Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcasting. This week the 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. Alright, welcome leaders to week eight, the final week of this year's On The Table, serving series we're really looking forward to jumping into this discussion this week on how much we should love our country, how much of Christians love their country. This is going to be a really enriching conversation and I've got, I'll say that for a while, but first time on this podcast, ladies and gentlemen, the Sausage of Passport, Mariners, Oceanside, Mr.
Chris Martina. How's it going everybody? Chris, thanks for jumping in. I really enjoy having you on this.
Yeah, tell us a little bit about how long you've been at Mariners, your role there for many folks might be the first time. Just get to know you a little bit. Yeah, I've been with Mariners Oceanside for just after Mother's Day. I started, so it's been a little bit over eight months as part of this church and so it's been pretty exciting.
I moved back into the Oceanside area so it was kind of neat to be back in a place that I was really familiar with. Yeah, I mean your story is incredible. Oh God, waste nothing and use our stories to ultimately glorify him. We're going to have to get to all the twists and turns here on this one, but man, if you guys ever run into Chris, ask him to tell the story.
Just give us a little bit about that. As you talk about returning to Oceanside, what's that journey been like? Yeah, no, for sure. I left eight and a half years ago up to Northern California, so to come back into Oceanside, it was almost a little bit of catching up to what God was already doing when I left.
So being able to catch up, hang out, get to know some of the ministries that I've already started when I left and now get reintroduced to people, people were flourishing, connect with the churches, networking with other people, and also just going back to a city that I love praying for, walking, many miles praying for the city, praying for its people, and now getting back into being a pastor and being a part of it has been brilliant. Yeah, awesome. So great. And just give us, what are you seeing down in Oceanside?
I mean, eight months in, so you're in your third time through about with rooted roots down there. That's right. Yeah, so actually, when I first came in, it was kind of halfway through my first rooted. That's right.
I remember welcome. Here we go. That's right. Jump right in and then got to experience my first ball rooted.
And then now it's just with winter rooted, just kind of almost halfway through or already halfway through. Just being able to see people begin to flourish. I mean, I've got some great stories as far as how God's used rooted into kind of leading some great Marines as part of Oceanside who first, you know, been a part of our church and seeing how God's using them now. Super exciting.
And I've seen some now Marines who are now facilitating rooted and with other Marines. So it's been a great opportunity. Yeah. So we'll talk a little bit more about that.
I mean, obviously that thematically just fits really well into what we're talking about. This weekend about how much Christians love their country and of course being down at Oceanside, the high population of military personnel, our longstanding relationship with the Pendleton. This is a really relevant conversation for everyone in every context, but we're going to get to hear about it. Supernatural ways.
We're one of the main points of Eric's message about love here, but long for there. Love here. Love where God has placed you, long for there, long for heaven, long for eternity. And the way that we can long for that is we actually showcase it here currently by the way we love our cities.
And so there's some unique incredible things that are happening down there in your leadership that we'll talk a little bit about here too. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, why don't we jump on in.
The main passage that we're looking at today is Act 1726. We'll read that in a second. Eric also makes reference to a few other passages in the message. Romans 9, 1 to 3, but really the passage and acts is going to be our anchor.
But before we look at that, we've got our lean in. And as always, the purpose of the lean in is to get people talking at question number 1 because the more they talk at number 1, the more they talk at number 5. That's ours. All right.
So it says, what are some of your favorite places to visit in the United States? Are there any places that you love to visit that you have not yet? Yeah. What pops off for you there?
Gosh. I'm going to talk about the California. It's kind of neat to have the opportunity to have been up and down. It's hard to leave California because there's so many things.
Especially with kids, young kids, we just said, hey, it was too expensive to travel outside. So we did a lot of inside traveling. Went up to like Tahoe, which is one of our favorite places. Also Yosemite, being in the camp in the Valley of Yosemite.
We did just travel outside to Sedona, Red Rock, being able to do some of those journeys, little slide rocks. So kids then take a day trip out to Grand Canyon, being able to kind of check that out. Maybe walk 100 steps down and say, no, we're not going to walk this with our kids. And then come back up to the Grand Canyon, so maybe next time.
