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 am your group's pastor here at Mariners Church, and I'm so glad to be with you.
I have with me a very special co-host today, Kim Hamilton, our singles Life Group Director, and I'm so glad to introduce you guys to her. Kim, say hello. Well, hi you guys, I'm so glad to be with you today, Kirby. This is awesome.
We're so honored to have you. Kim, tell us a little bit and tell all the Life Group leaders listening what your role is. I know there are several, or not even several, but probably plenty of leaders that know exactly who you are, but there are some other marriage and men's and maybe even some women's that don't have it and that you yet. So tell us a little bit about your role and what brought you here to Marist.
Oh, I'd love to, yeah. I do Life Group directing for singles Life Groups. Awesome. So 20s, 30s, 30s, 40s, and 40 plus, and oh my goodness, I just love it.
I love hearing people's stories. I love helping build that community. I love seeing people come together and grow and experiencing God together. It's super fun.
Having a great time. And you're doing a great job. I feel like you guys for all my Life Group leaders out there, you have a Kim Hamilton and you're like, you are missing out. And if you're a singles Life Group leader, you know what I'm talking about.
The care and attention you give to our singles Life Group leaders is so special and so incredible. And we hope that for all of you Life Group leaders and you have a coach and you know your affinity pastor, your adult ministry pastor well, and you know that you are so cared for. So as you might hear my voice here on this podcast often, I am representing a team of people that love, care for you and are praying for you each and every week. And then you would have a rich discussion and be able to provide your group and your friends a rich place to strengthen and grow their relationship with Christ.
So this is what we're hoping to do today. And also of course, talk about what's a beautiful, beautiful thing is how do we hear God's voice? I just listened to the message myself, Kenton did an incredible job, which if many of you don't know who Kenton is, that is so crazy to me to say. You've been coming to Mariners for a long time, right Kim?
I have, yeah. Even when I was serving at another church, Mariners was like my safe place to go and to be fed. And oh, I just love it. And Kenton always brings the work.
Yes, yeah. So you don't know, Kenton, be sure it's our pastor Emeritus. And that means he was our pastor, our senior pastor before Eric Iger. And he was here for a long time, almost 30 years.
And we are so grateful to have him sharing a message with us this weekend about how to hear God's voice. Many of you are in life groups because you went through rooted. And Kenton is actually integral and helping right rooted here at Mariners. So know that some of the disciplines, even these discussion flow questions that we're gonna walk through with you are really on so much of his ideology of how do we as individuals hear God's voice for ourselves?
And not just depend on teachers and preachers and studies, but we ourselves as we have the Holy Spirit living within us, we can interpret, we can hear, we can have conversations with God and he is speaking. So I feel super empowered to talk about this today and I'm excited for you guys to prepare. Anything, have you been enjoying the series Kim? Oh, so much.
Yes, because the fact is we're not always gonna have somebody there with us to help us discern God's voice. When we need to hear from God, when we need to lean into the Holy Spirit, when things are just unraveling in our own lives, we need to learn how to do that. So we know where to run to and to hear his voice and see his presence and I just love it. Oh, I'm so glad.
It really is, it really is. And I hope that that's what we get to learn today. As we kind of step through this, that we even from the weekend message, Kenton talks about five different ways that we hear from the Holy Spirit and that we listen and we hear God's voice. And the first one is God's word.
And so just as a recap for everybody, I mean, we do these flow questions that way you can hear God's word. So each person in your group can learn to hear God's voice through God's word. So, but we of course like to set the stage, chill everybody out, hope that everything's how's your week going? Our group as much as we've tried to get away from it, we love to do a check in.
And we love a good little check in. How about you? How does your life group start? Oh, yes, we always do check in.
Yeah, you have to do a check in. I just call them to sell down. And everything's good, everything's good. Okay, now we can get into it.
Exactly. I know a lot of people like the highest lows thing. Some people call it roses and thorns. But I'm like sometimes I can go around and around a lot.
Like, okay, so let's just like all give a couple big. If you didn't got nothing, that's okay. Like we can just move on to the next person. I know that takes up a lot of time sometimes.
But then we jump into, I'd love for you guys, you know, as you're kind of wrapping things together, be like, okay, now we're gonna go talk about, you know, this past week's message. And of course, open God words together. But before we read, let's go ahead and ask this question. And it says, what are all the ways we communicate with each other?
