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 leaders. Welcome back to the Life Group Leader podcast.
This is our final week of our series, Losing It, and I have my friend, Mireo. He is joining us on the podcast. I'm really welcome. So excited to be here.
We're going to talk to you. We are going to be following up from outreach weekend. How can your group make the most of outreach weekend? How can you join in on the energy?
How can you join in really on 30 years of relationships that have been formed and how can groups take apart that? And, Mireo, maybe the open question I have is, how can we as Life Group leaders begin to talk about this with our groups and inspire our groups to go serve? Yeah, first of all, Life Group leaders, I know you guys are doing an incredible job. Continuing to catalyze community and relationship within your groups.
I think one of the most inspirational parts about what we get to do, particularly serving with outreach, is the idea that we get to serve alongside a core tool has called us to tackle big problems and big things in this world that we potentially would never have imagined. And I think when we do this, we begin to see how big God is. We begin to experience how beautiful a world that he has created and the spaces where we often sometimes probably ignore or unaware of and begin to see his heart for it and how hard it grows and understanding what it meant to be Christ as he walked on this earth. That's great.
And from a practical standpoint too, is our outreach team has 15, 16 different opportunities for Life Group leaders to take part in that. Yes, yeah, and bring your groups. I mean, this is just a beautiful thing. You know, our previous senior pastor continues to say that group that serves together stays together.
And more often than not, that's because we get to see what it looks like to selflessly pursue beyond what is within the context of what we are used to. So on a practical level, it really does create a sense of community and connectedness within your group. And if I may, you begin to see different people's passions and purposes in rise to the level. And it's a very, what's the word?
It really begins to catalyze and spray its working in the group. And it's a fun experience when you get to serve. We have so many different experiences. Quite frankly, you might have a few areas of passion that are expressed in your groups.
So maybe you really are inclined to refugee ministry or work serving at the thrift store or the food pantry. But quite frankly, you can't go wrong. You can't go wrong by picking whichever serve experience you want. So if I told you have the chance to think through and try and piece out which one you'd want, go for it.
But if you don't know what to pick, again, you know, you really can't go wrong with it. Yeah. And even just seeing this last last while, here we went to Kenya together. Oh, what is it?
And what is it? It just, you like stirred up a memory that I had of we had a whole group there and we're seeing things or experiencing things or growing together. Yeah. And very quickly, you could see through our whole group, over all the different experiences you brought us to, all the different partners you brought us to meet and engage with, you could see different people starting, whoa, you have a passion for that.
Well, you have a passion for that. We all went in with the same level of knowledge, which was none. And we all walked away like, Oh, this resonated with me, this resonated with me. And the impact that that's had a year later, like someone from that same group is going back this year, going back as a leader, like a leader this year.
No, helping me to the team to see. Yeah. Other people have been on a zoom call with our partners continuing to talk and have conversations. And the only way that was possible is by getting a group of people outside of their comfort zone, getting them to serve and watching God do something in their heart.
And not everybody, it's not like if you go and serve with the OR, everybody's going to be out of this average passion, but it might stir something in one or two people in your group that never would have had that experience without you as a leader bringing that to them. Yeah. And one thing that I mean is worth explicitly saying is there is a risk, there's a relational risk, you're putting yourself out there to see what God is going to do around with you. There might be things in your life that you never really bring courageous enough to face.
But this is the moment when God brings it to head. And that's what we experienced in Kenya. So many of these people were talking about are serving now because God said something in their heart, he helps them deal with or face certain things in their lives. And now it's just a fantastic experience watching them do this.
And there's only that anchor point where you have this group of people who are able to call out and really pour into one another. And that's what I really hope for your group. So life could be just like, you will not just see people's passions come to surface, but as a group, you will just be the fuel for each other's passions. How they are they continue to pursue what God is putting in their hearts.
It's awesome. It's a risk experience. So you're risking, you're going out on a limb, but the reward that comes from it, the way your group bonds and leaders think back to rooted, who think back to put yourself in your facilitator shoes. It wasn't a like, Hey, should we, when should we, your facilitator was actually like, Hey, here's a couple of opportunities that we are going to do.
And we made sure that in your 10 weeks of your day, you did a prayer experience, you did a serve experience. We kind of, Hey, this is what you were doing. And look at how that brought your group together. And you might be saying, our groups already together.
