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 to the Life Group Leader podcast. We are walking through our teaching series called My Anxious Thoughts, started last week, sorry, we started two weeks ago.
And now we're gonna be walking into week three as we look at another important passage of scripture that's gonna help us during this time in many people's lives where it seems like anxiety and worry, fear, and depression is on an all time high. And I believe that the work that we have done over the last couple of weeks has been helpful, not only in our week and teaching series, but in our group discussions. And Life Group Leader is before we get too far. I just wanna say thank you.
The work that you're doing in these groups is so important. Creating a safe environment for us to share what we're going through is a beautiful picture of what the church gets to be, because we're not just shouting into the wind about our fear and our worry. We're matching it with God's word and standing together and praying for one another. And I'm really excited for this week because it's gonna be a super practical discussion and an opportunity for you as you practice these seven spiritual rhythms.
This week I think is gonna be a really good one for your group. So with that in mind, Jeremy, welcome to week three. So excited to sit with you again. I'm excited for your insights.
Can you give us just a big picture overview of what we're looking for this week? Yeah, so this week we're going to look at a passage that maybe a lot of us are familiar with where Paul tells Christians in Philippi not to worry about anything and to be anxious for nothing, but instead of worrying we're to offer all of our Thanksgiving and our praise to God through prayer. So our weapon, the weapon that we have against anxiety and my anxious thoughts is gonna be prayer and Thanksgiving. I love it.
And that really is prayer and Thanksgiving. We're heading into the Thanksgiving season. So it's just, yeah, it's just a great word to remind ourselves that gratitude and Thanksgiving is not just something that we do in reaction to blessings and gifts and the things that we have, but it's actually a proactive approach to combating the anxiety, the stress, the depression that we may be feeling. Is that true, Jeremy?
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I hadn't really thought about that way about it not just being reactionary, but as believers, when we train our minds, we train our hearts to constantly be looking to the goodness of God, and that becomes our weapon. Philippians even says that as we do, the peace of God will guard our hearts in our minds. So we gain kind of this armor, so to speak.
You take a Paul's letters to the Ephesians and the armor of God, as we use this weapon that we've been given of prayer and of Thanksgiving, we also are putting on armor as well, just to kind of get through the day. So yeah, I love that idea of proactively learning to focus on the goodness of God. So as you think about our leaders and the work that they can do between the time of listening to this episode and leading their group, what's something that we can do to really get ourselves in the right mindset or to be as spiritually prepared as possible for what God may do in our time together as a group? So this week, we're going to have a, one of the spiritual rhythms, we're going to have time set aside for prayer.
And so I would really encourage leaders to not only take time and prayer themselves this week, but to look over that activity and really focus on, okay, how can I leave my group through prayer? There's some passages that are mentioned, some additional verses in the surrounding Philippians passage and also a passage from Romans where Paul talks about what can separate us from the love of Christ. So really again, focusing on the goodness of God compared to all the things we could face in this world. So this week, maybe even more than some of the others, knowing that we have this extended time of prayer to practice together as a group, really be ready for that.
Like take time, think about how you'd like to lead, think about the people in your group and what they have maybe already shared already in the series or previously. And think about ways that you can phrase the prompts, the questions, whatever, in a way that's going to be meaningful for those in your group. This might be a week where you want to communicate with your group that we may need a little extra time. Just, you know, once we get into these kind of prayer experience weeks, it's helpful to, a make sure we got our childcare taken care of if you have kids represented in your group.
And then secondly, to just clear the calendar for a little extra space on the back end, because nobody wants the prayer experience to be diminished by always watching the clock. So I would just encourage you to do that. And then we're going to get into it just a few minutes, and then we're going to get into the page 18 and the leader guide is really this designed prayer experience that Jeremy has put together for us. So thank you so much for that.
Anything that we need to kind of, you know, we can do to make sure that our time is the deepest possible. I'm thinking about that prayer experience. And I would imagine that there are some questions and some things that we can do to kind of have a runway into the prayer experience. Anything that we should be paying attention to.
As we begin looking at this text from Philippians, just to remind people that there, again, there is a difference between caring about things and knowing that they're important and that even causing some worry, so to speak. And what the Bible talks about of going beyond, I have a valid concern to being overwhelmed or distracted or bitter or even enslaved by these things. And so take some time just to reiterate again, what we're talking about when we say anxiety. And I would even say both as a way to help the conversation and a warning on something not to do, we've kind of alluded to this in some of the previous episodes.
