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 welcome to the Life Group Leader Podcast. My name is Kirby Wood and I'm the group's pastor here at Mariners Church and I'm so glad to have another great conversation to help you prepare as a life group leader for your life group discussion this week.
Today I have with me Liz Powers, our content pastor. Hi guys, I'm glad to be back again. Thanks for having me. Two weeks in a row.
We're so blessed and so grateful. Liz, thank you so much for being here with us to help shape this incredible discussion for our groups this week. Really our hope and prayer is that from the weekend message that you and the people in your group would be impacted, challenged, strengthened, and encouraged as you guys meet together and really learn how being in a group and doing life together can really enhance our spiritual journeys. Awesome.
So for this week, we are looking at Eric's second sermon back from summer break and we have He Bears Fruit in Us. Liz, share with us a little bit about what we can expect from this weekend's message. Yeah, it's a great one. I've loved getting to just be around Eric as he's been preparing for this message.
It's a beautiful idea to think about like, man, the Holy Spirit, he's all of these things to us, right? He is our comforter and our counselor. And as we learned last week with Eric's message, like he's the promised seal. Like he is what is the seal of our salvation.
And he is also this activator in us. He's the one that actually it's only by him that we are able to bear fruit, that we are able to live fruitful lives on mission for the gospel and for the kingdom. So it's really exciting to step into this weekend and to know that so many of our people are going to be challenged in a lot of ways. Eric is going to talk about this weekend.
I'll talk about some spiritual disciplines. Oh, good. We'll talk about things that some of us may be naturally lean towards and things come really easy for us. And then the others maybe aren't quite so easy.
And there's some areas that we have to start putting practices in place to keep in step with the spirit. So people are going to be challenged and encouraged. So it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be, that's perfect. I love that.
I'm so excited for everyone here. I've actually been loving seeing kind of the juxtaposition for lack of a better word, right? That between the spirit of God and the spirit in you. And I think really with this one, I'm like, now that I've seen both these sermons locked and loaded.
And in the last month we've been studying who the spirit is, like the attributes or the descriptions and the truly just the attributes of who the Holy Spirit is. And now we get to see what the Holy Spirit does. It's more the verbs. So like seal, secures.
And now this one even more so clicks. And it clicks and it's like, oh, this is what the Holy Spirit does. It bears fruit in us. And I love that.
Yeah, that's so good. And a tagline is for us with a lot of our series as we're learning about God, learning about who he is, will also say, and what it means for your life. So with this, it's the Holy Spirit, like we learned, you know, like you said, all those characteristics and attributes of who he is. And now we're in the, what does that mean for us as believers, as spirit and dual believers?
So true. This is where we can really start to see how the Holy Spirit can show up and what it looks like to walk as someone guiding the spirit. I think that's even for my own first like biblical or really even just Holy Spirit training. I really understood, okay, someone who walks with the Holy Spirit sees these fruits in their lives.
And I was like, oh, so I do have the Holy Spirit. And we hope and pray that this week light bulbs have come on for people in your group about who the Holy Spirit is and how they can step, keep in step with the spirit. But also like you said, how they can be challenged or really encouraged of how the spirit is already working in their lives. That's good.
Awesome. Okay, great. So first up we have our lean in question. I love how easy this is and simple.
It's when was a time your expectations did not meet reality. What do you think about this list? I love it. I mean, because it could go as surface level as I ordered one thing and the wrong thing came out on my pizza.
That's good. Like I'm a firm believer against pineapple, but the pineapple came out on my pizza or something like that. Or, you know, it can be about a major disappointment with a job or a relationship or, yeah, I mean, anything that really has disappointed us. And this is a great opportunity with this question for you to learn more about each other.
So true. It's an opportunity for somebody to share about a time probably that there was some grief in their life, just some pain. Yeah. And yeah, there's a lot there because there's lots of opportunity for encouragement with your group to kind of come around each other.
