners, everything your life group leader, they had heard kind of what your rhythm looks like over July and what you do with the text and helping prepare our church for the next season. You want to give us a little overview of what that looks like? I'm really thankful that this is not a new thing for our church. It was new to you.
Perhaps maybe new on the inside, but for a long time, our church has given the senior pastor a study break in the summer. So my predecessor had a study break every year. And so when I was hired five years ago now as senior pastor of our church, I doubt it was part of it. You get a study break and it's been really good for my own soul, my walk with the Lord, my time of family, but also I spend time reading a ton praying the time.
I saw the books. Some of you were carrying it this morning on the way. You really read that. I'm like, man, I mean, you are doing anything else, but praying reading.
It is crazy how much you read. So I mean, gosh, I mean, probably 50, 60 books, you know, that now some of those are commentary, so you're not reading cover to cover your reading sections of a passage that you're interacting with. And so I map out the next calendar year. So all of 2024 has now been mapped out.
And my prayer going in every time is God, if you would burn in my heart, a passion for each message similar to Jeremiah 20 verse 9, where I am weary of holding your word in. Indeed, I cannot. It's a fire in my bow. Shut up in my bow.
God to get this out. And so God has been really gracious and good and generous to me that I really feel that way about all of the upcoming teaching series that we'll be walking through in 2024. The day that we are recording this this week, we will spend time with all of our pastors for all of our congregations and I'll walk them through what our teaching plan is. So that's July was great for Geiger and his family, but it was also great for Geiger and his God, you know, heard from the Lord on what we'll be teaching our church in the next season.
That is really thankful for the whole of Miriams incredible, incredible and particularly for our life group leaders too, for us and the disciples team of what that means. How do you guys 12 month run and we can equip and resource with the service series? You know right now in your role, JT, you know, this is the passage we're going to be in the second week in January, the third week in April, you know, this, I was going to say the sixth week, it was not a six week, the fourth week in June, like, you know, and so we're able to create resources and content and really pull together all that our church has to get to get to, we really want to feed you the listener, life people leaders and people in your group really well. It works so hard to put it all together to feed our people the best, the best we can.
Yeah. And there's a lot of thoughtfulness within that for what we've got to say to the entirety of our church over this next run. And God breathes on it, man. You know, I come from sometimes a little bit that not spontaneous, but sometimes some churches have been like, Hey, week by week, we're just going to see what God wants to show up and just see what God does.
But this, the preparation allows for spontaneity. Yeah. I'm not against. I mean, I want to say open to the spirit from absolutely 18 months out to 18 seconds to be in the moment.
But sometimes people will, um, will think that if it's spontaneous, then it must be more spiritual. Really, you have a, that's really a low view of God. That God is limited to working in the moment. Theologically, we believe it.
We teach us and deep dive in the theology and the mission of God course that we do that guy because he is eternal. God exists outside of time. So God sees the moment I'm recording this with equal clarity and vividness that the moment somebody's listening to this, he sees both moments at the same time. He sees the moment he leads me to teach the book of Daniel with the same, he sees that with the same clarity that he sees at the moment, somebody at Maris and Anna is, is sitting there listening to the book of Daniel Thaler.
And God is able to work in all of those moments, you know, he's over all of the moments and he steps into each moment. So you know, Paul talks about 1 Corinthians 3 that he laid a foundation as an expert builder that we want to be intentional because we're building the lives of people by the word of God, one, one break at a time, one verse at a time, one chapter at a time. And we don't want to haphazardly do that. We want to, we want to pour into our people, the people that God's given us to serve with great wisdom.
We want to do it as intentionally and as shepherdly, lovingly as we can. Yeah, incredibly grateful. I think I've asked you once, what's your favorite one? What's your favorite one coming up in the next 12 months?
I think your response, what's up with something. The one I'm doing right now, the Jeremiah 2911. I got a little bit of a glimpse of that in every week, just something called story time with our stand. You gave us a little bit of an overview of this sermon series, life, hearing your enthusiasm for it.
