Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This week the conversation is designed to equip and resource you 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. My name is Dallas.
I get to be, I get to be the host of the podcast, and with me, I have a good friend, Eric Hern. Welcome to the podcast. Oh, man, Dallas, there would be not one other place I'd wanna be than right here in your office doing this podcast. Right here, right now, I hope that you have bigger dreams than that.
Or do bigger dreams than to be with you. No, bigger, when you heard of here first, folks, I'm gonna get that snippet and I'm gonna just put it on my wall. So we can always remember this moment. But we're excited to be with you.
We're thankful for you leaders. I have really enjoyed the series that we're in. Week five, Stories Jesus Told. And it's been really incredible to experience parables in a different way.
I've always viewed parables like, Oh, these are cool stories that Jesus told. Jesus is just a great storyteller. But really, it's opened my eyes to see, Oh, Jesus is preparing us for something else, for something greater. And he's preparing us for the kingdom.
So it's been really fascinating to follow along with these stories. Oh, and I'm no different. I've been walking with Jesus 50 years and I still need to be reminded. You know, I'm in this world, I'm not to be of this world.
And so really, it's a unique paradigm that Jesus gives us. We should be living differently in light of the fact that the kingdom is here, the kingdom is now. And this one this week, I got to sit down with a group of people and we're reading scripture and we're just saying, we're called to live differently. God's kingdom goes against culture most often.
And we got to this point where we're reading and someone's like, it's almost like, Paul wrote this to us, like to our group right now. And it's so fascinating how God's work can just transcend time. And it's written to us and it's relevant for us each and every day of our lives. Absolutely.
And if we don't read it, we get again locked into this world and the world's values. And I really think this upcoming week or this weekend's message is another one that I'm reading through listening to it. I'm like, well, this is crazy. I've never read it.
I've read the story so many times, the story that the parable of the talents. But I've never like heard how Eric attaches it. He didn't add anything, but he just attached it to being prepared for the kingdom. And it really ties into last weekend's be prepared, not preoccupied.
Be prepared for Jesus' return, but not preoccupied with all the details surrounding it. So it's a really great one to punch this week. But we're leaning in, we're getting everybody to talk. And this could be a really fun conversation to have with your group.
So the question is, if you came across a large sum of money today, do an inheritance or something like that, would you be more prone to spend it and invest it or save it and just try to never lose it? Oh man, I know exactly what I would do. And that is, you know, every good steward needs to ask two questions. What's the lifestyle God's called me to?
And what does he want me to do with the rest? If I don't know the lifestyle he's called me to, I'll spend it all. Usually when we get a bonus or extra money, we think of spending it. But see, when you're kingdom minded, it's how am I gonna invest this?
And I would invest the money and basically give the kingdom efforts. Yeah. And I'm not a spender. I think there's even a, like a double click there because what you just said for invest is not how most people view investing.
Because you're investing into the kingdom, investing into people where I'm thinking, oh, invest, like I'm gonna buy a couple homes, I'm gonna rent them out, I'm gonna have income. Like that's my mindset of investing it that way. You just kind of flip the upside down kingdom on us, investing it into people. Well, it's the old adage is that the American dream is not necessarily God's dream.
Well, ownership may not be God's dream. His emphasis is the kingdom. How am I aligning myself with the kingdom? What God has called me to do?
And again, if it's not my money, he simply asks me to steward what he's given me. And again, every good steward has to figure out what's the lifestyle God's called me to? Because if I happen to get a gift outside of that, if I happen to make more money than I need, then what am I gonna do with it? To me, my wife and I, it's about the kingdom.
That's great. For your groups, you may have someone that talks like that. That's amazing. I'm thinking of my own group.
Like if we all got it, there's something like in social media, if I got a large sum of money, there would be signs. You know, like, oh, I probably put new wheels on my car. You know, there would be signs. You would know, you would see Chick-fil-A boxes in my car.
Like I'd eat out more. So that could be to make it really playful. We want everybody to talk. So jump in there like, hey, you can use that.
Hey, if you got a large sum of money, there would be signs, what would the signs be? Like how would everybody know? That you won the power ball $50 million. Like how, where would you spend it?
You know, vacation on the vacation together, you know, you can have an opportunity to make this really, really playful for your group. And you get to know them. Oh, it's absolutely revelatory. And again, I didn't always have Kingdom values.
And but you want to be able to at least broach the conversation. You know, are there some other options that God may prompt you toward? Yeah. And I do think what Eric said is, I'm just keeping the back of your mind as you discern.
And maybe we can even hang out here for a little bit for the leader who just kind of just tell where we're going. We're going to talk about giving. We're going to talk about being generous. Eric said it like, we're just called to steward.
