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. Hey, Life Group Leader is Dallas here. Welcome to our leader podcast.
And before we jump in, I have an announcement. We have, I made it seem like we have a big announcement. Like something bad is gonna happen. No, it's some good.
I've air-curred with me. We have a Life Group Leader, huddle coming up. We would love for you to join us on that night, October night, you are gonna get the magazine for upcoming series. You are gonna be the first ones to see it.
We are so excited. We're gonna walk you through how we ask the questions, how we structure our Life Group questions that we're gonna talk about in just a second. So we'd love for you to join us. We're gonna talk about outreach weekend, which is coming up, how your group can play, how your group can make a plan for the rest of the year.
So join us on October 9th. Dinner is provided, of course. We wanna honor you, thank you. So hope you join us on October 9th for the Life Group Leader huddle.
Check the Friday weekly email for more info on how to register. But air-curred, thanks for joining us. Hey, Dallas, I wouldn't miss it. What amissus?
This time. What is the topic? Well, the topic's on a, especially understanding creative ways to overcome it. That's right.
See, I thought you've been reading my diary. I have been reading it. I've been posting it on Facebook. You know, I gotta tell you, is it the old adage tragedy plus time equals comedy.
Anger almost blew open my marriage. I've been married for three years. A year and a half into my marriage, I did not know it, but I was an anger monger. I was out of control.
And so this is a subject I understand. It's personal. And man, if I could help anybody overcome it, it's worth it. Yeah, that is so great.
It's a great lead in question. Yeah, walk us through even just a little bit of your story, like what was something, because I would never guess you, anger monger. I would never put that for you. So walk me through.
What is something that changed? Well, first of all, I was one who didn't understand or literally I was blind of my own anger. And I'm a nice guy. So a church and anywhere out in the community, people loved me.
People thought, what a pretty guy. Underneath I was seething. I had not realized that the anger I saw displayed in my own home. My, both my real dad and my stepdad, both were alcoholics.
And they expressed incredible anger, both psychologically, verbally, spiritually and physically. And so I grew up in a very angry, very controlling situation and abusive. And I didn't realize I carried that into my most intimate of relationships. In the city of my life.
Yeah, wow. Imagine how many people like your leaders, how many people in your groups who might be in that right now that might have that anger in their relationships and their jobs are holding onto that. And this, I think this is a really powerful series. I remember sitting at week two, Eric is teaching and he kind of set the stage for, oh, look at all the red rage.
And I'm sitting there like, yeah, this is a great message for everyone else to hear about anger and quickly realized, oh, wow, this is, this is for me too. My righteous versus unrighteous anger. And Eric shared something like every time we're angry, we can always convince ourselves that our anger is righteous. And how many people maybe in your group are lying to themselves and believing that lie?
Yeah. And so to your point, you're either aware of it and you excuse blame or minimize it or you're unaware of it, which I was. Either way, it's destructive in relationships. So whether you're blind to it or whether you're aware of it and you blame, excuse it, minimize it, either way is incredibly destructive.
How would a life group leader go about having that conversation? So I'm leading a group and I can clearly tell this person is so unaware of their anger. How would you breach that conversation with someone in the group? Well, you teed it up for me because it really is your own story.
Every one of us to some degree or another from a spectrum zero to 10, 10 being rage, have experienced anger. And so I think when you lead with your own story, you're able to address it at others. Like being able to ask somebody, what have you been struggled with anger? I sure have.
And you lead with your story, which gives them permission because they're not going to be judged. They're not going to be laughed at or mocked. We're going to deal with it all. That's really good.
There's something about our stories. So, so powerful. I always tell people your story is your story. No one can tell you.
I know that didn't happen. And I believe our story of coming to Jesus is the second greatest story ever told. So use your story. Well, absolutely.
Like for me, I do a lot of marriage work. And I work with men and women who are abusive. In fact, usually by the time the marriages get to me, there's abuse going on all the time. Profanity, name calling, demeaning, condescension, yelling, you know, and sometimes physical.
Well, I'm able to step right into the middle of it with gentleness and humility. But I won't permit it. Yeah. It's always destructive.
It's always wrong. It is unhealthy. But I can do that because I lead with my story. I say, I can't judge you, but I can lead you out.
Yeah. I think this could be a really special time for groups as you talk to your repentance and strongholds. And imagine that I can only imagine there are people in your groups who are struggling with this. And this could be a really great opportunity for our life group leaders to help bring that strongholds.
And repentance isn't just a rooted thing. It's a all the time thing that we all need. And you have a really great opportunity leaders to help someone start to break that away, break that outer layer of anger that we bring into every aspect of our life. And I think this first question can be fun.