There are depths and levels of relationships that sometimes you can't access those levels and depths and let you go and do something. So you're for your group. It might be just showing up to the store. You were saying, Oh, my group's there.
And it's this idea of, okay, what's your next step? Like you haven't arrived. And I can't wait for the day when my group, my life group, maybe we go on a faith adventure. You know, even we start Mexico for one day.
Let's go. Let's do it. You know, and I did it one day. We did one day with a faith adventure in Mexico a couple of months ago.
And just the relationships formed one day. It's so beautiful. Yeah. I feel that's the text to some of the people we met that time.
It's so exciting. Yeah. And I'm bringing back to what the discussion looks like. One of the things that is important for you to notice, we get to engage with individuals or people who would be considered as an outsider.
I'm thinking through just different people who come to serve and different life group experiences. I had a group where it was just so random where three people had actually gone up as refugees. And they never really thought about that part of their lives. And so they came to face this.
There was just a part of the story that they never incorporated into who they were. And God lovingly brought that into their particular space. And so I think there's an aspect of being able to see what's or who's marginalized that really begins to stretch our hearts, to experience what God wants us to do, whether it be to depend our relationship with them. How that risk factor or you're just an awareness of the people who are living outside of the setting that we probably would never have been able to even notice.
Yeah. I'm more experienced. I think about living in Irvine. One of the things that always, always is just really wild to comprehend is to some degree is considered as illegal to be homeless in Irvine.
And more often than not those who are experiencing homelessness are taken to a different part of the county. And so if you spend your time in Irvine, you go to work in Irvine, live in Irvine, it's very unlikely that you're actually going to see that level of poverty. But those are the people who go out and out and go outside. So sometimes we really do have to take an extra largest step, especially considering the community we live in, to see what it is that God has brought us beyond the spaces we've been able to live and play.
Yeah. So that's like, that's who we're serving. Let me serve without reach. Yes.
We're coming up all time as we serve. Yeah. So there's an invitation to one of the things that's powerful about it is, and I think of it as really Christ creating this level of connectedness, or I'm off to the race of Dallas, but I go for it, I'm creating this level of connectedness because it's easy for us to think of it as I'm coming into help and there is a practical nature to it that I won't take away from it. But the invitation we always want people to understand is the way Christ came to save us, help us was he emptied itself.
He let all that was according to him as a son of man and came as man to experience life as we do. Now I'm not trying to say, you go out and live like those who are living on the margins, but it's an invitation to empathy, to understand we're coming alongside people on a long term journey because the, you know, the greatest pain of poverty is a stylist. It's not like it's being ignored. Right.
And when people feel like they are less than, yeah, that's where the difficulty comes in. That's where the pain is people will figure out life if they don't have stuff. Yeah. But people don't know how to live if they're seen as less than human.
That's just taking away that dignity. And so in as much as we're responding practically to certain needs, the most important aspect of what we get to do is trying to restore dignity through relationship. And that's where the risk comes in because it's easy to come in and just serve, you know, put a few things in bags and get the practical nature of it there. But to sit in that line, somebody's waiting on the food pantry and get to know them, hear their story, empathize with them, pray alongside them and even share your own story around how, you know, what life looks like for you is where you see the risk coming.
And that's where it brought me to the very powerful and deep way. Yeah. I'm reminded of our VOR, voice of refugee. We served all throughout the pandemic.
And I would bring groups there. But I wouldn't tell them fully what we're doing. Because I just thought if I told them everything that they were about to do, they would say, no. So I would say, hey, let's go serve together.
We're going to go to a different city. You're out to see a different side of town maybe, experience something maybe you've never seen. And we're going to help people get food. What I didn't tell them was we were actually going to go deliver the food to their dorm.
We packed bags and the teams laugh in. Like joking, we built relationships. Beautiful. And then the time came, like, okay, all those bags, take 10 of them, put them in your car.
And we're going to text you the addresses. And here's the phone numbers. What? All of a sudden, we're knocking the doors.
And people are like, what do I say? I don't like have a conversation. Pray with them. People getting invited into homes and hearing the beautiful stories out.
And even for me personally, that stretched me. That stretched me in a way. I was like, oh, I did not know I was like the first time I did not know I was signing myself for this. And it's so beautiful restoring dignity, hearing stories, seeing that God is just so good.
