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 Life Group leaders to week two of Song of Solomon wisdom for your love life. May I be love this series.
We love looking at this book. It's a practical book. It's full of wisdom for real life applications and all of our relationships, no matter what stage or season your relationship is in, whether you're single dating, engaged, married, wherever you're at God's word has something to say with how we nurture those relationships in a way that is God honoring and also honoring of the other person. Speaking of the other person I'm going to honor right now, Mr.
Del Zevo. Hello. Hello. I'm actually not going to honor you.
I'm just great. I'm just great. I'm just great. I'm just great.
It is great. It is spicy. Eric has used that term a couple times. Spicy and ogy.
I love like even when Jared speaking a couple weeks and like seeing him blush. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun.
It's fun. I'm so bad that we're doing this. I mean how many churches are leaning into the book of Song of Solomon? Yeah.
And many people are like, where is that book even located in the Bible? Yeah. Like it's just overlooked. I've never studied it before.
You're really getting a really good notice. I'm hearing you. Yeah. Which tells you a lot about how Christianity and sexuality is often perceived.
You know, this dirty thing that we don't want to talk about, it's an old school view of it. Actually, we would say that culture at Warren says too low of a view of sentence. The hookup culture that using for adult recreational play. Yeah.
Oh. Christianity has a super, super high view sex because it's not just, you know, an exchange of two considering adults. It's something that's deeply, it's spiritual. It's in some ways a relationship with God and God gives about the stuff.
Yeah, we designed it to gift. All right. So we're going to do this thing. And this weekend, at least here at Irvine, it's an HSN takeover, or HSN conference conferences.
You can't do it. And that means my daughter, my freshman daughter, will be in here in the worship center, actually gets every week, every week, every year there. But I think as the conference is intentionally coming over all together to hear this message about an ancient tale of pursuit. So last week was about attraction.
This week is all about pursuit. So we've got some questions to kick around on that point. And leave them questions here for you next floor of your group. First is if you are currently in a relationship, describe who pursued who.
And then another one would be what images come to mind when you think about the word pursuit. What about you, Dallas? Go way back. Way back.
Way back. In the time machine when you and Kelly first heard it. How long has it been buried? We've been married eight years.
And we dated for about five years. We did it for five years. Yeah, all through college. We wanted to have degrees before we had rings.
OK. Yeah. I pursued her. You pursued her?
What did that look like? A lot of stalking. A lot of stalking. Actually, there was a little bit of that.
She worked at a coffee shop. And I would just go into the coffee shop. And we started dating. And I would continue to go in that coffee shop.
Anything I could do. Hey, I happen to be in the neighborhood. And I want to stop by. And I would drive 15 minutes out of my way to be at that coffee shop.
At that time of my life, I didn't even drink coffee. So anything I can drink these things. I can imagine you as a non-coffee drinker. I don't know.
You know so much about it. I know. I know. For kids.
But I mean, I would do everything out of my way. It'd be so inconvenient just to pursue her. That's incredible. So five years of showing up at her work every day.
You finally watered down. I mean, I didn't have to go. I don't have to try too hard. We never told me no.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great though.
There's some principles in the past that we're going to pack about that about the four month engagement and just and we wait for it and for it. And people often look at that. They got some madness. Marjorie, you get married so young so quickly.
And you know what I like for us, it was the totally the right thing. And there is something where I think people are getting married later and later in not all of that is by their people's own choose or sure. Never want to say that. Yeah.
But there is I think more increasingly sliding into commitment. A fear of maybe commitment that happens. Have you seen that? I mean, you're going to all pass away.
You can see a lot of people. Calist people around this. Data to support that average age within the last couple of years, the average age of people getting married is mid to late thirties in the United States, mid to late thirties. And it so many challenges.
I think the dating apps bring a unique side of that of yeah, there's there's commitment issues, but there's also a desire of, Hey, I want to figure out my career. I want to figure out this. And then I'll figure out those kind of like stepping stones to it. And one of the things that just to encourage people, even from your story is when you know, you know, so when you know, Hey, this is the person make plans, move as fast as you can to like to get married.
No long engagements like yeah, like that's what I love about our church. If I see an engaged couple, I'm like, Hey, when's your date? You're giving me a date a year from now. I'm like, let's just go meet in the Olive Garden at Mariners or not, like the restaurant.
Let's just make this official. Like let's just get you married. Let's enjoy. And of course, right.
We're not encouraging like being hasty and making a rational choices and everything. All of that for sure. But you're so right. Like the amount of couples that I'll see where it's like actually we're waiting for everything to come in like, yeah, waiting for X, Y and Z.
We're waiting for the to be able to purchase a house or whatever it is and I get that and I appreciate that. So one of the advantages that we have getting married so young is really like grew up together. Yeah, I got to discover that stuff together and really build that life together. And of course, you know, we don't want to mischaracterize people that are getting very lips and there's really good reasons.
There's thoughtful, thoughtful reasons. But also we shouldn't be afraid. But we know that's right. Like let's jump in and it shows that enthusiasm for one another.
Yeah. And it's going to be really helpful. Which I think Eric hits it in this in the series is the idea of the one. Yeah, like the one person for me.
And so many times I sit with people are single and they're saying, Hey, I'm just waiting for the one. Yeah, my soul. It's such a cruel joke of, Hey, there's billions of people and you're waiting for one person. Right.
I think there are multiple people who could be a great spouse. So tell yourself. If we are because we said yes to one. That's a good answer.
Smart. But you're sorry. I never talked about that a little bit of the season. The series overview.
Yeah. If one person gets it wrong. Yeah, for everyone. So sort of that mythical Disney version of it, right?
