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. This is week two of the unexpected words of Jesus, and today we are joined by Eric Geiger, our senior pastor. Eric, thanks for joining us today on the Life Group Leader Podcast.
We are excited to spend just a few minutes with you talking about your hope for groups based off of this really important conversation you're guiding our church through this weekend. And so just to get us started, what's your hope for our life groups based off of the Jesus and your politics message? Yep, thanks for asking. And I want to say thanks to all the Life Group leaders first of all, so grateful for you.
I really view you as the shepherds of all the people in our church. I mean, I wish that I could have conversations with everybody every single week. It'd be awesome. I enjoy talking to people in our church, but obviously impossible to do in our size church.
And so you as a Life Group Leader, you really help shepherd the people in our churches, their hearts toward Jesus. And so really thankful for that. And that really is the hope for what would happen in people's hearts this weekend and this next week after people wrestle with the passages that we're going to study, that politics is a part of our faith, that our faith should inform how we view the world, which should inform how we view platforms and how we view political engagement. So politics is a rightful part of our faith, but we must be careful that politics doesn't become our faith, become the most important thing.
So that's one hope, Jared. The second hope is every friend of mine has admitted that this last six months has been a painful time for relationships. I think it's because the political season lasted longer this time than previous years, maybe COVID was a multiplier of that, for sure, the season not ending the day after the election, but going all the way through inauguration. That caused the political conversations to be twice as long as a normal presidential election period.
And so because of that, it just gave more opportunity for friends and families and co-workers and even life groups to have conversations that became heated. And so I hope and pray that God just pulls us all back to Jesus being what unifies us, Jesus being what brings us together. So really long answer to the shorter question you asked. My hope is that we walk away, replacing our hope in Jesus, if we've misplaced it, and that we walk away able to have more conversations with one another that are kind and respectful and unifying and not dividing.
Oh, that's amazing. Can we just imagine if every one of our life group communities would embrace a conversation like this and could recognize that this is good for me, that this is beneficial to have conversations like this that are potentially challenging. They're eye-opening, they're mind-expanding kind of conversations, and we can actually do that in the name of Jesus. This is healthy for us in our spirituality to grow by having these kinds of conversations.
So speaking of leaders, this is the leader podcast. And we're speaking directly to them. How would you encourage our leaders as they're preparing for this dialogue, as they're thinking about, they may feel ill-equipped to lead this. They may feel like, I don't even know if I want to share what I believe politically.
How would you encourage them as they get ready to facilitate this discussion? That's good. Yeah, I would encourage to keep the conversation at the Jesus-Transcents politics level, which will be in the sermon, and not to go into, hey, who in here calls themselves what, and who in the room identifies with this party. And the reason I suggest that is just realize that how you shepherd the group isn't only about the people in the room, but you're going to then teach those people how to go have conversations with people in their families and at work.
And so view how you lead the conversation to be a model for how people can have conversations in a way that honors Christ followers with different views. So all of the issues that we will talk about in my sermon, they're all important from caring for the unborn to the beauty of marriage to caring for the vulnerable and the poor. All of those issues are so important. And so we can bring unity around those issues without degenerating into the base about, because even if you choose one side, and there's the base about what's the future of that one side, that one political side.
There are people, friends of mine, who voted the same as some of their close friends, and they're still angry with each other, because how they got to there is different. And so I would say even if you feel like everybody in your group is on the same page, the way that you have the conversation and that you shepherd it is going to teach them how to shepherd conversations in their life. So even if you can be drawn in and feels like, we're all on the same page, we can like rally each other up and it's going to become an echo chamber, then those people will go to work and try to do the same thing, and it won't be the same result. And so the best way I think to have a conversation with a group would be to do it in a way that is respectful and honoring of people who put Jesus as their first love.
And then we'll see in the sermon, and you'll see in the curriculum, too. It's the Romans 14 of, hey, let's be kind to one another, not judge one another, even if we land differently on some important issues, or I'm sorry, land differently on how to address the issues, as long as we all are on the same page that Jesus is first and Jesus cares for all of these things. In Romans 14, they were debating whether they could eat meat or not that had been sacrificed to idols, which was a big deal. And the Apostle Paul said, hey, let's not start judging each other based on whichever view they take.
Everyone should make up their own mind and let's be kind and gracious to one another. There's so much potential for incredible conversations to take place in our life groups. I also feel like we're on the razor's edge of some really challenging, potentially some stumbling blocks to take place. I heard you say one already.
If we shape the conversation in our life group to talk about individual issues, and to spend more time talking about race, the unborn, care for the immigrant, that may be a stumbling block that's not going to be the healthiest conversation, and not what we're intending here in our groups, right? What are some other ones that you could see? Raising our hand and saying, hey, how did you vote in the last election? That's probably not the right way to lead this discussion.
What are some other potential stumbling blocks that you could see? No, that's good. I've heard it said that, I can't remember where I heard this from, but that when you want to have a healthy conversation, the best way is to frame each viewpoint as the person would frame it themselves. So that's where I think that there's been unhealthy conversations even among Christians about politics is you'll have somebody on the progressive side who will say if somebody who voted Republican or who leans more right, that they must not care about the immigrant or they must be racist.