What do you like about this question, Kim? It's pretty broad. And it made me think about all the ways other than words. Right.
We communicate because there's so many. Like, and most of those speak louder than our words actually do. Right. That's so true.
That's communicating with our eyes and our body language. And just how we look at people and show care for them. That's so good. I know, I agree.
This feels like, I've said this about other questions. And hopefully lean in questions, always feel like this, but they really aren't all play. You're allowed different people to be able to say all these different observations. And maybe things that they've seen.
Like, yeah, well, I know when my wife gives me the eyes, I know what that means. I'm talking about when you're in trouble, not the other thing. You know, all the different ways that we really do communicate. Hopefully lots of different people are engaging, just saying different things, you know, kind of setting the stage for how we communicate also with God.
So then you can kind of make a good turn to look down at God's word. You know, I found more recently that if we're already having our Bibles in front of us, we understand that this question is relevant to our conversation. It's not just this like random question, which it is, we hope that it feels spontaneous and fun and starts discussion. But when we're holding our Bibles, we know that we're about to be getting something.
Right. Absolutely. Are there any other ways that you like to start off your discussions? And holding our real Bibles.
I wanted to add to what you said. It's not our phone Bibles, but our real Bibles. There's something powerful about that. It's true.
And I think for our good anyway, we always start in prayer. Just asking the Holy Spirit to be there. They help us to glean what we need to hear from the word. Yeah.
Because he is there. We have to get to the Holy Spirit. And he helps us discern in his friend and advocate in so many ways. So I guess it's remembering to ask that.
Yeah, I've got that. That's so true. I love that too. I feel like when we really, that's how you can also kind of set, like, I'm trying to think like you cap, like the conversation is like, okay, we're going to start by praying.
And then we're also going to probably end in praying, right? That's how you know this was our discussion time without it being overly, you know, like, obvious or heavy. But it feels like that. It feels like a good start and end way to have your discussion.
So then of course, we're going to look down and read Scott's word together. We have a couple scriptures here because the question holds that, right? The question says, how does God communicate with us? So we have a couple of different scriptures here so that we can really see, oh, all the different ways that God's communicating through scripture, right?
What have been some of the ways you feel like that God's communicating with you sometimes, Kim? How would you share that with others? Oh, man, in scripture, I would say, when I just sit with it, I always get something out of it. Yeah, I always do.
But I think I have many times grown in my patients, many times grown in just sitting still. Yeah, five minutes. So good. I'm not always really good at it.
So good. But I get still and sit in his word and being close to God, he makes sense of everything. It's so true. Anything else that you were observing about this question that you wanted to make note of for our group leaders?
I just wrote down a lot of the words for the Holy Spirit. These are friends, truth, comfort, or advocate. And we always glean truth from the word. There's no place else in this crazy world we live in that we glean truth.
That's good. It's always in the word. That's so good. And I love how we can affirm that in the people in our group who call that out.
And you'll notice, they'll be people who really are, sometimes I know people like me who are more emotional or emotive will be like, my friends, I just love this word. And then the people are like, yeah, the truth. I can even hear some of my friends and my own like that. They're like, it's the truth.
And so you can affirm both of the different observations that people have that's like, yeah, this is both true. These things are both really true. That there is truth, there is power. And also we get to see a lot of friendliness and kindness and gentleness in the way that God communicates with us.
And you know what's amazing to me? That's a beauty of our groups. We see things differently. But then we serve a God that he is all of those things in one.
Like he is our friend that he's able to speak hard truth. So that's our advocate. And that's because he's God. And we're not.
We need each other to fill us up. And that is honestly relieving more than it should be sometimes. Thank God I'm not God. Right?
That's good. That's really good. OK, you guys. So then as you move from this amazing time of looking down at God's word, calling things out this stick out to us, we're going to go into look out.
This is where we're hopefully allowing people to look out into the world of where this might not be adding up or maybe where it is. So the question here is what are the examples of how you see the Holy Spirit guiding and teaching in these ways? Which sometimes as we do look out questions, Kim, I really see a lot of, not, I hate to use the word negative. But it's in a weird culture messing us up.