But I think of this verse in particular. This is the very first verse I ever gave to my wife when we were, I believe we were engaged at this point, we gave her a little note card. And so worrying and anxiety and things like that have just kind of always been a part of the way she's wired. And on the one hand, it was very helpful.
On the other hand, as I've learned more just spiritually and about life experience and the mind and the way things work, it's easy to take this verse about like, don't worry, just pray. Just give thanks, be joyful always. Kind of use like slap that on like a biblical band-aid and say like, see, all better, like, just don't worry about it. Just pray and you'll feel better.
And yes, the Bible's clearly telling us, don't be anxious, but pray about all things and be thankful. But that's not going to instantly change all of our situations. Maybe things going on around us, maybe even internally in our hearts and minds, but it does begin to draw us into line with what God has for us. I'd also point out that this text, I recently went through it with our life group in the book of Philippians.
And just to remember that this comes at the conclusion of a letter that Paul has been writing and the Christians in Philippi were worried about Paul. He was in prison. Is he going to die in prison? Is he getting what he needs?
There's all these other false teachers kind of causing division within the church at large. Like what should we do about these people who are doing these other things or saying these things about Paul? And in all of that context, and Paul keeps pointing them back, look to the example of Christ, set an example, do all of these things. And then in conclusion, he says, be joyful.
No matter what's going on around you, pray, give thanks and focus on these other things. So even pointing out the context of this letter helps us from misusing this command, this instruction within the Bible to be something that it's really not intended to do. Great insight right there. I also just going back to the story that you shared about your wife.
I think what's fascinating about this passage is that even the way that Eric has titled it, you have a weapon. Sadly, this is a verse that we have weaponized against other people, right? Where we just go, hey, you don't have to worry. If you worry, you don't have faith.
If you're worrying, you're forgetting your identity. It's like it can be so dismissive and so frustrating. It can also cause a lot of relational division if we use this against people. But instead, I think what the invitation is as a group here is to not just flippantly tell people, don't worry, you're disobeying God if you're worrying.
No, the reality of circumstances are going to cause worry, fear, anxiety. There's also a lot of stuff that's causing anxiety and depression that goes beyond just simply behave differently. Eric had that point this past weekend in his message. And so I'm really hopeful that we don't just tell people, don't worry, but in everything, pray.
I would rather just set up good healthy prayer experiences together or we just say, man, I'm so sorry you're dealing with that. Let's take the time to pray together and believing that that really is the best thing that we can do in biblical community anyway, right? So Jeremy, are there other pitfalls or things that we need to watch out for as we approach the prayer experience? I think if the main thing you've already touched on is after we kind of walk through a little bit of the text, maybe referring to any points, things that stood out to people from the sermon that they learned, that the spirit really impressed upon their heart, just the main thing to kind of look out for, be prepared for is just making sure you have enough time to really have some meaningful times that aside for this guided prayer experience.
So let's get into it. Why don't you walk us through just how do we have this good, effective prayer experience based off of what you outlined for us? And then I'll take a minute after that, and we'll kind of talk about extended prayer that is happening at this weekend message that attaches to this. Yeah, great.
So I kind of have this broken up into two things. The first few bullet points are to help people kind of prepare their own hearts on an individual level. And so following the instructions of Paul here, so we start off individually just taking a few minutes silently to identify the things that we're grateful for. Like what are those things that we're thankful for?
Bigger, no matter how seemingly insignificant they might be. Like if you're having a hard time identifying like big things, just, I mean, I'm grateful for a cup of coffee in the morning. I don't know, like it doesn't have to be these huge things. And so taking a moment just to orient our heart towards gratitude, big or small.
Then identifying those things that we are prone to worry about. So if I want to focus with gratitude, but where am I tempted and prone to drifting into worry and anxiety? So just kind of taking a moment not to dwell on those, but to acknowledge them personally. Just real quick, Jeremy, I like what you have here on page 17 is this question.
What is the greatest source of worry? I think it's important as groups that we don't just list out the things that we're worried about, but that we try to categorize and get one layer deeper and say, well, really, what's the source of that? Just to get beyond the surface level, this is another way that I think we can have deeper conversations as a group and not just say, yeah, I'm worried about, I'm worried, I don't know, I can't even think of an example right now, but it's like, no, get beneath that. Why is that the thing that's causing your worry, your concern, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Because that's where things always come down to that heart issue. Like where can we really help people see that God is a good father and that he loves us and is going to provide for us. And we'll talk about more of those things next week, even.