So definitely those are some of my favorite places other than Hawaii. I mean, we've had it in honeymoon, five years, you know, anniversary. Those are some of my ultimate favorite places. Yeah, anywhere on the bucket list, no for you within the States?
Oh, man. You know, it's weird is that, you know, after high school I took this trip across the 10, all the way across the United States, went back up, and came back on the 40. And so I have like this next goal of going across the 80, and kind of hit all those northern states, maybe kind of hitting out in Russian or... A little treacherous, yeah.
Oh, yeah. No, most definitely. But I'd love to kind of go through and just kind of see... Some areas, I mean, since I've not really explored, I can't even say what it's like.
But just kind of say, hey, I'd love to say I've hit pretty much every cross the United States. And there's one little pythry I'd love to do is hike the Appalachian Trail. Yeah, I love walking, and I'd love to be able to... I don't know if I could have like two or three months to be able to take that time, but at least maybe a portion of it.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. And I'm similar to you grew up in Northern California. We've been down here for 20 years.
I mean, California has just got everything, every kind of landscape imaginable. We're really spoiled for choice here, right? Whether it's Tahoe is just fantastic. I mean, Big Bear's great.
I mean, big Bear's had mammoth is great. But Tahoe, what's the easy Tahoe for the first time? I don't know how blue that water is. It's just unbelievable.
Big Sur, you know, so many beautiful places. I've been, I think it went to the Grand Canyon. I was really, really young, but we've never taken our kids there. It's kind of one of those obvious.
But every have friends that come here, especially friends that come internationally, that we have to go to the Grand Canyon. A lot of our British friends. It's like, we gotta go to Grand Canyon, and we gotta go see Las Vegas. It's about our bucket list.
Okay, great. So we haven't done that. Zion National Park, I haven't done that. Actually, we just got it.
I forgot about that. I did actually with a group of friends. And then we just got out and went to Zion, and then also, oh gosh, what's the other big one right there in Utah? But again, just beautiful locations, beautiful areas.
But I think still nothing beats California. Yeah, that's the best. Great. We sure will travel, but yeah.
All right, so why are we asking that question? Well, have you grown in appreciation of the beauty of where you live, what you've seen, you know, the intentionality of God's creation, how we enjoy that, how we love where God has placed us on the beauty of that. Absolutely. So, some of the tip behind that question.
All right, then we're going to get into the passage here. And the question related to Acts 1726 is, what does Luke, who, Luke is the author of? The author of the Gospel of Luke but Acts. And then we're going to get into the passage here and when we live our lives.
Another way to ask that question of, what do you notice about, you know, the places that God has sent us or where we live? What do you learn about where we live from the passage? Just in different ways that you can ask that question. So, oh, we had a short passage in the Christmas and I will interact with it here a little bit.
It says this, Acts 1726, from one man referencing Adam, Adam, and Eve, he made every nationality to live over the whole earth. And has determined their appointed times and boundaries of where they live. All right, well, short verse, but lots of truth packed in there. What are some things we might want to draw out from that passage here with us?
Yeah. I think the first thing that really stands out is actually just knowing this is, but sometimes we're always thinking, there's times where we're going, oh, I wish I could live in the 20s. You know, I wish I could have lived in this era because this was happening. That I dig and lean in question actually.
You can go live at any time in history, what would it be, when and why. So, you're exactly. You're toolboxing, got an extra question. No, definitely.
But the reality is, is that God's put us exactly, in the season we're at and in the location we're at, so that we can do what he's called us to do. And even just even moving up and down from California, I started recognizing, hey, God has a plan for me when I was down here. And then when I moved up for eight and a half years, he had used me exactly the way he wanted me. I mean, I was in the desert at times where a hundred degree weather for like three months.
And he said, hey, there's still a purpose for what I've got you there for. That's great, beautiful. Not almost definitely. Yeah, I love that the verse celebrates uniqueness, yet uniformity, it celebrates a specific, you know, places where we've been placed, but also there's a celebration around diversity about you made every nationality to live on the whole earth.
Like there's great intentionality and how God has set the boundaries that we live in and celebrating the ethnicity of the world. Like there's a lot of scripture and knowledge is that. And it lives out. So we should appreciate that and love where we've been placed and understand that.
