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 back to Life Group Leaders to our Life Group Leader podcast. This is Dallas here, and with me is a special guest, Stuart Matthews.
He is a friend of mine. We have done some cool projects with 20s, 30s together and workplace. And today we are talking about making the most of your career. So who better than to bring you Stuart?
So thank you for coming on the podcast with us. So it's a pleasure, thanks for having me. So I would love to hear just a little bit, like what's your heart for the workplace, Christians in the workplace, commanding our workplace and our faith. I would love to hear just a little bit of your passion behind that.
Great question. So I could give you scripture, but I think I'll just give you a story, which is I think we all move through this spiritual maturity spectrum at times. And there was something that God started moving in me as my kids started moving through and into and through college was how are you gonna be used? It's a longer volunteering at VBS and I'm running a participating in a multi-year men's group, but it was this sense of spending all this time at work and how has God wanted to use me there?
And really the story got opened up that there was a Christian club structure in my office environment and someone that God put in my path essentially said, hey, there's this Christian club that we've got, but there's no one in it and there's no one leading it. And I think you're the right guy to do that. To which I thought, oh wow, this is an interesting moment for me. And God convicted me kind of like on the spot while I said, well, let me get back to you.
On the spot I was like, oh, this is why I'm here, right? It had been a journey through a variety of things that were difficult to land at that job. And we had been in prayer about what is that next job you look like and how's God gonna use me is not just about the paycheck and the stuff that you do, but it's about how to get to a fact of the kingdom. So the thing for me was this ongoing sense of wow, there really is a need and Christians really do want to live out their faith in the workplace.
They just don't know how to go about doing it. And having discovered that, I'm excited and passionate about it to teach people the formula of how to go about doing it. And I want you to teach them something. You shared this with me before.
And I thought it was so simple because I work at Mariners Church because didn't know that. And I'm pretty confident all of my coworkers go to church. That's a joke. So when we talk about inviting people or talking about church at work, it's really different for me.
So you said something that has really stuck with me that I share with other people, but I want you to share it. How it was an easy way to talk about your faith at work. Yeah. So one of the church level thing is actually having a level of empathy and interest in the other people, right?
So as Jesus calls us, love the difficult people around us. I think that's the first step is actually caring about the people that you work with. And you're not gonna love and feel the same level of connectedness to everyone, but really it comes down to if you care about the people you can lean in genuinely and have these kind of water cooler or post-COVID who knows what we're, you know, conversations. And just simply to ask someone about their weekend, but to flip the script a little bit, if you will, in a sense of offering up what you did at the appropriate time in the right path, which is to say, well, we were a church or, you know, if we're following the directive, we go to the Saturday service so that we're not clogging a Athenaeum service, right?
And, you know, we did this, that and the other, there was music, there was this or kids did that. And really what then happens is the opportunity, some people will say, oh, where you go? And you get to go off on the path of finding out and discovering your believer. Sometimes they'll just go, oh, oh, okay, right, oh, you go.
Oh, or other times it lands in and tell me more, right? And you get this opportunity to lean in and you don't have to, you know, lean in too hard and be disingenuous. It's really about sparking that conversation and using the opportunity to let them know your believer. So it's loving the people, if I could summarize it, it's loving the people that you work with, loving them enough to be in relationship with them, to ask them questions, a simple question of how is your weekend in hopes that they turn it back on you?
What did you do this weekend? Is an opportunity to share just a little bit of, hey, this weekend I went to church. This is what I learned, this is what I did. And I think that's really great for us as life group leaders to model that, to love the people that we work with.
But also, life group leaders, this is a really great way that you can share, you can share this with the people in your group. Hey, here's what I want to challenge you. Here's what I want to challenge our group with this week is I want each of you to find a couple people to just ask on Monday morning, how was our weekend? Or what'd you do this weekend?
And encourage them to, hey, would it get back to you? Tell them like, hey, I'm going to church, here's what I did. Like, this is really great thing. Like, hey, I'm going to church, here's what I did.
Like, this is a really great way life group leaders that you can challenge the people in your group. So I thought that was such a great bit of goal that you shared. But life group leaders, as you're going through these questions, there is a theme. We see it, you can see the lean in question, what was your first job?