That's just not true. There's a lot of people who vote to the right that do care about those issues. And they voted Republican for maybe the unborn was something that's so important and that caused them for that to be their single issue. The same way I've heard people on the right say things that just is so damaging to a Christian who would vote on the left, such as how could you ever call yourself a Christian and vote this way or every person who didn't vote for Republican wants to throw away religious liberty or some really just painful things that are set.
And that's not doing Romans 14. It's dishonoring your brother, your sister, and Christ. And it's not going to be an intellectually honest because there are Christians because of verses they read in the Bible who vote different ways. I mean, if you look at the stats, I'll quote it just for memory.
So no one quote me because I'm quoting from something I read. I don't even know if it's the exact status. It's like free for all podcasts that. But I think it's high 70% of white evangelicals that voted Republican and high 70% of white evangelicals are 70% of black evangelicals that voted Democrat.
And they read the same Bible. Our black brothers and sisters and our white brothers and sisters are reading the same Bible. And so for one side to say of the other, how could you vote this way and love Jesus? It's just the ultimate stumbling block.
And again, even if everyone in your group happen to vote the same way, you aren't going to be teaching people how to engage with kindness and intellectual integrity with people in their workplace and people in their neighborhoods and friends that they have. I asked recently, Jared, how many people, we were at a Shepherd and Elder Gather and asked how many people have had painful divisive times in their family and friend groups over the last six months and almost every hand went up. And it's painful. We don't want to see more of that happen.
Yeah. One of the things that I so appreciate about you, Eric, is you have a heart for our life groups, the people of our church to really make a positive impacted society in the community around us. You're not just building a church that cares for itself. You want to create a church that equips the body of believers to make maximum impact in their family, their neighborhood, their workplace, in every sphere of society.
If you could share with us, this is a really important message. And we hope that this will be something that will guide our thinking and our discussions for many years to come. While we're not in an election cycle right now, inevitably, another one will come, two years, four years. It's going to happen again.
As we practice these things and we learn how to have this healthy dialogue, what is your hope for us during an upcoming election cycle? So how might our families, our friendships, workplace, how might all of those different parts of our life be positively impacted from the work that you've been leading us through right now? Yeah. So all the issues we're going to talk about, and that they get framed as political at times, right?
The unborn, the vulnerable, including the poor, and the immigrant, people being united in Christ from different ethnicities. These are marriage. These are not political first issues. Our country is very young.
When you look at how young America is, we have been around less time than Israel was in Egyptian slavery. We've been around less time than Israel was led by the judges. Guys, we are so young as a country. And then our political parties are even younger.
And so for us to think that those issues are political issues is really just ignore the arc of human history. And God has cared for every single one of those issues from the beginning of humanity. He cares for every one of those. So my hope would be, Jared, that we would care for all of those issues because Christ does.
Yes, that would cause us to think about our politics, but that we would care about them more than through our politics. And the reason that's important is, I mean, leaders, listen, we don't have a lot of verses that we can point you to. There actually aren't any about how to vote in an election cycle because all of the early Christians couldn't vote. They were under a monarchy.
They were under a monarchy. They had no voice. They had no vote at all. There was no vote.
But they cared for every one of these issues. In fact, historians will say, when the early church had no political power, this is pre-consiting. You know, Constantine came up power in Rome and 320, something like that. AD, that the church was actually its best pre-consiting when we had no power politically.
But we cared for all of those issues. We cared for the unborn. We started adopting kids that were going to suffer from infanticide. We cared for the beauty of marriage.
It was common to have non-monogamy. And Christians were like, no, husbands are going to love their wives. Christians cared for the poor. They cared for those who were marginalized.
Christians were worshiping together, Jews and Gentiles. And the world was turned upside down with no political power. So my fear is that we've tasted political power on either the left or the right, on both sides. And then we have thought, well, that's how we're going to make a difference is through politics.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love that we can vote. I love that we have a voice in our country. I love a democracy. I love it.
But we have to be careful to not be seduced in thinking that the way we change the world is through this means. We still should be involved in this means, but historically, it's not the way that Christians have turned the world upside down. Christians have turned the world upside down by caring for all God cares about, but caring for all he cares about in every realm of society, not only politics. And honestly, there was way more historical Christians who had no political voice than there are historical Christians who had a political voice.
We're the rarity. And so let's look at our brothers and sisters who went before us and cared for all of these issues, even when they had no political voice. So that's, again, my hope is that these issues would not be labeled a D or an R. But these labels would be labeled a C, a church, and a C, a Christ.
And we would care for all of these. And that to the question wouldn't be, how did you vote? I wonder which side someone says on. But hey, we know Jesus is for all of these things.
Let's care for all of these things, because Jesus cared for all of these things. I know I'm going long, but I would say one thing. The last 15 years, we've seen abortions decline in the US. And many have said it's not because of politics.