I would tell people sometimes too, because they would find out that I moved from Southern California to this little town in Tracy. Like, why would you ever move from Southern California? Nobody knows Tracy. Yeah, I know Tracy.
And so if you were driving from down here to Northern California, Tracy's a town. If you go all the way up that way from 80, if you don't go across, hey, we're passing. You stop there and then you stop at Liverpool. Exactly.
Exactly. So I would always tell people, hey, the grass is green or where you water it. You know, so I would always tell people saying, hey, this is where guys put me, I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna move that way. And then I'd also tell people, I could be miserable in Oceanside as well.
So you can kind of choose, hey, where is guy gonna use it? A little more difficult to be miserable there. I mean, Tracy, just the name, Tracy. You're happy to be in the right.
I'm definitely glad to be back. Great. Also, let's move into the lookout portion here, a couple of questions. It says, do you find that it is more tempting in America today to love one's country too much or too little?
Oh, wow. Man. And then another question, what does it look like to the faithfully when people may be pulling us to either love or love or country too much? All right, so both of these questions are talking about polarizing extremes.
Where do we see that? How do you see the love of country either compliment or conflict with our love of ultimately the kingdom of heaven? I mean, you can go loads of different ways here. Chris, talk to us about how you might leave this question, how you might respond.
Yeah, I mean, it's been good to kind of meet people from all different walks of life, all different seasons of life, and now do different parts of our state. And I think sometimes the way that I found, or at least how people would reflect on how they've seen our country, sometimes it depended on how good things were in their life at that time. So if things were good at that time, they would say, hey, I love this country. And if things weren't going well, they'd say, oh man, this country is just going downhill.
And it just would also just depend on the seasons of their life. And somebody would blame him. So I don't like my country. So I love my job.
I love my country. And so sometimes it was more about what they were getting than less about what was going on really with the country itself. And so the way that their condition of life really reflected a little bit of that. So I've just seen kind of a little bit of that polarizing side of just kind of like how people look at that and going, hey, it's not even about too much.
It was more just, and this is just not giving me enough in this process. Yeah, and that could swing on both extremes, right? Yep. Maybe your localized experience of what you're experiencing through your lived or your place, has just been one of just bountiful blessing of blessing after another.
And it's hard just comes alive for it. It's a harder experience. Yeah. And right now it's even hard to even tell people whether you love or don't love your country, too.
I think that's also right now. Most people are just even silent, no matter what you want to say. It's just like, should I say this? Should I not say this?
So now there's also that hard part of going, I'd love to tell people about what I love about this, and to be able to do it. But I'd usually start from a different place as well right now. That's right. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah, of course, we're living at a time where there is a lot of polarizing conversations around how much we should love our country. How do we show our love of country? How is that displayed?
And again, looking at the passage, God's places where we are specifically for a reason, for a time, sets that boundary. And we should steward that opportunity really well. And we should love and appreciate our country while recognizing that it's not the ultimate place that gets our devotion and our affection. And like any love where it's a disorder, that's what adultery is, right?
It's love that's disordered. And so there's been some where it's maybe there's been an over expression of love of country, and then on the other extent where there's been an over criticism of a rejection of just why do we even have about? And so you can find extremes of both. And so I imagine in my group, it's going to generate a good conversation.
Yeah. And most people, at least for us, even in the notion side, we do have a lot of families that have military ties. So people who have retired, who are US Marines, you have Air Force Navy, you have everyone down there. So you bring up the topic of country, and now you go, OK, what does that look like?
You're how you're going to speak it, because then there's more apps. Sometimes people will kind of want to defend what their families are fine. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, too, this conversation obviously really quickly a political one, too.
So to find what you mean by country, what's your view of the country? What party do you associate with? What's your ideology around politics? And it's a lot of identity, virtue signaling around politics where we love my version of America.
I don't love your version of America. Right. So I try not to start there with my conversations. I'll usually start somewhere else, which kind of is, I think that's where the next question kind of helps me kind of go into it and how to dive in with some people about it, how to really love people who maybe either love or love country too much.
So there's some really neat opportunities. I've always kind of had this view partly as a church planner before when I was in Oceanside. I always used to start with this phrase. I go, just go check your mail.
