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. Hello and Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas.
It is officially the start of the Christmas season. Yes, it's December. I know, how great is that? Right.
I'm so stoked we didn't get to be with everybody last week because we were out for Thanksgiving, but we did get to hear a little bit from Eric and Jared as I set us out for the beauty of Christmas, which I really love this title. I think it's really giving me full, like beauty and the beast vibes, which has a very, like, you know, it has a very, a holiday theme to it as well with the winter and bell and all that kind of stuff. It feels sweet. It feels very, I think there's a beauty and the beast, like, movie or something coming out here soon or really.
I don't know. I don't really know much about it either. But what do you love about Christmas? You're a mom, you know how to create memories for your kids and- I love- I love giving gifts.
I love it. I love when everyone opens them and I just like having everyone together and my husband's a wonderful cook and she's well. Yes, he is. He does all the things that have to do with that, but I love it.
I love that. Well guys, we are so excited to have a great conversation with you as you start to get into the holiday spirit. As you know, I'm Kirby, the group's pastor here and I have with me, Linda, our incredible marriage pastor. Our marriage pastor.
What's our next marriage matters? Do we have one in December? No, no, no, no. On January 14th.
Yes, awesome. Perfect as we started the new year, wanting to already think about our intentions, right? Yeah, yeah. I know, I can feel the new year energy really is starting to kick in.
Yeah, it's been so sweet. It's been so sweet. We're going to get them into your marriage. Absolutely.
I think one thing that I'm really hopeful for in the new year, but I want to start now, is just that the power of invitation, inviting others into experiencing the holiday with me, inviting others in my group to be a part of Christmas, yes, serving, but also inviting friends and family that don't normally go to church to attend the series with us. That's another thing I love about Christmas. All my kids come to church with me. Oh, I love that.
So that's nice to see you. The whole vinyl fan. It's the mama's dream. Yes, awesome.
Well, hopefully you guys will get to bring some people with you. But like group leaders, we're happy to kind of equip you guys for some conversations. I know some of you might be taking a break. We still love that you're tuning in, hearing from us, wanting to get some encouragement, as well as think through discussion.
But if you are meeting, know that this message is really exciting and has a lot to digest, but picking out some good parts in here, just to have a good conversation, as we're entering the holidays, always a good time to kind of rest, enjoy time together, and reflect on the message from this week. Well, I think it's a good time to shoot an email every week if you're not meeting and just give people insight into what we're discussing and how it pertains to the message. But I love that. Any time we can just make a connection like that.
Hey, we're not meeting, but here's some things you can think about. So good. As you attend the weekend surface. Absolutely.
Yes, absolutely. So for those of you who aren't meeting, we're going to kind of try to step through a little bit of the discussion guide here. This is a beautiful little guide. And I highly encourage you guys to look at this as we talk.
But just so you know, our main point here is that Jesus' arrival is proof that God keeps his promises. Oh, I love that. Amen. Being a Christian is not about keeping your promises to God, but God keeping his promises to us.
Perfect. We're always trying to remind ourselves that it's not about what we do, but it's about what God has done for us. So as we look at this discussion, some of the big rhythms that are going to pop out at us, nothing too overt here. We don't have any big challenges for you guys or rather objectives, but we just want to remind you of these incredible rhythms, these spiritual practices.
Worship, of course, as we look into Christmas, worship is just one of the obvious things that jumps out of the page. From the scripture, you'll see an opportunity to kind of provoke thought around repentance, where in my life do I need to surrender and also admit some of the sins or failures of myself to the Lord and as well as prayer in that constant communication. We'll kind of see that down here in the verses here. But first and foremost, we have, of course, have a great leaning question.
I love even over email or text. I like that you mentioned that. But I have a fun little leaning question here that says, have you ever made a promise that you did not or could not keep? If come to roll, share this story with the group.
That's a good question. How it is? I think sometimes for me, it's a commitment. When you commit to doing something and then you have to cancel.
I think that's a rhythm that I think people are used to instead of a promise. Right. Because I don't know how often I say, I promise I'll maybe sometimes. Yeah, sometimes.
I think the most recent one is my girlfriend had me pick up her dog from Pettopia. Because they were not going to be home until later. And she just kept reminding me. And I said, I promise I will pick up Winston.
Yeah. So I do not need to remind anymore. No more. I'm sorry.
I will do it. But did you hold up to that promise? Oh, yeah. Oh, heck yeah.
Good. Good. Linda, go. Linda, go.
I wanted to release her of that. Absolutely. Nervousness or anxiety over it. Yeah.
Dogs are sacred. Yes. Yes. Are very sacred.
Yes. And this is kind of helping us tweak ourselves to say, we're in our lives. Have we kind of wrestled? Or we feel like that we fall in short of something?
And what does that, what do we immediately think of ourselves when we fall short of these things? So hopefully you guys will be able to create an environment in your group. Or you already have where people feel a little free to share these things and keeping it light. I know for myself too, Linda, I have serious fomo, especially in this holiday season.
And so between the boat parade and the status of the party. All the invites. And yeah. Oh, well, let's Friday, let's go to this hymns course thing.
And then for my old group, they're like, let's go caroling. And it's like, oh, no. Have I ever committed myself? Yes.