But this is just the lean in. So don't get out of yourself. So true. So true.
But I also think this is a really opportunity as we start to think about what how people might respond to this is, you know, this is especially at the beginning of the conversation, but always we encourage this to you, our leaders to not try to solve people's problems, right? And not try to solve or it's going to feel uncomfortable. Like, and you might even want to preface that. Hey, guys, we're going to ask this question and it's going to feel something as simple as the pizza analogy.
You might have someone in your group like me who's like, well, you know, if you actually ask them, you know, five minutes earlier or you double check, they probably would have not put that, you know, there will be that temptation because nobody likes it even, even if there's a correcter in your group or just someone who loves everyone that group so much, nobody's going to want people to have not their expectations met. Right. So I would say as a leader, just pay attention to how people are sharing expectations and allow this to be a safe place for people to share where reality doesn't mean expectations without us having to solve, correct, or even give advice. Really, I think, you know, this isn't going to be a super heavy question, but I still anticipate that there might be some people in your group who are trying to give you some good advice.
Right. Oh, of course. Yeah. Great.
So then as we look down at God's word, we're going to read together John 15 one through eight and ask the question, what do you learn about the vine branches and the gardener from this passage? I love how we call that out. Those three things specifically to really help each of you in your groups start to identify what we're trying to learn from the scripture. What else do you see in this question?
I think that one thing that I want to call to everybody's attention is actually our church verse is in this scripture. So it's the scripture for the weekend is John 15 one through eight in our church verse for this year actually is John 15 five and I'm the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I and you, you will bear much fruit apart from me.
You can do nothing. This is such a great verse for you to also revisit with your life group over the next year. So, so yeah, I mean dig into that look down moment, tear it apart, get excited about what you're seeing between the vine and the branches and the beautiful relationship there. The freedom that we have is the branches to not build a pressure to be the ones to produce the fruit.
In fact, the only way that we can is by saying remaining in the vine. It's such a good opportunity to look forward and think about ways that you can practice that as a believer and then as a group for us to remind each other of it over the next year. It is something that our elders are Eric as our senior pastor believe God has laid on their heart for our church this year. Yeah, so yeah, so just as your group is trying to stay into the rhythms of the church, this is one really, really special way.
Absolutely. I love that even just memorizing that verse. Oh my gosh. This has always been an encouragement to me.
And so when I saw that this was selected, I was like, oh, what a great way to continue to mobilize on this incredible, you know, like just just momentum. I like there are churches running after us like as much as we're moving towards beautiful and new things and excitement and stability. Like we have to remember where we're coming from. Right?
We have to remember that this is a part we're all a part of what God is doing. And I love how that verse is such a beautiful illustration and reminder of that. So it's so exciting. But yeah, pull out in the scripture, all of verses one through eight, the different ways that you can see the importance of this illustration and how and what this reveals to us about God as we begin as we continue this conversation about him bearing fruit in us.
So moving on to look out, a great question here are what common habits do people adopt to be successful and how is this different than what we see in John 15? What do you suspect that some people might answer here, Liz? Yeah, absolutely. So I think what we're talking about here with what things people adopt to be successful with how it's contrasted with this scripture is that John 15 is really about how our success is completely dependent on our closeness and our remaining in Jesus.
Beautiful. And that will be contrary to what the world says. Absolutely. The world will tell you that the common habits of successful people or that what you should do in order to be successful is likely going to push you towards individualism or it's going to push you towards striving.
It's going to push you towards working harder and longer and maybe even being willing to harm people in the process. So how this is different in John 15 is that Jesus turns success on its head really and says, no, stop this driving and instead remain with me. Amen. Amen.
Oh, I love that. And we hope that the people will really catch wind of that. Absolutely. And I would as a leader really try to guide that and as you try to navigate, okay, so how are we going to move from that first half of the question?
So you might want to actually stop there. Do what are the common habits? Have everyone answer? And then how is this different?