And one of the things I love doing was when I was in just wherever where I live in Oceanside, I lived in this long, like the cul-de-sac, and at the end of the cul-de-sac was always this mailbox. And I would just always tell people, saying, I would wait until I saw somebody go and check their mail, and then I would go and just check their mail. And I would just rifle through my mail and talk to some people, come back, and then it could be an hour or two later. Not that I was just staring at the mailbox, but I just had my garage open.
And again, just waiting to just have some good conversations with people, how's life, what's going on? And again, there's so many different topics that you can start and wait for people. So yeah, yeah, your heart, your initial advantage. That's your world, I love it, fantastic.
Okay, let's move into looking in here. Couple of questions to work through. At the heart of Eric's message was an encouragement to love here and long for there. How does it practically look out to live that idea out?
How do we love our context while longing for eternity? And then how can we love others with a love of Jesus, regardless of how they think about American politics or other issues, all right? So how do we live that out? How do we live out in love for here and long for there?
No, for sure. I think if we do not really look at what is our, why are we here for what's our purpose? What, you know, there's this idea of, we are longing for having this time where we get to encounter our amazing Lord. And I think that if we miss that opportunity and why we're doing it, we're gonna miss why he also has us here.
Otherwise we're just going to live here. And again, this is a great, at least Southern California is a great place to live. We've got great weather, we've got the ocean, you've got so many different activities. And you can just say, hey, I just, I love to live in this place, but not really why should you love it?
And that means that you have to love the people that are in it, the advice and diversity in the people. But then also going, hey, why did God connect me with these people in this season? And this time and for us, the notion side, it really is connecting with marine families, connecting with the military, connecting with the, we have an opportunity to sponsor four battalions with our church. So guys use those opportunities to be like, really reach people in this season.
Yeah, I love that you're highlighting that. Because yeah, we do live, I think one of the best places in the honor for you to really, really do. And we could love it just simply by consuming the resources. It could be a fan of the place by what it does for us and plus you're seeking it.
You're gonna find all of that, every opportunity here. But that's different than serving the place and loving the place as Jesus has loved it and looking for opportunities to steward what God has given us to serve others. And I think, yeah, we should say setting the bar really an example of what that means, where you've been placed, the high concentration of military families, how to serve them really well in practical and practical ways, perfect example. We're loving here and longing for there.
And I think this weekend we're gonna highlight that too, about how we're responding to the needs of our cities to love our cities means that we serve our cities. That's it. I love this. Just wanna close with this.
Will Warren, a C.S. Lewis quote from Eric concludes his message in this one, I really think it encapsulates the heart behind the passage and the message. C.S. Lewis once said this, that if you read history, you'll find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.
In a sense, Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world, that they have become so ineffective in this. So to show your love for the present world, you do the most for it now, because you're showing the most of the next rule. I love that too. We just don't look with our eyes on eternity and just ignore the strain of circumstances now.
No, we look to bring eternity into the present, the kingdom into the present, that's the prayer. Your kingdom come, you're really done. All of it doesn't have it, we cooperate with God's Spirit in that. So we love here and we long for there by serving our cities with the Lord Jesus.
It's absolutely awesome. Yeah, there's a couple of phrase that I hold on to. One is like, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. So like how much are we spending time really loving the communities that we're there?
And if we're not spending that time, we have a message, we've got a great message to be able to share it. But if they're not seeing that we care about them first, and it doesn't matter who I found, whether you're in a school, whether you're in a military, whether you're someone on the street, you just gotta show them that you care. And if you start with the hot button issues, you'll never get to really where you wanna go, but you just gotta continue to care for them. It's good, well said, Chris, awesome.
Okay, thanks for joining us. For your first and not last time. I'm honored to have your podcast, love having you on here next week, with the beginning of your series, right? Stories Jesus told, looking at the parables of Jesus, they're challenged, they're relevant for our everyday lives.
So we'll look forward to jumping in with that one. But join us this weekend, gonna be a great discussion, looking at love of God, love of country, how do we love our cities, and serve others as Jesus has served us, okay, great weekend. All right, Chris, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
All right, we'll see ya.