I'm sure there were some things that were done that could have helped that. But I mean, you know, there were different sides of the aisle empowered during those times. And so what caused abortions to decline was Christ-centered pregnancy centers. And Christians who started fostering and adopting, and Christians who have a pro-life ethic.
And that can be beyond just the political realm. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for you taking the time, not only today to pour into our life group leaders, but the amount of prayer, conversation, deliberation, the amount of time that you have spent preparing this conversation. I would venture to bet this is probably the most effort you've ever put into a single message.
Is that true? Totally is. Totally is. And I do it with trepidation and obedience.
So I really feel like Jesus wants me to speak this message. And I do it with trepidation only because I just want I just pray that the Lord would allow people to hear what is being said and not look for what they think they're going to hear that matches some article they read or, guys, we know, leaders, I'll say this. You have people in your life groups who've gone down a rabbit hole on both sides, on both sides, on the left and on the right, have gone down a rabbit hole. And this has become a bigger thing for them than it should be.
It started to dominate their lives. And just like as a pastor, my heart breaks when when an addict runs back to drugs to give them solace and it gives them a temporary relief but then destroys them, my heart is breaking for people in our church and these and families that are divided for people who ran to some political conspiracy or who ran to some viewpoint to make themselves feel better. But now we're being destroyed with anger. And so again, overall heart, let's bring people to Jesus.
Let's bring people to Jesus. And then people say, yeah, the issues matter. The ones that matter, the ones that Jesus cares for, let's bring people to Jesus. And let's care for all the things that Jesus cares for.
Amen. Amen. Thank you, Eric, for your time. I really appreciate it.
We're praying for you. And we're also so grateful just for the way that you have guided and led us as a church. And so we'll be praying for you throughout this rest of this week. Thank you.
Thank you guys. It was so great to spend some time with Eric hearing his hope and his heart for our life groups. So Jeremy, why don't you walk us through the group discussion guide to lay the foundation for how we can have really effective group discussions following this important message on the weekend? Yeah, that was fantastic.
And so this week, we're going to open up with just kind of a lighthearted illustration, looking at the images on money. It's interesting. It's just kind of an easy way to ease into this conversation that like Eric said can get pretty heavy, pretty quickly. And then there's a direct tie in, obviously, with the image on our money to the passage in Mark.
And so in the text, we're going to look at both a story from Mark and from John, where Jesus asked about the image on a coin, as far as a debate about taxes. And then when he stands before a pilot, about a debate, about kingdoms and whether or not he's a king. And the main point that we want leaders to consider here is that Jesus refuses to be pigeonholed or manipulated in these debates on whose side is Jesus going to take. And we really want to help our people see that the Christ transcends politics.
He deeply cares about the world. He cares about issues. But he's not going to be manipulated and used for the purpose of dividing and kind of one side beating another side. And so, and then we transition into kind of a self-reflection time with the looking questions where there's several kind of evaluate yourself on a scale of one to 10, just to really take stock of our own lives.
And the goal here is that, like Eric had said, we don't want to get off onto the specific topics. But we really want to look at our heart and our posture as believers, as followers of Jesus does our attitude, does our character in the way we approach politics, does it reflect the character and attitude of Christ. Because Jesus, at one point, when he's talking with Pilate, he says, if my kingdom of this world, my followers would fight for me. And his kingdom is not of this world, is the obvious implication.
And so, as believers, we don't need to get caught up in the fights of whose side is Jesus on, my side, versus their side. We all want to be on the side of Christ. And so, almost all of us, 100% of our groups are going to have at least someone, if not everyone, and maybe even the leaders themselves who are listening, got caught up in the trap of kind of the kingdom of this world, with misplacing our hope, putting too much affection into the realm of politics, being the answer, the solution, and kind of replacing our faith with a political worldview. There's a C.S.
Lewis quote that's fantastic. It's going to be in the sermon where we see how it doesn't matter which extreme we take, but eventually things that we care about can slowly become a part of our faith, and then eventually begin replacing kind of these core truths. And so, we want to help people consider what life looked like if we learned how to model the character of Christ, and we learned to recognize these warning sides. Or one extreme or another that my faith is slowly being replaced by kingdoms of this world, rather than living for the one and only true king.
So, I think it's going to be a great discussion, and I'm really glad for leadership who has prayerfully approached this subject. Yeah, I do too. Jeremy, thanks again for the work that you're putting into it. I know that writing questions like this is challenging, and yet your heart really comes through.
And so does Eric's wanting us to be reminded that this is about Jesus, and politics are a part of our faith. They are not our faith. We don't place our hope and trust in faith, and only in our politics. We place it as in Jesus.
And that means that every issue that comes to mind, we get to find Jesus in the midst of every one of those things. So, Life Group Leader is we're grateful for you. Thank you for the courage that it takes to create a dialogue like this with your life groups. We're praying for you every single day.
And we really do hope that you will experience Jesus himself in the midst of each of these discussions, because I know that he is with you. He is guiding you, and he genuinely, he has a vested interest in this being a healthy dialogue as well. So, thank you. We're praying for you.
Have a great week.