It's not ours. It's God's steward. So Eric, how can you maybe encourage some of our leaders? Like, if I'm leading a group, I may say I don't feel qualified to talk about money giving finances or I don't think that's my role as a leader.
I'm just here to talk about the conversation. This might be a week where a leader would say, we were talking about money. Let's do a prayer experience this week. Or let's do something else and not talk about money.
What does them encourage? Oh my goodness. Well, here's the beauty of it. Is we all are on a journey?
Are we not? And we're at one stage or another. I was in the beginning of my Christian life. I held on so tied to the world's values.
I also had an incredibly scarcity mindset when it came to money. And each of us has a story about money, don't we? Based on how we were raised, based on what was modeled for us by our parents and things like that. And we got to work that through.
And what we're trying to do is look at scripture as a plumb line. What kind of like the North Star? Well, here's where God's called me to view money. But I'm over here.
All you're asked as a leader is to be authentic, be honest. And I always tell my story. I mean, I've been the stewardship pastor for 17 years. And it wasn't, but right before that, when I was asked to be the stewardship pastor, that God had to deal with me because I never trusted him with money.
I always worried that I would ever have enough for my family, for myself. And I was not generous. I struggled with being in debt. And God confronted me and literally said, you don't trust me.
And man, when God speaks to you directly, I had to wake up. Well, I'm not ashamed of that story. We all have a beginning where we began to understand the principles of stewardship. So as a leader, just be authentic.
This is not about you being picture perfect and walking on water. This is about start where you are. And say, I'm still learning about this stuff. And what about you guys?
So don't try to pretend you're somewhere where you're not. And that just takes all the weight off of you. So you can have the conversation, even if you're not a financial advisor, even if you're not, like who knows, every single thing that Jesus talked about money, even if you maybe don't feel qualified, be authentic in who you are and share from your journey. That's it.
And again, because what the enemy wants to do is, you can't have this conversation. You're not good at this. If you're authentic, you're always good at it. And I'm trying to line my life with this stuff as well.
And you may just be a foot in front of your people, but just be real, because they'll pick it up if you're just talking words. Wow, that is great wisdom. And I think that transcends really any conversation. Yes.
Be authentic. Okay, and here's the deal. Is that it's not about you. See, don't make this about you as a leader.
Make it about them. And in other words, I want to have this conversation as hard as it is, because I know this is going to benefit my group, because where else will they ever have a conversation about kingdom values when it comes to money, but in your group? So if you don't do it. Yeah, it's the same thing leaning into hard conversations.
If you have to have them in your group, I've had people come up to me and say, thank you for loving me enough to have a hard conversation with me and calling this out my life and pointing me back on the right path. I think this could be a really great opportunity to do that. Oh, it really is. And because money is so personal and powerful.
And so again, the church is the place we should have this conversation. And I'm excited that we're going to broach it. Because this is not about the church. This is about them being freed up.
And when people freed up to be generous, and you've probably heard me say this before, I've never seen a depressed, sad, generous person. When you start being generous, no matter how much it is, you want to get more. It's contagious. That's right.
This is the only passage Jesus talked about money, right? That's the only one that we're talking about. Well, as you know, we talk more about money than heaven and hell combined. That's amazing.
Because he knew how powerful it is in our lives. So I think at some point, as a leader, you have to be able to lean into this. If we're following a longer scripture, following him with Jesus says, at some point, we have to be able to lean into this conversation and have it. And it stimulates our lives.
Because I've also never met the person says, I give too much. Yeah, right? Or I give to it hurts more. It's just nobody's ever said, I'm the king of generosity.
Yeah, 100%. Well, you guys are going to read Matthew 25, 14 through 30. It's the story, the parable of the talents. There are three different people.
Five talents, two talents, one talent, one person hides away. So you're going to have a great conversation. You're going to read that. You're looking down into scripture.
That is what we're doing. We're looking at scripture. We don't want anybody to go outside of scripture. Let people engage with scripture.
There's so much to engage with. So what do you learn about wise and poor stewardship from the passage? And then another one, this parable is one of three in Matthew 25 related to Christ's return. So how does this passage encourage and challenges to think about his return?
So maybe as a leader, if you're listening to this before, you should probably read all of Matthew 25. The whole context, understand that passage. When I'm preparing for this, I'm highlighting things before I go into group. I'm not reading Matthew 25, 14 through 30 for the first time in group.
So prepare, highlight, anything from that passage, a wise and poor stewardship. Yeah, and again, as you know, it's not just about money. It's the whole of our lives. It's our time, which is one of those valuable commodities.