So yeah, identify the things we're grateful for, identify those things that we're prone to worry about and the sources of those things. And then as the leader, holding those things in our minds. And I've recommended Romans 828 through 39, which is the passage I mentioned about how God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes. So that includes even the challenges, the difficult things.
God can take even the hard things in our lives and use them to produce good fruit in our lives. And then he continues to list war and famine and nakedness and hunger and even knowing Paul's on testimony. We can only imagine the things that he's been through and he concludes that even in Philippians, that I've learned the secret of being content, right? Like through all these things, those circumstances don't define my relationship with God.
Nothing can break my relationship with Christ. So just kind of pray that over your group and then coming back to our Philippians text as a group, look over versus four through seven and the things that we're grateful for, we're rejoicing for back and verse four is where he mentions to rejoice always. So going back and taking some time, just to kind of praise, like if you want to do, say some kind of popcorn or someone shouts out a word or a phrase, you don't have to shout, generally in room, but you know, just kind of speak up. You may have a group that enjoys something like that, but just praising God and then, you know, thinking home again for his goodness and trustworthiness and then moving kind of beyond the text where we read where he talks about focusing on all the things that are good and uplifting and true and pure.
So, and we also have a time of confession there again, where we're not necessarily the things that we're worried about having a kind of sinful, inherent nature to them or even the fact that we've worried about them being sinful. Like you said, it's not necessarily a lack of faith, but I found myself worrying about these things. So I want to give them to you because I trust you, because I know you're good. And so leading them through that process and ultimately in the end, surrendering those things that they worry about after they've spent time praising God, thanking him, seeing how faithful he is.
It's a great structure that you've put together there. I'm looking forward to hearing the stories that will come from these things. I think that true freedom will be found in a way that we can pray for these various aspects of our life and also praising him for the things that he is and has done in our life. One way that I've done this with my group before is to hand out a whole stack of sticky notes to everybody.
And you can kind of create the time where we're going to write down the source of our worrying concern and you take it one sticky note per and then you put them all on a wall and you can kind of visually see all of the collective concerns that we have and then deposit to pray for those things to take the time to pray for him. And then repeat that pattern again with all those things that we want to praise him for. And it's a nice counterbalance to see that there are as many things that we're praising God for as we are concerned about. And just to see those things visually represented on a wall, even to see where we share some commonalities and things.
So just a thought on something that our groups could do together. Depending on when you're listening to this, we have an extended prayer experience that's happening within our weekend service on November 6th and 7th at all congregations. And this is something that we do occasionally, maybe six or seven times a year. We will create an intentional moment at the end of our service in response to the teaching.
In that closing worship session, we will create an opportunity for our elders and prayer team to be available down front. And anybody is welcome to come forward and receive prayer. And our elders are there if it's a need for any kind of healing, emotional or physical. And then our prayer team is there for all other things.
But based off of the message and based off of what God starts to do through His Holy Spirit in our lives, this is an opportunity for people to come forward and not leave the room without having someone stand with them and pray for them over various circumstances. And so the prayer experience may be kind of a deeper invitation to say, did you go forward? Did anybody go forward? This is a chance for us as a group to pray in community together.
It also may be a praise of like, hey, we went forward for this thing. And just two, three days later, whatever it is, God has already done something in our life because of that. That's beautiful to be able to bridge between your life group and the weekend experience. Because the weekend experience is not just consuming church.
We are there to learn and to worship and to grow, but also on these specific weekends to pray. And so I'm hopeful that God's gonna do some beautiful things. I'm super confident that He will in our extended prayer time and I'm hopeful that it'll happen in your group as well as an extension of the weekend. So with that in mind, Jeremy, any other final thoughts for us?
I'm excited and really hopeful to hear stories from this series and maybe even especially from this week with the prayer experience. So I know you've asked for that, but if any group leaders can send stories, we just love to hear what God's doing through some of these by groups. That's right. We get a by email so you can shoot an email over to John Thomas or myself and we would love to read and celebrate those emails, the stories.
I don't want to celebrate more email, but I'd love to celebrate the stories that come in those emails. And so please send those over to us. All right, we are praying for you. Hope you have a great week.
We'll see you for week four coming up.