Real everything. Yeah, amen to that. And I think, you know, honestly, testament to what has continued through that is that those families continue to build a relationship with marriage. Like the two, I do have doubt that some of the podcasts who have done that or have served in one shape for most size continue to do so and seen seeing these families build a relationship with marriage.
I mean, it's so much easier for them to see that we are here for that. We are the lights that God has asked us to be at the top of a hill. And it really is because of that, because of the relationships that have been built, because of the willingness to step out in risk and do that because of people being able to face that discomfort that comes across from it. And the thing I think about always is just the reality of going into a space like that and seeing how vulnerable the community can be on individual is, I think reflects a sense of, man, I don't know what I do with that level of vulnerability here, but I'd hope that that really reminds you that's who we were before Christ.
Yeah. Yeah. Without Christ, we truly were lost. Like we were, you know, spiritually poor before the Lord came and restored us in that way.
And so I think there's definitely a connection beyond the risk because there is really a deep experience. But I think it parallels very closely to the deep experience of money. Wow. That would be nothing.
We're not for Christ. Yeah. And we want your groups to experience that. We want you to experience that.
And I think even as leaders, yes, we are the leader, but it's a rest experience as well. So practically speaking, there's two ways you can say, hey, who wants to do a serve? Who wants to serve without reach? And yeah, yeah, sure, I guess we're leading that moment is, hey, in the next month, we're going to go serve together.
We're going to schedule a time leaders go on the life group leader portal. It's where we have just as life group leaders and serve champions, assign a serve champion to help you delegate that out, where you can see all the opportunities, bring one, two, three, and just say, here's one, two or three, like, which one are we going to pick? Everybody move something under calendar. Like that's the practical leading side.
And sometimes you just have to do that to get your people to experience this. There's who's on the other side of your obedience. Who's going to be on the other side? Who are you going to impact?
How are you going to be impacted? Because I think your group is going to be impacted more than anyone else. So leaders practically speaking, see that, come to our huddle this Monday night. We're going to talk more about this.
There are so many opportunities without reach weekend. And we want all of our groups. And I say all of our groups to take advantage of this. You're going to build out a plan and you are going to set a serve opportunity.
So get ahead of it. This is how you lead your group through that. Any parting wisdom or words for our library players? Yeah, I would say this.
I've had so many serve experiences and I know so much happens. It really is a little long-term discipleship experience within a couple of hours. And it's very easy for all of that to be put on the back burner because it is a lot. I think it has just like a, you know, reminding if you were given, like, maybe you'd love this.
But imagine if you were like a hundred pound steak. Absolutely too much to take at once. But I would say for you as like, repeat as an answer of champions, take time to process it. All right.
Pull your people back. And this has some new three questions. What did you see? What did you hear?
And what do you feel the mood is telling you? And you'd be surprised how much the spirit draws out as a result of that. You're going to take it to an extra level. Feel free to give people a practical next step of what ways would you like to get involved?
And ask your group the exact same thing. And I always, I'm a huge, huge proponent of the other, funny people. Because the world does enough to remind us how inadequate we are. Yeah.
But very rarely do we find ourselves in spaces. Where our community and people around us are reminding us of who got things we are. And you're going to see this happen. As people begin to serve, you're going to see certain things sparked in them.
Affirm these things. Ask your group to affirm one another and see what God does without that. And so I'd say take some time, reflect on it, affirm one another, and continue to pray that the mode would deepen your hearts for whatever it is that he has for you as a group. And so that's what I'm finished off with saying.
And there's so much that Eric discusses when he talks about this particular thing. There's definitely going to be a few interesting things that come up in your conversations about loving the city and realizing that the reality of some of the spaces you're going to get into really do have a political edge to them. But now I'm not full well that we've been invited to pursue it from a biblical perspective. Yeah.
So these may parallel or me, if I'm, hey, contrast with some of your own personal convictions or social beliefs. But nonetheless, I invite you to explore boldly how much the Lord has for you in that space. And so no fun well that it is quite the experience. It is like a small experience where you get a giant long-term discipleship output as a result of it.
So I'm going to tell you guys, man, let's go. Thank you, Maria. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Life Your Pleasers for listening in.
And we can't wait to see you this money for our help. See those? Yeah. See you one day.
Take a good.