So true. So true. So as we look down at God's words, you guys, we're going to be reading from Matthew, such an incredible gospel. And we'll see.
To read that together, you might not need to read the whole thing, but you'll kind of be able to get a couple things out of there. But hopefully you'll ask some of these questions. There's three different questions here. I think one of the questions that really sticks out to me is there anything in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus that stands out to you.
I would say that's one that you can't get through everything. And you've got some Christmas cookies or whatever. That one will really provoke some great conversation about what God is doing by the view point of these individuals. And so you can kind of see here the leader that really helps us understand that we really can see that those leading up to Jesus, we're not perfect people.
They were not all mighty like Jesus is. But yeah, they were still part of the Jesus story. They were still part of what God hoped to do. So that really, really is hammered in with those leader notes.
So I highly encourage that. Anything else kind of sticking out to you as we think about that, Linda? No, just I think it's so interesting that we're going through the series and doing the different vantage points. None of them are wrong.
Yeah, they're just different. As people have different ideas or vantage points on different things, their opinions on movies or their opinions on just different things in life. It's just interesting to hear the different viewpoints that we're going to be going through in the beauty of Christmas. So good.
So again, really great questions here. Provoking some good conversations on the different things that are intentionally put into scripture, which I already as I'm thinking about January, we have some incredible new message series coming on the table. We'll be talking about some hard topics. And the first one is the Bible updated.
And we as believers know that the Bible is God's word. It is what he's intentionally chosen. So as we ask all these questions, like, I'm sorry, I just off my plate. Oh, here we go.
As we ask the question of what's the significance of Joseph referred to as the son of David. And how does that relate? Who gives Jesus the name? All of these things that we're really looking at the text and pulling out.
We believe that God plays these things intentionally for us to learn from them. And so learning to really interpret text and see, why is God trying to say to us through this is really important. So I'm hopeful that some of these questions will provoke great discussion for you guys in your class. I feel like you need to know it all.
No, not at all. It's not. It's just a discussion. Absolutely.
So as we look out and we identify the relevance of God's word in the world and where culture has fallen short and where God's word isn't really needed, we have a couple of questions here that I think are helpful. So how important are promises in culture? And are they value greatly, treated flippantly, somewhere in between? And so people can kind of share what they've experienced and what their kind of observations are of that, which I think also continues to start.
OK, there is a need for God's promise in this world. Or just for truth. Absolutely. And we're so grateful that God's word provides all truth.
Absolutely. And that's kind of what we're hoping and asking these questions. How does it season in which you remember Jesus' arrival, help and serve our community and prepare the way for Jesus' return? I love that question too.
For those of us who are kind of like, why are we doing this thing? I'm tired. And here we go again. And that's kind of a question that reminds us.
We can reposition our heart and thinking, you know, Jesus' arrival is worthy to be celebrated. It is, like, the expect and heart of us is what's good for us and what God designed for us. Right. And it's also reminding us of the weight of that and how important it is for us to remember and to be in constant awareness of that.
Because otherwise, we take it for granted. So true. So true. So I think those kind of questions actually do really, really well into the last little part here as we look in.
And this is really an opportunity, I think, for some individual repentance. And so that's what I feel so is such a reverence that we get in the Christmas time. You start to go, wow, God, it's so glorious and so beautiful. I'm so undeserving.
But God still gave me what I need. And so hopefully some of those questions will really start to provoke that sense of reverence. And also, don't be afraid to say, hey, guys, I'm going to let you know. I'm having a hard time really getting my heart ready for the season.
Or, hey, guys, I'm not sure that I really quite see it this way or what have you. Or some people are not excited about Christmas because of grief they've experienced or trials or things like that. So it can be a really tough place for people to be. Absolutely.
And we do have a Blue Christmas service coming up. So be sure to check out the details for that. For those in your group or maybe yourself who wrestle with grief or loss or just sadness in the season, I just totally understood. I know this is my boyfriend's fifth Christmas without his dad.
And so we always love it in a sad love way, love to wrap our arms around his mom and attend the Blue Christmas together, just to really grieve it before we start to celebrate it. Right. You know? That's great.
Yeah. So this is, we were kind of mentioning this. But what's the hardest part about trusting a promise of God? We're really getting vulnerable here.
I love that question. Is it a lack of trust in the source based on classic Syrians? Or is it having to wait on fulfillment? Oh, waiting.
Waiting is hard. Waiting is hard. Is it coming to terms with what is actually a promise? I think for me, it's we'll be back at the way, God has fulfilled his promises in the past, and trusting in him that it is a surrender, and just knowing that God will fulfill his promises, and not necessarily how we see them being fulfilled.
Like he does things to protect us. Absolutely. And we can fight certain ways or rely on his promises for certain things. He says promises are always true.
It just may not look the way we think it should look. Very true. Very true. Well, you guys, we hope that you have a really good group today that you were able to share.
We're here, honestly, at with one another, and also turn your attention and affections to the Lord. So we're so excited to send this Christmas season with you. We hope we'll see you at our tree lighting. That is actually probably the past.
Now that you're listening to this, but we have much in store. So as you prepare for your group discussion, don't forget to invite others along with you. We love you guys and pray for you.