Yeah, we can miss out waiting for that. Okay. So we talked about pursuit look down at the passage now. We're not going to read the entirety of the past here, but there is some questions here that we could pull out the principles and Eric lists all of these out through the sermon.
What you learn about pursuit for the passage. What different forms does it take in their exchange? So what do you learn about pursuit from the passage? There are a few things here.
I mean, first thing we see is that pursue with time and get down to the text where it says, tell me, I'm going to my love, where do you where do you pass your sheep? Where do you leave them when you rest that new? That's that thing of I want to know where you're at. I want to be around where you want to pursue you with time.
I thought was also really great that Eric said it's it's not just for dating couples. It's not just for that pursuit. But even when you are married, it's super essential, even after you are married to continue to pursue with time. I thought that was a really great reminder for everyone in the audience.
So good. Pursue. Pursue. Yeah.
Pursue is what just happens and then you're down to enjoy life together. No, you constantly do it. Secondly, you said pursue publicly. Pursue publicly.
Where do we see that? What did you find from that in the passage in Eric's message? It was like, so you're reading how handsome you are my love, how delightful our bed is soft grass and it was something about like there was no PDA at that time. Right.
But you embrace your sibling in that way. Yeah. Like make it make it a public thing. Right.
And what's the beauty of a public thing? There's people around you. And you need to bring her around. Don't hide her.
Him or her for six months. Don't do everything in secret. Pursue publicly. Yeah.
And that's the imagery from the passage of you look at chapter one, 16 and 17, our bed is soft grass, our beams, our house of cedars, our efforts, our efforts, our side verses. In what's the implication? Yeah, we're outside. We're not hiding not in the uncle's door.
See, it says later that he brought me to the banquet hall and he looked at me with great love. Thank you all of course, it's public gathering. So there is something to be effective. We're doing this publicly, not in secrecy.
This isn't like we're keeping this on the down low just between you and me, you and me right now. And what's the reason for that? As you said. And I'm just in a relationship that it doesn't have to be this thing behind closed doors.
And there's so much in our culture where that is that right? Just swipe right and you know, and I mean, remain anonymous. And even when you see on Instagram, it's like people post the picture and say, I can't really see this person's face. I know there's another guy.
Totally. And then all of a sudden it's the big post and it's public. It's official. We used to call it Facebook official, but it's not really a thing.
It's not really a thing. DTR, I don't know what the kids say, something like that. That's great. And then also it says public pursuit increases wisdom from other people, but it also increases purity, right?
So then people can see and hold you to that that standard. But you want to hold yourself, hold yourself too. It's a great stuff in the passage. Let's go down to the lookout.
It says, how is the idea of pursuit changed in modern times? What impact has this change had on our relationships? It also says, what does it look like to hold on to biblical principles of pursuit modeled in this text and apply them into our time, context and culture? So we're talking a little bit about that where pursuit has become sort of a hyper individualistic thing or we don't walk with feedback from others where it's done in secrecy.
And actually, we want to celebrate that. We want to be encouraged by other people. Yeah, that's great. We got it.
So then we go to the look at it says in the text, we see principles of pursuit and a charge not to rush love, but to rather let love grow and awaken in its time in your current season, whether you're married, dating, engaged, single, whatever it is, how is God inviting you to balance these two realities? And another question, how might be God inviting you to pursue relationship with other the status of relationship is with greater intentionality or how might he be inviting you to trust him and let love take its natural horse? Right. Yeah.
So much to say, yeah, I really like that last question is how might God be inviting you to pursue relationships with greater intentionality? Right. Thinking through for those who are single that first time you're having coffee with someone starts there with intentionality of asking questions, public space, like asking the right questions. And even for those who are married, I have a date night planned with my wife this week, and this has been really convicting.
I don't know. I want to be really intentional with the questions I ask and how I'm going to serve her this week, really intentional with her and continue to pursue her this week. Yeah. And as you said, that happens for the beginning moments of how we pursue and how we can state our attentions in a really respectful way, but dating dating with intention, dating, dating intentionally, not in just a way that it's just recreational play.
It's using other people for our own for our own good. It's no. And having that deal, if this is an image barrier, right? I'm going to talk about this all the way through of somebody who's made in God's image, and I want to call out what I see, what I want to see in them.
And I want to show by sincerity in the relationship and letting others speak into it. And that happens all the way through, right? Every stage of our relationship. So again, I'm really, really practical and I love what you're highlighting too, that this is for every part of the relationship.
Like often people will wonder what song is this just going to be a sermon for married people actually, if you look at the first half of the book, right? And really what we're talking about, pursuit and attraction is applicable for every stage of our relationship really good. And I think you've got some stuff coming up, particularly for Thursday night young adults related to this. What do you guys have planned?
If you're young adult, by the way, you haven't come to threes and editors yet. You got to get on in there. Yeah. Great things are happening.
Yeah. Series on February 29th, we are at Thursday night course. We're going to gather 530 PM. You can grab dinner.
You can actually get it from our cafe. You all want to go. And then you can walk upstairs to the upper room and we're going to have a Q&A. And we are taking some of the most asked questions by our young adult community.
We've already asked them the questions and people got to vote on what questions are most important to them, which ones they wanted us to answer. And we are going to ask a couple of those questions. We're going to dissect them a little bit and we're going to let people connect and then go into church together. You can worship and hopefully you can build communities.
It's not a mixer to find the one. It's intentional with asking questions, getting to know people and learning about dating in the modern world. Awesome. Super helpful.
I'm really glad you're doing that. I'm glad you're doing that. I'm glad you're doing that. I encourage young adults along that healthy pattern of dating because how you date now impacts how you let your spouse later, right?
So really good, man. Awesome. Dals, thanks for your time. Thank you.
You're joining us on this and live your leaders. We will see you on your next week. Thanks. Bye.