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.
I am the group's pastor here at Mariners Irvine and we are so glad to be with you. I have my dear friend Esther, our women's pastor here. How you doing Esther? Good.
How about you? Good, feeling really good. It's a good weekend. It's a good weekend.
I feel like through summer we're getting a good rhythm, rest, but also trying to get ahead on some really great stuff for our people. So I'm really excited as we go through this series of studying the Holy Spirit, I can tell that a lot of people are responding really well. Yeah. Yeah.
What about your life group? Have you guys been studying along with Holy Spirit? No, not really. No.
That's okay. What have you guys been enjoying about the series? I saw some of your friends here today. Yeah, no.
I think a ton of people just feel like it's such a timely message for the church and wanting to see how God impacts and transforms the deepest part of our hearts. Right. And so it's an incredible series. Absolutely.
I love seeing how we can really step into Holy Spirit living. And I love that we're learning about all these different aspects because I think it's so tempting, right? To see the Holy Spirit as one aspect. And I think probably you guys have heard that here a couple of times on the podcast, but also even from the stage, it's like, wow, like we all have can have a narrowed or even like a boxed impression of who this Holy Spirit is and what we can learn from the Holy Spirit.
So in this conversation today, and also the message from this upcoming weekend is about how the Holy Spirit fills us and lives within us in full capacity. Right. It's not this one time goes. It's not this one time experience, but it really is a fullness that we can actually have that takes up all the space in our heart and all the space in our lives, dwelling within us and moving and active.
I'm really excited to see how this scripture for this week will really be a great conversation for your life group and you'll be able to really you as the leader will be able to see and see the hopefully the joy that this will be able to allow people to step into as they think about filling of the Holy Spirit. So good. So good. So as we look to our first question here, lean in, we're always, as always, trying to set the ground, allow people to kind of enjoy themselves but have a little fun with it as we start to think, okay, how can this build into a deeper conversation?
Right. What do you think about this question here, Esther? I love it. The question is would you consider yourself more of a rule follower or a rule challenger?
And I think it's kind of like rooted. I was sharing with you Kirby, like in the section in rooted where you ask, are you a spender or are you a savior? It's kind of simple. In the question, it just is so revealing.
And so as a leader, as you bring this up, I'm sure people automatically kind of put themselves in one of those categories. And they'll probably be able to share like a childhood moment where they followed rules really well or they challenged them or maybe they have kids that press the buttons for them and they're the rule challengers. So I think this is a great and fun question to start with. Esther, which are you?
Do you know? Oh man, I think I used to be a huge rule challenger. Really? Yeah.
I like ran away from school once. Oh, no way. I'm only thinking about that. Like I don't know which one you are, a rule follower, a rule challenger.
But I can see. Yeah, for sure. But you know, I man, if Jesus was in my life if the Holy Spirit wasn't working in my life, I would have stayed in that realm. But yeah, I would say right now I'm more of a rule follower.
I would say so. I always ascribe to rule challenger. Yeah. Even with a whole history living with that.
Hey, that's great. You know what I mean? Not in like a rebellious way. But like, let's move with this.
Let's be free. I love that. So I love that. But I was even thinking to myself in a group, if someone's like, I don't know which one I am.
Right? Yeah. I was thinking that's probably a rule challenger. But I already don't want to fit in.
Yeah. That is hilarious. I don't really know if I'm either. It's like, well, you're already challenging this conversation.
Right? Could you see that? Yeah. That's great.
So as you guys think about this group and how people are going to respond, I hope that you learned something new about your people in your group. And I can see there's certain aspects. I feel like certain things bring out different things. I consider myself, like I said, a little bit of a rule challenger.
But there are some things that feel like, man, they've got to be a certain way. And you've got to follow them. I mean, I think about driving. Like that's where maybe my rule follower comes out.
That's great. Great. OK, how are we going to turn this conversation into Holy Spirit? Yeah.
I love how you were just saying that as to you. You were like, but with the Holy Spirit. And that actually might be a really great way to turn without being corrective. No, this is a fun question.