Man, this makes me fired up. I can't wait till we jump into this one. So why don't we just go there and just give us a little overview of this sermon series and we can walk by the different weeks and pastures here. So we're spending five weeks talking about life.
The scripture talks a lot about life and really emphasizes the brevity of life. There's verses, we'll open week one with a verse in Psalms where David recognizes that his life is a vapor. James repeats that, the New Testament writer, the half brother of Jesus repeats that in James 414 that this life is a vanishing vapor. It's like June gloom in Southern California.
It's gloomy until the sun burns it through. It's gloomy just for a little bit. The haze goes away and that's how short our life is. So we have one life.
Let's make the most of this one, the one life that we have because it's a gift from God, but we realize that it's really, really short. And we have to be careful. We don't read these passages through our Western lens or the lens of those of us who have so much disposal of our own time and resources because we live in such a time where we can read blogs about how to hack time to get more out of it. That's not the wisdom that you see in scripture, that scripture is not against those things, but realize that most of the people who read the Bible throughout history from all different cultures and all different generations, many of them didn't have control over their own schedules.
So you had groups of people enslaved, you had people oppressed, you had people to make ends meet, they don't have a ton of liberty over their schedules. And yet the scripture is saying, hey, make the most of your life, make the most of your time, which means it's more than the casual advice we see on all of us. This is a yolo. It's much deeper than that.
It's much deeper. Hey, you've got one life. More than what? More than what?
It's how you live, how you think, how you approach the one life that you've been given. And how we think about time, which I think you're going to talk about. We've once first of all, making the most of time, because we all have been given a limited amount of time, then we too, making the most of your gift, your giftings. So everyone, all of us, we have spiritual gifts we receive when we're born again.
And then we have natural abilities we receive when we're physically born. And people make a big distinction between those two. But the reality is they're both given by God, spiritual gifts and natural gifts, both gifts by God. How do you steward those well?
And then week three of resources, the resources you have are a gift by God, your career, your relationships. So the reality is this is essentially a stewardship sermon series. God owns all these things. And the time he owns the resources, he owns your career, he owns it all.
He owns your relationships, they're all a gift, everything you have a gift from him. How do you steward well what he's given you? How do you make the most of the one life that he's given? Yeah, that's great.
It kind of reminds me of a conversation I had in my life group a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about looking back at Philippians in contentment. And someone asked a pretty good question. I think it comes up in life groups about, okay, I'm trying to understand the tension, make us not attention between stewardship and managing what God has given me and maximizing the gift of the resources for him and for his kingdom versus contentment.
So how do I have a appropriate view of like drive and I work hard but not get trapped into the cultural story around it's your effort and your energy, but also not into this sort of laissez-faire, well, God's a control and I don't really have to activate anything and he's going to do stuff and I'm just going to remain quietly content. I think that's a great question. Yeah. And that shows that that question has been asked for somebody who wants to obey the Lord, who wants to do it right.
And they are wrestling with, is the ambition wrong? How much? Too much. Hopefully, this teachers will be helpful that, hey, your career, it's great to go all out.
It's a gift. Your career is a gift. Your relationships, a gift. I see this as one who said, it's not that we love people too much.
She said we love God too. You know, because people sometimes ask the question, I'm worried if I love my boyfriend. Yeah. Too much.
Well, I love my boyfriend. I love God or my wife and what I love God. And see this and listen, the problem isn't that you're loving somebody too much. The problem is that you're loving God too little.
You know, if you if you love him first and the other things they, well, Jesus said they didn't take care of themselves, right? First left person lives or all these things will be given to you as well. That's it. I've heard you say before, I mean, there are some things we would say barriers towards steward, steward being well, the resources that God has given us scarcity.
Am I going to have enough? Am I going to be supplied? Or I've heard you talk about even the sin of porta and how that late and how we outward but God has given us to maximize that for his kingdom. How board up could be even a barrier for how we steward the resources that God has given us.
You want to talk about that? Yeah, I do think I do think boredom will cause people to spend money on things. Totally. I just kind of feel alive.