How did you get it? That's kind of fun, like hearing people's first job, hearing stories briefly. What was your first job? Oh, foot locker.
Foot locker. And where in the polyester? Revery outfit, stacking boxes over my head. There was a work problem in the stock room.
I just got to tell you, it was just horrible. But learned how to work retail, just like Jesus, he worked retailing, learned how to deal with customers and learned to head in act for someone. I don't love it. That's great.
So I think these are stories that you can hear about people in your group that you wouldn't know. So I think it's super fun to ask that question. What was your first job? And if they have pictures, please show.
But there's this leader note in here. And it says, roughly a third of Americans are unsatisfied with their jobs. That's remarkable. So it's sad.
Yeah. Maybe I walk a little bit through like, how can we grow to love our jobs? How can we grow to look at our jobs as a mission field? Yeah.
Great question. So I mean, that's one of the things that we're teaching the 20s and 30s. So in the 20 and 30s, sign up. We're going to be doing some cool stuff this fall.
It really kind of comes down to looking forward with intent and having a plan of doing an assessment. What do I get at? What do I like? And I think most of us just get up, go to work, deal with emails, Zoom calls, whatever.
At the end of the day, we're tired. We go home, spend time with family and do it again. But somewhere in there, for me, it was going through layoff. And having to kind of assess, what do I like?
What do I not like? How do I sell myself for the next job? But in that process, it revealed that there is a methodology to building a five-year plan, especially for younger people. But even people in their 50s can have a five-year plan.
And we're going to, probably most of us, work into our 70s or beyond because our health and our medicine is so good. I think God, in today's verse, I was looking into the voscial, was Philippians 2, 13, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. And so I think we're all called in workplace to not all of us can be the creatives that can make a podcast like, you're good. Not everyone can write software.
But we all have gifts and talents that I think we're under-realizing. We get stuck from probably college picking the first job and taking it based on how much money it paid us, or the fact that we didn't have to move. But we really need to assess, what are we good at? And what do we love?
And how is God equipping us to use those talents to inspire other people around us? And sometimes it means leap. A lot of us are just so many people that are just bound by the job and holding onto the paycheck. But then realize later, probably through a layoff for some of the process, I don't need this much money.
And I could do something that would actually bring me joy. And it doesn't always mean join the church and become one staff or the church. I mean, it means you can be the kingdom wherever you're working. And so I really think it's about discovering what we're good at and taking, there's a test out there called the Clifton Strength Finder that allows people to figure out where they're good and what their passions are.
Highly recommend those things. And life group leaders, I think this is an opportunity for you to maybe speak life into the people of your group this week, even just a question of where I'm reading our questions. We're reading Genesis 126 through chapter two, verse three. And it says, what ways are humans set apart from the rest of God's creation?
You could really turn it to the people like, hey, how have you been set apart? What does it mean to be made in God's image or likeness? We're really looking at the passage. But later on in group, you can turn it like, hey, how has God uniquely gifted you?
How have you been uniquely wired and created? What are your gifts? And I just think back to rooted, when we go around, we're sharing our gifts. And as a facilitator, it's so beautiful to speak life into people.
And there might be people in your group who are part of that stat where a third of Americans are unsatisfied with their jobs that you could spark a little bit of life, a little bit of joy, or even just a reminder that God has placed each and every person exactly where there are to go be a light in a dark place. Yeah, that's a great point. I think sometimes it's not dissatisfaction from the job, but it's this feeling of you're surrounded by darkness or conflict. Lots of businesses have conflict, people that are trying to achieve a common goal and don't always agree.
And so maybe a lot of people can find comfort by, like you said, bringing light, but bringing love and empathy to the conversation instead of sitting back and watching the group battle it out. Maybe it's us facilitating and leaning in and saying, hey, what I hear being set over here and here is really not that far apart. But if we all were to just make this small compromise, we might be able to get there faster or do a better job or whatever it is. And so God gives us, as Eric's teaching us, God has brought the Holy Spirit that is in us, right?