Because that will really get you from thinking big picture about the culture and others and then you're getting closer down the funnel as you look towards John 15 and how that's going to start to apply the practical part as we look at. Okay, so how does this apply to me? Right. And I was actually going to say to be prepared that what are common habits people adopt to be successful?
Man, that's all of us. Like we really do all this. So be prepared for the people in your group. I know.
Yeah, exactly. It might not. It might very quickly turn from a conversation about, you know, the world out there and it actually is about us in this room and what I do. I haven't taken a day off in three weeks or I don't like it.
It could very quickly become personal. So be prepared and ready to listen in here as well. That's beautiful. And that's what our hope is that these lookout conversations or these lookout questions provoke conversation about really where God is actually convicting us.
Right. So in it says for look and then we really get to some, you know, if maybe that didn't organically happen, this was a great way to kind of lead into that in the message. We look inward outward and communal disciplines. Which ones do you have a natural bent towards?
We love celebrating what God is already doing and people. We love celebrating how, yeah, how God has like naturally wired us then as well as which ones are God calling you to invest in. That's more the challenge there. And I love thinking that through, right?
So we're thinking, okay, where am I good at? Okay, I love living in community. That's super easy for me. But it's a little bit harder for me to do my daily devotion or what have you.
So let's kind of walk us through what do some of those disciplines look like and what can we really anticipate with these conversations? Yeah. So if your group was able to attend service at any of our congregations this weekend, they will have received a card. And the question at the top of the card it poses how do we practically remain in the vine?
This is an amazing tool for your group because Eric really lays it out in a sermon. He's talking about these habits of an inward discipline would be prayer and Bible study at daily devotional time with God outward disciplines being serving and getting in communal disciplines, which if they're in your life group, they're practicing this. So great job. You guys have the communal discipline down for rooting.
Yeah, great job. That's actually a really good opportunity to talk about community a little bit. I want to encourage you guys, you know, as you look at your communal disciplines, if you're listening to this, that means your life group and your group should feel like a big checkbox. We are doing the thing.
So ways you can maybe even if someone does share that communal disciplines is something that they're wanting to, you know, to be to invest in. I would really encourage you guys to take a look at what you guys are studying and how that's continuing to push you towards, you know, rooted rhythms and good spiritual disciplines. So how long was last time you served? When was last time you had a prayer experience?
When was last time you maybe talked through one of the harder things or pendant strongholds? But also we'll have two little options for you if you're thinking about what comes next after the study because you've got two weeks left of this sermon line content. We will have new content coming out for fall starting September 10, 11 weekend. It's called big problems, bigger God.
And we would love for you guys to follow along with that. There will be a physical copy that everyone at our church will receive and there will be life group leader questions in there for you as a leader to use. And then also come October. If you guys choose to not do sermon line this time, we will be having deep dive come early October and would love for you guys to join us and employ that in your group as great group curriculum.
So those are two ways that you can kind of talk through communal disciplines. Do you have anything to say about maybe the inward or outward ones or what do you think in? Yeah, just it's another great opportunity that if they, you know, they might not have brought the card within that night, there will be an online version on our website. They should text everybody.
Totally bring the card. We talked about it tonight. That's great. And yeah, I mean, even after service this weekend, if you want to send out a text and go ahead and invite people to be thinking about beautiful, there's going to be a challenge in our group.
Like let's come and all talk about one area that we want to improve on. So is it something like our team, our group need to commit to doing the daily devotion with our annual read or do we want to get into a group serve together or something like that? That's awesome. Yeah.
And depending on the relationship with your group, there might be a opportunity for conversation around generosity or what have you. Beautiful. I think more than anything, it's allowing everybody to come in with their own personal idea of what they need to improve on in a discipline that they can work on. Awesome.
That's so incredible. So excited for you guys to have another great life group discussion this week. And we are praying for you and hope that you guys are all able to attend service together and receive from him as well as worship together. So we love you so much.
We're praying for you. God bless.