And just to see where people are at, like, can you remember a time when you turned your anger into a humorous or lighthearted moment? And what happened? And I just, I'm immediately reminded of my time at the DMV. And I was so frustrated.
And I remember looking at this, she's like, do you have this document? This not like, there was no way I could have had all these documents. I'm driving back and forth from the DMV home to a Kinko's print shop. I'm printing everything.
Like, I was so angry. And the lady was just, she was so gracious to me. And I remember laughing in that moment, like, I'm so mad over paperwork right now. And so I just turned it into a lighthearted moment.
And also with my wife was so mad at me for embarrassing us at the DMV. I own that. But making it a lighthearted, funny moment of, I'm so mad at paperwork right now more than anything. Yeah.
I was at a political restaurant. It was a rehearsal dinner. And I cut it in my chimichango burrito. And it was a fire hose of orange grease that went all over the front of me.
And in that moment, everybody looked at me like, how is he going to react? Frankly, I was put in a tin. Yeah. It's never at that.
And now I've got to go the whole night with this big heart. Are you saying? Yeah. And all of a sudden, I just start laughing, which led to everybody else laughing.
Yeah. And, uh, but man, in those moments, you can turn anger into a kid flip. How would you have responded, you know, at the beginning of your marriage if that happened? I would have let the, uh, the server know it.
I would have let the manager know it. I would have embarrassed my wife. Yeah. I just was uncontrolled.
And I felt justified in my anger. Yeah. And I think, uh, it's something, it's something this summer that someone said was understanding maturity in your walk is the things that you struggled with. They become fewer and far between.
So if you think of a music, metronome, instead of boot, boot, boot, you know, as a younger Christian, I'm struggling, boom, boom, boom, but as I grow and I'm a sure in my relationship, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, further and farther between as I grow. So I see that happening even with anger. And that's what you're describing me, you know, like, I love and so incredibly 517, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. So oyster comes in, you know, you're a new creature.
And then the, the era is tense. The old things keep passing away. Be old, new things keep coming. So we're in a men of morphicists.
It doesn't happen all at once. Like when I finally began to let go of anger, the metronome is a perfect illustration is that I found myself less and less with unhealthy anger because Holy Spirit was operative. I didn't give myself any beachhead for it in words permission. And I look now and I just don't get angry.
I mean, expressive anger sweat. Yeah. I mean, I get angry. It's just an emotion, but I don't, I don't exude.
Yeah. And that kind of goes to one of the questions in our lookout section. What are some creative, unusual or even shocking ways you've seen anger be expressed. So we're looking out into our culture, not you, of course, not us, the ways you've seen other people do it.
I just see that right. Like people that don't get their order right in a restaurant and they just let the server have it, you know, or somebody cuts off somebody, you know, getting into gas station, it's the cheapest gas and, you know, they, somebody cuts them off and they hit their horn. I remember I was in an intersection and this guy, the green light hit and you know how people are texting and then they don't go. Yeah.
This guy didn't move. And everybody behind me is hitting their horn. They started driving around and flipping them off and all that. Only to find out the guy had a stroke right there in the intersection, but they were yellow and others.
They were raging, but they weren't even aware of the circumstance. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. But I see it demonstrated all the time, especially I think during the pandemic, pandemic, we are way more anxious, hostile, you know, people, if you mean, I think something that Kettin really taught me was leaning into curiosity, be curious before I'm judgmental. And ever since I've started implementing that, I can get really angry at this or I can lead with curiosity. When I start to be curious, I start to ask questions.
When I start to ask questions, I see that person made an image of God, oh, they're having a really tough time. Oh, there's other factors involved here that I'm not aware of. Like if I was in charge, I'd make this decision differently. Great.
But I'm not in charge. I don't have all the information to have that. I'm going to be curious. I'm going to understand their story.
And it's, it really has helped me and my anger to be curious. And you know, it's interesting and that James one that Eric spoke on the second week is that literally one be quick to hear slow to speak, slow to anger. And it's that pause. Well, quick to hear what sometimes it's even our own self observation.
We're talking to ourselves like, why am I so angry right now? What's really going on inside of me? Because like one of the things that used to prick my anger was when I'm dismissed, when I'm ignored, because in my home, literally that was going on all the time, I didn't matter. Like, like my stepdad would say, if I want to know your day, I'm feeling so would have asked you.
Well, it's just like I didn't matter at home. And so what happened when I came an adult and as a believer, if I get dismissed or nobody cares about my opinion or whatever, I get angry. And now I catch myself. I go, it's all right.
Yeah. I have to be invited. I don't have to know what he has to ask me what my opinion is. And so I know what's going on inside of me.
