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 to the Life Group Leader Podcast. My name is Dallas, I will be your host, and I'm joined by...
Kim Hamilton. Hey, Kim. Welcome. Excited to be here with you.
This is gonna be a fun conversation. This is gonna be a fun conversation. Because we're in on the table, which we're not holding any punches back for the questions. But this one specifically, why does God care who I sleep with?
Mm-hmm. I'm so grateful that we even have the opportunity to have these conversations. Yeah. To open the door and to lean in and hear what God's word says.
And to be transparent and honest, sometimes about some tough stuff that can't wait heavy on us or can be a beautiful growth thing in our lives. Like, do you even have these conversations? It's amazing. Yeah.
And for you, Life Group Leaders, maybe there's a sense where you might be feeling, I don't know if I want to have this conversation. This would be a really good week to skip or I'll be fair experience. Yeah, let me stick this week. Our encouragement to you today is to lean in.
To lean into this conversation, I think there could be some really great fruit that comes with it. I think it also can be really awkward. So we want to prepare you for the conversation. And I hope it is a really beautiful conversation that you have.
So the first one, lean in. If there's ever a week to make sure you do lean in and to really make sure everybody answers this, this would be the week. Why of all weeks would this be important for people to answer the lean in question? My answer would be you've got to break the ice.
You've got to help everybody relax. Because if you feel any trepidation about having this conversation, you've got to know everybody in the group does. And to just break the ice like this, it's going to be OK. We've heard things our whole life.
We've maybe made mistakes dating, or married or whatever the situation is. But this conversation is going to be OK. We're in this together. Yeah, so we're going to answer this because I think this could be fun.
What are some helpful, humorous or hurtful pieces of relationship advice you've been given? We're going to break the ice for you. We're going to have some fun. I thought of some silly and some serious things that I liked.
Like play hard to get or date somebody else to make that person jealous. Or don't look at them. Like just silly things way back when you're starting to date. But then remember to work on yourself first.
Instead of changing the person, remember you're preparing yourself for who God has for you. Things like that. What people would remind me. Don't look for the perfect person.
Look for the person God wants you to be. And dating in that was really valuable in my life. I went down to humorous. Great.
And I can picture my pastor growing up saying this goofy. And he would say, if you're wanting to date, chase after God. And as you're running after God, look to your left. Look to your right.
If you see someone cute with the opposite sex, grab their hand and run after God together. And he was in it all the time. And it was the cheesiest thing. I've never been able to get it out of my head.
And now as I've gotten older, I'm like, oh, that was actually really great advice. He was so goofy in the way he said it. It was so hard for us to understand. But it was actually really helpful of, hey, pursue after Jesus.
And if you see other people pursuing, that should be the people you should date. So it was really helpful. But goofy would all laugh and stop, stop, stop. Corny enough, it's stuck with you, though.
It's stuck. And it even sticks with you after you're married, because your main goal should be pursuing God. You're very single. That is what you do, it's supposed to God.
Yeah, you're pursued. You don't look to the left or right. You can do your eyes and left on your right. But it's the same thing with purity.
Purity is a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle purity forever. And pursuing God, just stop pursuing God. All right, so we have fun.
Just stop pursuing God. It's not pursuing God. It's a lifetime. It changes everything.
Yeah, that's good. So hopefully everybody is answered. You've been able to talk. Oh, that advice, that's good advice.
That's funny. You've all been able to do some cross talk. The ice has been broken. So we look to God's word.
And we want you to read both of those passages. Read from Genesis, read from 1 Corinthians. And this is where everything will take a turn. And we kind of want to walk alongside, how can we have this conversation, what's best for the group?
So what could be some reasons? I guess I'm going to do my own float questions. What could be some reasons that people would not want to do this? And what could be some reasons that they would want to go down this path?
The people in your group, think of life group, your life group, make a group, provide some reasons that people would back away from this conversation. And what are some reasons people would lean in? And I think it's good for us to know the demographic, other people who are coming in, for us to meet them there. For sure.
For sure. I would think something that would keep us back from wanting to really embrace these passages and glean what it's saying is if we make mistakes along the way, or we're in a place where there's some guilt and shame that just blocks a willingness or the ability to even absorb what God is saying, that he wants our very, very best. He wants to cover as a protect us. But if you are carrying extra things that have hurt you, sometimes it's really hard to hear, see, participate in.
Yeah. It's like there might be people in your group coming in with a lot of pain in their past. And they may not have even shared it with you in group time yet. It's something they're holding onto.
So I think for you as a leader to be aware of how can you shepherd them? How can you create a safe place? Having everybody answer that first question is one way to do that. But if that person comes up and shares, hey, what do you learn about God's design?
And it's like, well, that's God's design, but here's how I did it. And it's not the same. And then you have these thoughts of, I've messed up so much. I don't think God can love me.
I mean, you just walk down a spiral that I believe that both of us have seen that. So I think for you all to be really leaders to be mindful of the people who might be coming in feeling that way. And then there's people on the other side who just love talking about this subject. And for a plethora of reasons, but how can we make sure they don't control the conversation?