And we've got to evoke it. But I think too often we sit there in our passive, hoping that something will sort of happen when really, we've got the Holy Spirit in us and we need to plug in and utilize it. And purposefully say, how can I affect the outcome of this business, this project, this goal, and or just let on these people. And before you know it, everyone's like, hey, Dallas is a great guy.
Well, let's invite him to the meeting because he acts the meetings go better. Yeah, that's such a great way of looking at it. I love that. And as we move on, we get to Genesis 2.3 and God says, to set aside a holy day to rest.
So we love to, I think it's a great question. Do you see a connection between the quality of your work and the quality of your rest? What does it like to rest? Yeah, so much.
So I think rest is kind of away from email and not being drilled by notifications and direct messages and all the other stuff. I think for me, I put on the calendar specific blocks so people can't schedule me and I use it for thinking time, right? So that's one and the other is, I just know at the end of so many hours, the diminishing returns of my productivity and creativity just falls straight off a cliff. Yeah.
So it's sometimes go work out, get on my bike, so my best thinking is on bike. Yeah. Right. And then I'm dictating the theory as I'm riding, hey, take a note, do this, do that.
And I am resting, but I'm not actively sitting at my desk feeling chapped and locked out. I just love that because God has, God has, God has wired us. We're all wired in different ways. I'm the same way of what I'm getting.
I know what I'm getting short with my family, when I'm getting short with my wife, when I'm just miserable. I probably need to go outside and take a bike ride. And the way God speaks to me on a bike ride, and it's not an audible voice, but there's road blocks in my head. And sometimes, oh, I should approach a conversation this way, or I should do this.
Oh, here's an idea. The way that God wants him just out in nature. And exercising the body, he gave me. It's just life so much better.
I'm resting in him. So I'm going to him. It's like a conversation that I'm having. For sure.
And God cares about our jobs. God cares about every little detail that you're doing. He really does care. Right.
And he wants you rested per your topic here so that you can glorify him. Because if you're hungry, tired, dehydrated, you're not going to glorify him. You're not going to glorify yourself. You're certainly not going to work at your best.
So I think it's really about a matter of self-care, mental and physical that allows us to be in the right place to be what we need to be in the workplace. So life-completers, you can ask a question of, hey, everybody, how are you balancing this work-life balance and I think it's more of an integration? How are you resting? How are you physically?
All of that matters. And maybe a last question that would be fun to ask for your group is, who would be impacted in your life, in your work team? Who would be impacted if you lived out the calling of your career? Meaning, if you looked at your job, your workplace as a mission field, and you love those people, and you're not there evangelizing with your words, but you're evangelizing with how you live.
Who would be impacted? Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that it just makes work. The days that every day for me starts with Bible and coffee pretty much, and there are Sundays when I'm just not feeling it.
And no matter what I read, and I flipped us on all my favorite chapters, I'm a little bit just feeling empty. But then I find myself as I move down the hallway and I move toward the door, oh, that's right. I need to be purposefully joyful. God, you've given me today.
And I'm just taking it so much for granted, because I'm thinking about all the junk that I got to do and the difficult people that I may encounter, and where my lack of energy, et cetera. And so I think it's this, my son gave me the book, Jesus Calling, and there's just so much of a call for joy in there that I think we miss, right? And now the plugging into the Holy Spirit. So we're putting on the armor of God, and we have to purposefully say, I choose joy, right?
Because it's a choice otherwise, if you don't literally put that on, you should walk out to go do battle in the world. That's right. Everywhere we go, we're doing battle, and everywhere we go, we're representing Jesus. Eric, as told me, hey, you're always a pastor.
There's sometimes where I walk out, I'm like, I don't want to be a pastor right now. I just want to be, like, I want to be cranky. I want to honk at that person. But I'm always, I pass everywhere I go.
Everywhere we all go, we are always followers of Jesus. For sure. Even into the workplaces. No, for sure.
Yeah. But that's it. We hope you guys have a great conversation. I hope you get to encourage and speak life into the people in your group.
And we make the most of our career, knowing that God has placed each and every one of us at exactly the place he wants to be. So, sir, thank you. Thanks for blessing us with your time and knowledge. Life of leaders, we're praying for you.
We love you. We're so thankful for you. And we'll talk to you soon.