And that's to me, one of the insights to overcoming unhealthy anger is your own self talk and being aware of the circumstance so that you are quick to hear slow to speak. Cause I used to, it was, it was just, it was a lightning rod. Yeah. You know, especially sort of use, Oh gosh, criticism.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, my mom and stepdad, constie, criticism, and I brought it in my adult life. And now criticism, hey, that that's somebody's opinion and I can embrace it or not, but I don't get angry. Yeah.
And I think for life group leaders, this is your unique opportunity that people in your group are going to go to you many times before they go to even SS staff members, when things are happening, they're going to go to you as our life group leader over us as pastors. And this is a really, if we can give you something practical with shepherding is asking questions is being curious. There's more to the story and understanding where people are coming from. And then you get an understanding, Oh, you've been walking with this.
You've been carrying this on your shoulders. And it's a really practical thing to care for people that I would maybe encourage you this week. Was it look like who's a person that got his put on your heart throughout this whole series losing it? That might be in your group.
What does it look like to invite them out? I know there's some time I was watching a bubblegum piece. It's a show for kids and you've never seen it. And I was just watching it and there's this guy, his name's grumpy and everybody's afraid of grumpy.
And one of the characters just went over and asked him, how are you doing? Why are you grumpy? And he, the character was like, no one's ever asked me that. And his whole character changed in that moment.
And it's as simple as asking a question. I know that's a cartoon, but it's in real life to ask. Absolutely. Well, and you think, you know, like, you know, one of the things in life groups is always learning best practices, like being able to ask the question, how some of you really felt like you've grown in this area of self control.
We're not explosive in your anger, you know, like, because I had so many people that helped me when I was really struggling with hanging. And there's so many great nuggets I got from them. Yeah. Like, you know, one of them was again, not excusing, blaming or minimizing.
And those don't give yourself permission. And it's amazing when you like I remember when I came back at my wife, you know, and I said, Hey, I really am not going to use anger with you again. And like in in James one where it says, and the anger of man never achieves God's purposes. I know it was like a lightning bolt.
We didn't every time I ever got angry at her. She never said, thank you. And I know that sounds stupid. Yeah.
But I said, I'm not going to give myself permission anymore. And what I did is I said to my wife, Hey, if you ever noticed, I start to get angry, say, babe, you're doing it again. And I'll stop because the Holy Spirit resides me and I will not take offense to it. And I will stop because I never want to use anger, unhealthy anger, again, that's beautiful.
Yeah. And I think something just for life, your players that you're seeing here is where it's a great conversation. So don't if someone's having this moment and they're sharing story, like, don't rush it. Like this is, this is where we lean in.
We lean into that person's story. And Eric, you had a great follow up question. So giving our leaders the freedom, ask that follow up question, like, keep going to help that person. And there's many times when I've just celebrated that there's some weeks where there's I always lead a guy's group.
There's like two guys that were picking on during the week and they're not really picking on them, but everybody's talking and as we get going, like, okay, these are the two guys that I'm, that I'm going to laser focus in on that. Just need this material today that need what we're talking about. And it's asking more questions and which is why if you're sitting here, like, how did air come up with that question? That's such a great question.
It's full of questions. It's what we're going to teach you on October 9th. So sit with people, any, any last like wisdom of sitting with people in that moment, asking questions, like, how do you care for people? Yeah, because we started with being willing to tell your story, but also be willing to listen to the story.
Yeah. Because all of us have a story of where we were inappropriate with our anger and the destructive nature of it. And then to, to, um, if you will commit to walking alongside of, because what you might want to ask your group, hey, some of you may be a little bit embarrassed by it. But if you don't want to talk to me alone, man, I'm willing to walk with you.
That's like, I actually have two people right now. I text them every day. Wow. And it's thumbs up.
If they exercise self control that day, it's thumbs down if they didn't. And it's an accountability. And, and, but both of them have told me just the fact that we do that every day. They're mindful that this is something they struggle with.
Yeah. And I'm walking with them every day for 45 days to check. Wow. That's so great.
Yeah. So, so whatever it takes, because all you have to do life for your leader is to realize this is a destructive element in a lot of relationships. You know, there's a lot of strange, but between parents and kids, between neighbors and it starts with uncontrolled unhealthy. That's so great.
Leaders, I think you got your work cut out for you. Share your story, be willing to listen, ask great questions, don't rush the conversation. So our prayer for you is to have discernment as your meeting to know, okay, I think we need to stop here. Like we need to ask questions and that's okay.
It's okay. If you don't get through all of them, we didn't get through all the questions today. And that's okay. We had a great conversation.
And I hope this is kind of a model of what you can do for your group. So thanks for listening. We'll see you this weekend as we continue our series, losing it, and then we'll see you at our life group leader, thanks for being on the polls.