We don't need to be. It's not a challenging one for us to say, oh, you need to be more of a rule follower. Or you need to be a little bit more free or rebellious or what have you. That's not the intention of the question.
But hopefully you can turn this back. OK, so now as we think about who the Holy Spirit is making us and who the Holy Spirit enables us to be, let's look down at God's word and read Ephesians together. And I love these two questions. We normally try to hit you guys with one.
But I think that it's always helpful to have a second. I know as we look at what does this passage say about living a wise person, it's going to step off the page pretty easily, not living in debauchery and different things like that that come out. And I think that'll allow people to start to pick out things pretty simply. But then as you look at more with it, how does the feeling of the Holy Spirit inform our actions?
That's great. The scripture actually talks a lot about Psalms and singing in hymns to one another. And praising it. I love this scripture.
But it's also kind of like, wow, so what does that even look like? Have you ever thought like that before? Yeah, I know for sure. Sometimes I think about some worship moments at church where the Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly that my actions and my decisions do change once I leave that environment.
Oh, so true. Yeah. So so true. Even like as you guys talk with your group, you can I think it's helpful to unpack a little bit of what that even the feeling of the Spirit looks like.
And the resolve that is in our hearts once we leave that encounter with the Lord. So true. Or even the strengthening to love that resolve out. And so yeah, for me, like the night of worship or Sunday services, those are great examples of me hearing the word of God and my actions changing because when God speaks, there's power.
So true. So true. And I think the feeling like as they pull it from also God's words, like, OK, so how does this apply to what I have seen in my own life? Right?
They're already starting to do that. I love that you called out like moments in worship, where hopefully that's what kind of jumps out on the page when they're reading Ephesians. They're like, wow, like, actually, I have experienced that. That's not just this archaic thing from a time before, but this is really something that I can walk out.
So and that's what you hope people are starting to think. Yeah. Maybe they aren't necessarily speaking that out loud a discussion yet. And then we can start to say, OK, what does this look like?
Or what are some of the ways that we see this in our own lives just yet? We'll get to that and look in. But for look out, how do we see this in other people's lives or in movies or in culture? What have you seen?
We can start to make observations, right? What are external results of unwise living? Yeah. And you might get a lot of different kinds of answers here.
And external might need to be a little defined. So you can take a look down at our leaders. You can go ahead and look at our leader note here to help kind of give you some color for what external versus internal, what we're kind of thinking when we're asking this question. And then saying for internal, I mean, I think it's going to be maybe easier for groups to think of external things, like debauchery or a lot of misuse of money or a lot of these really tangible, hard things that can happen when we choose to live lives unwise.
But you might see something different with internal. Internal is like even when things are great, you can still be. You can see a very successful person monetarily or family oriented, but still is wrestling with a lot of things internally because of some of the unwise choices that they've made in their lives. Yeah.
Yeah, I think a suggestion I'd give for maybe the internal result of unwise living is do you know the emotional wheel? Oh, yeah. I forgot what it was called. I know you're talking about where it has the smaller words and then they lead out to bigger ones.
Yeah. And I think sometimes it's really easy, like you said, to identify the external stuff because there are generally actions and behaviors and easily visible with a human eye. Yeah. Right.
But maybe the internal stuff, it's sometimes hard to come up with the right language or the adjectives that describe the internal wrestle. And so maybe even as a life group leader, if you kind of came up with a list of a few words or share the emotional wheel and provided somewhat language for your group, I think that'd be really helpful because sometimes we don't take time to really, and it's a short amount of time. You get together with your life. Yeah.
You don't have like 30 minutes to meditate and ask out. But maybe looking at the list and seeing what word bounces, like where it is highlighted and where it gets maybe some of the internal struggles that we may have. And if you look at the leader notes, the spear anxiety, worry, loneliness, or low self-worth. And so I think that those are really helpful to go deeper in our conversations with our other groups.