It's our treasure, which is finances. And it's our talents. What are the gifts and abilities God's given us? And so really again, this is about kingdom value.
How am I investing it in the kingdom? And because again, once we live this life on this earth, yeah, we go to heaven and we'll look back and what was the impact? What was the legacy? You know, from a gladiator that what you do on earth ripples that eternity and it's so true.
Yeah. So there's wise ways of doing it. There's poor ways of doing it. You could hide your talents.
You could hide your money. Just me hide everything. So no one else gets it. You think you're preserving it where it's a gift.
It's a gift to be used for the whole kingdom. So that's the difference of lies and poor stewardship. So we look down at scripture, then we're gonna look out. We're gonna begin to see it how it lives out in our world.
So you have a couple of questions there. Why is it so easy to focus on the present, forget the eternal. I think we've kind of hit that a little bit. Yeah, focus so much on right now and the ripples into eternity.
And how does the life of someone who sees himself as a steward of what he has different from someone who sees himself as the owner? Maybe we can hit that like, what is the difference between a steward and an owner? Yeah. And that is night and day.
If I own it, then I control it. If I'm a steward, I manage. And I gotta know the heart of the one I'm managing for. Where is God's heart?
And how do I move with that? Because man, you know, you're growing up, especially in Orange County, you know, and I'm a parent, you're a parent. And again, the American dream, you know, we want our kids to get properly educated that they would go off to college, that they would get smart and have a good job, that they would make money from that job, that they would be able to buy a house, they'll be able to support it. And we start buying into the American dream.
And that may not be God's dream. And this is why this passage is so important, you know, because God made it very clear, we're not to love this world nor the things in the world. And boy, that's hard because we're in it. And I think you said something like a steward understands the heart of the owner, of the one they're stewing for.
So going on a journey in the only way, really, the only way to understand the heart of the person who's stewarding for the owner of everything is to read scripture. Spend time in prayer. A God pours out his heart in scripture for us. So it's hard to be a good steward, but not be in the word.
Okay, I mean, can you, yeah, there's no way to connect those. Yeah, because the word transforms our thinking. And all you gotta look at is the greatest example on earth when it comes to stewardship with Jesus. What did he die with?
The nothing. The apostle Paul, nothing. He left, I mean, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was wealthy, his family was had notoriety.
He was unbelievable, a zealot, but he left it all for Jesus and he died with nothing. Yeah. And I don't know that God calls us to die with nothing, but maybe we have to look long and hard. Have I held on to money too much?
Wow, that's a great, that's a great question. I think that could be a really good, like maybe that's a question you could end the whole night with. Like, hey, have you, are you holding on to money too much? I mean, depending on your group, you don't, it may not be the question you're gonna answer, but maybe the question you're gonna leave them with.
And hey, if you took a next step towards generosity, as a group, the question you can ask, who would be impacted? Because there's always a lives that are impacted. I think it goes back to how you started the whole conversation is there's kingdom investing. So who are the people that are gonna be impacted on the other side of that when we step into generosity?
So be thinking about it, there's people who you may never know, you'll never know their name, but hopefully their name will be written in the book of life. And generosity, we create environments where people come from all over the place and they get to hear the gospel, which is so beautiful. Because when I give to the church, I mean, what's so beautiful about it is that I know what God's doing in this church, best investment I could ever make is giving and to other organizations. And yeah, we'll get to heaven and there will be people that will come up and thank us and we had no idea what we had done, but it was just from our giving, whether it's our time, treasure or talent.
It's gonna be a great conversation. You have another question there. My encouragement to you as leaders is if you're having a really good conversation, don't feel like you gotta force it to the next thing. This could be a really big moment for people to talk about it and maybe talk about some of their fears, some of the things holding them back and sit in the moment with your people, pastor your people, shepherd them, have those conversations, listen in, ask great questions and allow the Holy Spirit to work, but be as Eric said, be authentic and we're so thankful because Eric and I do not get to sit in your groups every week.
We don't know the people in your groups, you know the people in your groups, so you are having those conversations with them. The Holy Spirit is gonna use you, I really believe in a mighty way to have these conversations with people that we would never have. So we're extremely, extremely thankful for you and for all that you do. Yeah, yeah, because the rippling effect they're gonna have with this conversation, they'll never know.
But I've had men speak into my life when it came to stewardship. And I look at these years that I've been a good steward, it's because people built into my life, leaders spoken to me. So I will really be praying that these conversations are go to depth and impact. Yeah, well leaders were thankful, thanks for listening in, praying for you.
Can't wait to see this weekend, take care. Bye.