And that's fair. I mean, a lot of times the culture is a victim to some of the enemies' schemes. And so it's kind of going to skew. But I love that this question is actually more positive one for our leaders.
You get to ask your people in the group this week, where have you seen the Holy Spirit move? Right? For sure. And for me, I would say in those hard conversations.
Because there seems like there's so many things that are going on in the world, right? That we can easily just not have in-depth conversations with anybody, any of our neighbors. Like I can just go out and say, your grass looks really nice this week. Or I can enter into those conversations because I care about that person with the Holy Spirit guiding.
So good. Affirming, loving, meeting them there and speaking God's word as well. So good. I can imagine the conversation that someone might have.
It's like there's the two. And there's not that there's two ways. But when you were just speaking, I was just thinking this picture of you're walking out in your front line and you see your neighbor. And they're like, oh, your grass looks great.
And it can be this surface level conversation. Yeah, it looks great. I just cut it on Sunday. And then someone's like, but maybe as the Holy Spirit is leading us, it's like, yeah, I cut it on Sunday after church.
I love to leave it open end. And then there's that. Oh, what church do you go to? There's like, well, actually, I've got a mirror.
It's so much fun. I really got to experience God. I get to experience God there in family and community. Well, tell me, all of a sudden, a surface level question or a surface level conversation can take a detour.
But maybe the details or just whatever it might be. But the Holy Spirit's prompting to a deeper conversation. So I love that. And that's what I hope I was just kind of giving my picture.
And as much as I picture that and Kim and I might picture that for you life group leaders that you'd be walking that. I hope and pray that you are picturing that for your people, for the people in your group. How can I encourage the folks in my group to see where the Holy Spirit is guiding in their world? And maybe that you would say, maybe some people will say, I really see you life group leader.
I really see you be guided by the Holy Spirit. I hope and pray that you get some affirmations, my friends. Because I know that the Holy Spirit is guiding and leading you. And if they don't know that we see it, I see you guys being led by the Holy Spirit so much.
But I hope that as they look to you, as the leader is some of the ways that they've seen the movement or maybe the truth or the love that we know that the Spirit so freely gives, that you would be able to inspire them to join you in listening and being guided by the Holy Spirit. So good. Okay, moving on to look in. And this is where a beautiful turn, I was already headed there with our conversation.
It's like, as you look at your life group leader, as you look at the supernatural moments or different things that call out, you start to think, okay, where can I top into that? Right? Yes, for sure. And how we love others and how we understand God's word, how we listen to the Holy Spirit, how we step out of our comfort zone.
Absolutely. He just didn't stay in a little comfort zone when he was talking with people that were hurting. To step out and to ask questions that you know might have a painful answer coming back. Like I can think of one of my neighbors that all of a sudden her hair was really, really short.
And she didn't come out of the house very often. And I just knew something wasn't right. But to ask that question opens the door for what do you do with that when you hear that? How can I love her?
How can I serve her and show her who Jesus is? So yeah, let's go. I want to make myself step out anymore. Right?
Of course. And I love that that's even like a picture of like what? So many of us, even when we were talking about the law and example, like how we can invite and look out, you know, for the ways of the Holy Spirit is leading us. There's a lot of different questions here.
There's three, but I do think that they're pretty linked. So I know life group leaders sometimes you like to choose one, but I kind of like the flow of them. So if you can kind of keep them together, where have you experienced where in your life and what would be different? I think that last one, if you want to squish the first two together, you know, do as you wish, you are the life group leader, but that last one is really taking the look in to a live it out, which if you've been a life group leader for a long time, you know, Kenton's model is actually lean and look down, look out, live it out.
But we kind of can, we know that as we look in, we are also like prompting ourselves to live it out and practice it. So that's that same kind of question. It's like, okay, so what would be different, right? And that's like that neighbor of yours would feel loved, you know, that or in the other example we were talking about earlier, that neighbor would be invited to church, you know, like what would be different?
And this hopefully will inspire people, right? If you haven't gotten them, you know, if people in your group aren't here and already, or they're not desiring to listen to the Holy Spirit more, maybe at that's last point, and the last point of the conversation, you know, maybe someone who's not paying as much attention or maybe someone who, you know, is not as engaged in the conversation. Maybe this is the question that might really get them, you know, what would be different? Hey, can I have a hurt for me?