Hey, I'm so glad you're really excited to talk about this. I can think of a couple people who'd be excited to have fun, but know that there might be people on both sides. This is a painful conversation. For other people, this is fun.
How can you just be mindful of that the whole time you're going in to the conversation? Especially there's a story that comes out that has some pain and it don't be afraid to sit in that space. You don't have to get through every single question in the order that they're written. But if there is a breakthrough and there's at least a willingness to participate and communicate, sit in that space, even if it's uncomfortable, let them share and see what God has in his word for that moment.
Would it be appropriate to even pray for them? Yeah, right then and there. Yeah. And you just build your heart out.
As your group, we're here for you. Let's stop, let's pray. Let me remind you of the truth, things about you, the things that God says about you, that you were his, Ephesians says you were sealed. John says no one can snatch you out of his hands.
The Father loves you. So just reminding them of their identity and who they are and we can do that as pastors. But you're their leader. Oh yeah.
So much more. So much more coming from you and what a moment. There's been moments in my own life where we've stopped and prayed for couples. And some of the most beautiful moments have come from that time.
For sure. Memorable for the entire group to be able to experience that together. So you're looking down at scripture and then you're going to look out and you're going to see some of the cultural norms that you've heard in conversations that are happening in our culture. And I think this is, it can go down a really dark path here because our world is so broken.
And it's so loud. It's so it's everywhere. You cannot miss it. It's so loud.
Yeah. So I think one of the beautiful things we do with live groups is we always point people back to the truth of scripture. So making sure as you're looking at those cultural norms, like you're spending just the same amount of time of pointing people right back to what God's word says. And I think it's important.
And you can use some of this. I've gotten this from our senior pastor. We live in the upside down, the upside down kingdom that most of the time if culture is saying it and doing it, most of the time not every time, the upside down kingdom the way God wants us to live is probably different. It's counter cultural.
It's a path less traveled. That's right. So helping them, this could be so helpful for the people in your group to have a full all encompassing view of God's design for sex. And maybe there's someone in your group who disagrees.
We point them back to the supremacy and the truth of scripture. Because one of these questions says, how does sex affect people mentally, emotionally, spiritually because it's all encompassing. And the best way is to lean into truth. What is truth?
What do we know is true? Because we're thinking all these things. And it just spirals around in our head. But when you pour truth over that and God's grace over that, make sure you get back to that.
Because that's where the power is. Yeah. And point people back to truth. I was, I guess that question, what is truth?
I was a truth as a person, Jesus. And John, it's like Jesus and Pilate, Pilate asks Jesus, what is truth? And Jesus, I am the way that truth in the life, like you hear Jesus's words all in context. That truth is actually a person.
It's a Jesus. It's in his teachings. It's who he is. It's God's word.
The word is inspired. That's so good. So helping, always pointing people back to the truth of scripture. So I hope that it might be good for you as leaders to really read through these passages of scripture and make sure they're locked into your heart.
So you point people back to the truth of scripture everywhere we go. So it comes from a place that you have absorbed it. You own it. You know it.
You believe it. If there's places you need to wrestle with it and pray through before in life group, then I think we hope you take the time to do that. So you can step in to be a space that can facilitate conversation well. Yeah.
And then you're going to end. I really love that Eric's illustration with sex and fire and the fire pit, the boundaries. So spend some time there. But also, I think Kim, you said it well, don't rush through.
If there's something that's coming up, like sit in that moment. So maybe it's just praying this week. And that's my prayer for you guys is to have that discernment at the moment to be interruptable. How interruptable are you?
Or you can have your agenda to get through these questions because you might feel uncomfortable. But sit in this moment. This is how you can shepherd your people. You get to point them to truth.
In these questions in this topic, you're pointing people to truth. You can have a beautiful time of shepherding. You can remind people of their true identity. You can have a beautiful time of prayer.
There's so much potential for this conversation for you as leaders. So I hope that you spend some time in prayer and preparation for the fruit that can come from this. Well, for sure. Yeah.
This topic in and of itself in our society has caused so much pain because of choices and misguidedness and not knowing the truth of Jesus. So to acknowledge that pain, that that might be there and come in equipped with your armor on. Like, you know it. You fully lean into Jesus' power for this night and allowing it to go where it needs to go.
And as a pastor, the people in your group, they're not going to answer these questions with me on the patio. Right. Only down there any answer these questions is with you. They have to feel safe and trust in the room.
And you all have done such a great job of that. We're so thankful for you. We're praying for the conversations that you're going to have this week. Lean into them.
We pray the Holy Spirit guides you every step of the way. The Holy Spirit has prepared you. You are more prepared for these conversations than you think you are. Your people trust you.
You have built those relationships. So we're praying that this is a really fruitful conversation for your group. And we can't wait to hear the stories of all that God is going to do through this conversation. But more to come.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for all that you do. Live your leaders. We love you.
We are here for you. Please reach out if you need anything. And we'll talk to you soon. Take care.