And I think it also will hopefully illuminate for people in our groups. Like that you, there might be us, and that's what we're kind of hoping. And we're looking out at all the different things that we're listing off these things that we see in other people's lives or see out in our world. And actually they're like, oh wait, are there aspects of my life that I'm living on wisely?
You know, like I think I have some low self-worth. Is that attached to some decisions I'm making that are outside of God's will or outside of his design for me? And you wouldn't necessarily connect that because you're just thinking, well, I feel insecure, but that's not because of anything I've done. You know, there's a lot of different conversations.
So I think that's why we have this great look in question. Right? That says, what are you feeling yourself? So we didn't go as far as to say, so what are your external results?
You know, like we don't want to be too on the nose of people, right? We're trying to help people discern what God is speaking to them, not what we think that God is speaking to them. Right? Yeah.
As a leader, that's always a good line to have. I feel like what the group is like, you know, you're wanting to be accountable to them, like caring for them, like caring for them, but you're not responsible for everything that they do. Right? You're not responsible for where they act.
And that's why I sometimes love question asking as a friend, who might be, if there's someone in your group that you're like, that person is really living unwisely, it's going to be blaring at you, right? And you're thinking that and everybody, not everyone, but there might be a couple of people that really want to fix that. And that's a temptation there. So how do we empower this person, give them dignity to say that you can step into what God has given you?
Yeah. The Holy Spirit, which is the greatest, one of the greatest gifts that God's given us, other than our salvation, right? Like it's that kind of gift that we're able to give people to be able to say you have this inside of you and it's fully filling you. So I love the question, what are you feeling yourself with?
Rather than, what are the things that you're doing wrong? But what could you be putting in that maybe is, oh, I just clicked a little bit. What are you putting in that might be being a source for some of those unwise things that you hopefully don't want? Yeah.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And what is the evidence? What do you think about some of the, when we start to ask that question, what are we hoping to see you think, Esther?
Hopefully, I mean, as like group leaders, one of the greatest evidences of the work of the Spirit is that we see evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. So as like group leaders, maybe we'll have in the back of our minds the different fruit of the Spirit. Yeah. And when someone from our life group is bringing something up, maybe you can point that out.
Hey, that sounds like self-control. That sounds like gentleness. Yeah. And I think it's a great, quick moment to affirm you are being filled and that's the evidence.
That's beautiful. Like this specific characteristic is overflowing out of you because God's working in you. So, maybe that's a language for us to be my flip in the back of our heads. Yeah, I love that.
So even as we're kind of thinking in this conversation about, okay, so what is God kind of pointing out to me that it might be some unwise living? I love that it also might be an opportunity to affirm where God is producing fruit in the ways that we're stepping and instead of being filled with the Spirit. It's good. I love that.
That's good. Also, I think one of my favorite things about the Holy Spirit that I really always help. People are like, I just don't know. I feel like I'm the same person that I was when I first accepted Jesus.
I really try to help people start to point out desires in their lives that have changed. Yes. You know, like things that I used to really long for that I don't actually really need that as much anymore. You know, striving with career or being fulfilled by a relationship or always having to have a new thing or a new idea.
Like I really think some of those things that kind of start to fall away as you get older and more mature in your faith, you're like, yeah, I remember when I dang all I really wanted was that job title. And now I got it and I realized that I don't even need it anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
I think a lot about some of my single friends who have been single for a long time and the way that they talk about the time when they desperately wanted to be married and now how content they are. Like, wow, I'm like, that is such a beautiful gift. And they're like, God's, the Holy Spirit has really worked in my life and changed my desire. Wow.
Yeah. That's awesome. That's really sweet. Really sweet.
Well, I hope that for you guys as Life Repleters this week that you guys will be called out a firm in one another way that God is using them and continue to encourage one another and how we can step greater into the filling that the Holy Spirit so richly gives us. Any last remarks, Esther? No, I'm just praying that they have an incredible time of experiencing the Holy Spirit and their mother. Awesome.
We love you guys. We're praying for you. Have a good week. Yeah.