You know, what do you know what I'm saying? You can kind of hear it and you think about the discussion. What would be different? That's a great question.
Yeah, I'm with you. I hope all the groups get there. And also, excuse me, but like also when it says like what if Christians, right? So sometimes when we ask the questions, like what would be different if you, right?
We kind of pull it off of the, you know, right off of the personal kind of like dig. But if we ask the question about Christians, then we are talking about ourselves, but also talking about holistic. And so someone who might not be as engaged in the conversation might be called up a little bit to be a part. Do you know what I'm saying?
Very good point. Yeah, absolutely. When I read that question, I think the biggest thing is Christians, we would talk less than we would ask more or less and more. So good, right?
Yeah, that would be an amazing step and show people who Jesus says when we ask people how they are a lot more. Yeah, that's good. That's a great question. That's really good.
And that's hopefully. Hopefully some of the answers that our leaders will get, you know, is that we would ask, and I think it's actually right in line, Kim, with the Kenton Sermon too. So you're on the same page. I love to hear it.
Awesome. Okay, guys, so we're coming to the end of our discussion. Like Kim was saying, we love to start off with prayer and end with prayer. And then we're going to hit a double time with the prayer juice today.
Because our rhythm reminder, our rooted rhythm reminder this week is about prayer experience. And you'll see in the notes that this is such a crucial way that as a group, we can get together. So hopefully, and maybe not always, but hopefully many of us are in-daily devotion. We're praying, you know, most days and most times, and most of us pretty often throughout our days.
I know I need to. You're praying a lot during my day. But there's something special when we stop, you know, we set aside at chunk of time to have more of a full experience around prayer, to listen and to step through God's word and maybe come back as a group, lean into one another, debrief, all those kinds of things. And so we hope that at the end of your discussion this week that you'll set aside sometime, you'll have everybody, then they can pull out their phones, right, Kim?
They can pull out their phones. They can schedule out of time that works best. So we hope that you guys will do that. As you start to prepare, maybe Kim, share some of the ways that you like to prepare for a prayer experience as a leader.
And what have you shared maybe with some of our coaches as ways that they can lead a great prayer experience? Yeah, there's so many that I really enjoy like being, leading worship for years, I love to integrate worship in with prayer because there's something about that just softening our hearts so where we can sit and not talk as much as we're listening to God or the word of God. But then I've also really enjoyed just picking a verse. I did Psalm 23 one with a few friends a few weeks ago just meditating on that and just sitting there and thinking about in that case, the Lord is my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. What does that even mean? And letting it just pierce my heart so it sticks for a little bit.
And I think another one of my favorites which we talked about a little bit ago was the Lectio Divina in reading and sitting and responding and just letting it simmer in your heart. So hopefully it stays. I had a professor in college that memorized the entire New Testament because he used to go to Russia when you couldn't bring a Bible. That's when he told us anyway.
He memorized the whole New Testament. So when I would have to go in and write down a verse for a test, one verse, and I wouldn't miss a word. I would feel so bad because I'm like, he memorized the whole New Testament. I can't even memorized one verse.
He was such an inspiration that he had the word of God in his heart at full time. So he could just remember it whenever anything came up. And I thought, I want to stretch myself in Lectio Divina as a wonderful life. Just sit and simmer and grow.
I love that. Thank you so much, Kim, for those practical pieces. That's super helpful. I feel like for so many of our leaders.
So yeah, I love those examples. I too have seen them work really, really well in my own life, in my group's life. And even as you think about your rooted prayer experience leaders, that's where those were exactly some of the recommendations that we make there. So if you're looking for many life group leaders, you were in-rutive, but you may not have led that prayer experience because it was probably a root of facilitator.
We still have those resources available to you. Feel free to reach out to your coach or one of our staff members. And we love to provide you with some additional resources. You can also Google Lectio Divina.
And you will find it very easily just a simple practice of how to break down and how to meditate on God's word. So we love you guys. And we are praying for you in hoping that you are praying, top, bottom, and then planning your prayer experience. But we are also just hoping that through it from this weekend's message and also in this discussion with your group this week that you guys are able to really hear from God and know that he cares for you, that he's instructing you, he's guiding you, and he loves you so much.
So God bless you guys. I hope you have a great week.