I'm self is missing. If I get this, I'll then feel a lot. Or I mean, boredom will cause you to make some really unhealthy relationship decisions with your life. I'm bored.
I'm going to, I mean, sometimes how people will have affairs on a spouse or how they'll chase something in the hookup culture, you know, I'm bored. I need to feel alive or I'm bored with my career. I'm bored. I'm just bored, you know, it causes people to make unwise decisions.
When you get bored in your career, you can, you can deny steward well that career because you're spending your whole lunch hour looking at job work. Yeah. You know, you are, you're not content. You know, you're just all, there's something missing all the time.
And the reality is that boredom really, I didn't come to this realization for many years, but if I read Mark Lo Jones, he said that boredom is always in some sense a life of sin because you're not looking at Christ because if you're looking at Christ, you're never bored because Jesus is never boring. He's never boring. So even if you have a mundane job, if you're looking at Jesus in your job, Jesus will breathe meaning into that career. It's good.
You know, he preached meaning into your relationships, your relationships take on new, new purpose and new words when you realize every person you're in a relationship with is creating an image of God and you were there to point that person towards Christ and to give grace and receive grace from, from each person. So, yeah, boredom can disrupt all of those things. That's right. This is great.
So I love it. Can't wait to kick us off. We're looking at making the most of our time or gifts or releases or relationships or career within this service series to give us your expos, so life, your beliefs, you want to maximize that conversation. Yeah, because when you're a group on serving, it's a great way to challenge them.
Do something, Matthew. You have a gift. Come on. You're good at this.
Fine. Fine places are. There's so many places to serve within our community. Right.
That's it. Jump in. The gifts that we've been given are not just for us to hunker down and hold on to those things but to live that out for the sake of others. And on deep dive, the algae mission of God.
Yes. We're running that again here. It's going to be taught live by you and I had said, sir, on September 20th, life, your leaders look for more information about that. Anything else you want to say along that deep dive course we have life for leaders?
I think our hope would be, I say, I think I know our hope would be that over a several year period of time that all of our life groups will go through the different deep dives that we have. We have it where you can watch it as a group and then we have where you know, you do that your home when you meet, but we also have where we offer live different different deep dives throughout the year that you could come together as a group and make that your group experience. Either way, it over a several year period of time as a life group leader would be really awesome for you to know I as a leader have shepherded my people theologically. Meaning I've helped my people think big, great, awesome thoughts about God.
So theology means thinking about God. I've helped my people think the right things about God, the beautiful thoughts about God, the true thoughts about God. And so all of our deep dive courses are theological in nature and we currently have three deep dive theology, history of God, image of God. So this fall is theology and the mission of God, but then we have all of them on video.
Yeah, I can make this all available for you. They broke up by heavy too. Your wife, Kay is also leading a chorus. That's for women's, but it's called them how to study how to study the Bible.
It's got to be incredibly excited about that. And I read the same night on yeah, September 20th. Yeah, she's doing that case on that for women in our church. She's done that for all of the so the pastors that we have that have lives though they can't take some on every street each year and my wife does and this year they spent time going through this material basically well case of teacher.
So it's really nitty gritty practical. How do I study the Bible? Kay, Kay like lays out different study Bibles how to use them, how to do research, how to ask the right questions, how to approach attacks. So if you're like, I really would like to read the Bible more.
I just want to be sure I'm more confident in doing it. Sometimes a lack of confidence in approaching the Bible is why people don't spend more time than the Bible. But maybe you're been a Christian while and have never done that. Of course, like that case, each and that this fall is great.
Yeah, my wife enjoyed it and she's going to be leading with those table groups. And so life groups, discernment based discussion questions you have that those are readily available for you deep dive and women's life groups. You've got the option to with case course coming on this fall as well. So that's a little bit extra everyone besides just talking about this great sermon series.
But man, there are so many great things ahead of us. I went this fall, but in the next several months ahead, so thanks so much. Thanks for spending time with us. I appreciate you and I'll see you and we'll be back with you this Friday as we look at week one in life, making the most of it.