Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource you to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. This is week four of unexpected words of Jesus, and we're going to be talking about prayer this week. Jeremy, so glad to have you again.
Let's go ahead and get straight into this week's discussion guide. Yeah, this week is going to be great coming out of the message that we just heard the previous week. Hopefully, the things that we heard from Jesus and those different stories have been kind of echoing in our hearts and minds and asking ourselves what's it look like to give my self fully to God and to live for his kingdom. And central to that is going to be this rhythm of prayer.
And so this week we get to look at prayer and what Jesus has to say about it. And what we really want to do with our groups is kind of demystify without devaluing. Like we want to remove some of this intimidation factor or kind of the mysterious nature of prayer and just help us see that it's a healthy part of a normal relationship with Christ. I'm really excited for our groups to have conversations about prayer because sometimes I think we can functionally think that prayer is just something that we do to kind of open or close a group discussion.
So, really prayer is modeled for us by Jesus as an intimate level of connection between Jesus and his father and then paves the way for us to have that same kind of thing. And so as our groups are learning about prayer, I'm excited to know we're going to talk at the end of this conversation about this rhythm of prayer experience. And I don't want us to water down the power that's available to us by prayer. So, Jeremy, why don't you take us into each of these discussion points starting with that lean in section.
Yeah, so we want to help our group participants start thinking about prayer with really two different questions, this idea of things that we've prayed for, the thought of unanswered prayers, like what are those things that are heavy on our heart that we're willing to take before God. And then even to consider what are some of the times we've seen God answer prayers, even thinking through what are some of the most recent opportunities, some of the most recent examples of God answering our prayers. And I really want to encourage group leaders to feel the freedom to take some time in this, you know, it's technically a break the ice kind of question, but really allow yourself to have some time to just think through what are the things we're praying about as a group and where have I seen God answer prayers and just kind of camp out in that a little bit to become because everyone in our group is somewhere along this spectrum. It's helpful to think of the people in our groups of like, where are they in relationship to prayer?
Are they at one end of the spectrum where they don't bother with prayer? What's the point? Like if I believe that God's in control, he's going to do what he wants to do or people at the other end of the spectrum where they don't pray because I don't want to bother God with my prayer request, they don't seem like a big deal. But this healthy middle ground that we want to help our group members get to is being persistent in prayer, not paralyzed while we wait for an answer, but where we're bringing what's truly on our heart before God in prayer.
So we want to kind of open up with this idea of thinking through prayers in our lives and then jump into our text where we see another unexpected circumstance where Jesus is speaking with a woman, a Gentile woman, and Jesus and his disciples have kind of left the crowds and in this instance, Jesus is sort of trying to be alone with his disciples and this woman sort of interrupts their time together quite literally. And we see Jesus respond to her in a way that the commentary will kind of unpack some of the language and what might seem harsh to us, kind of walks through what Jesus is doing with this in the way he engages this woman, but he blesses her and he allows her to come before him and demonstrate her faith in such a way that I think we can all relate to where we're just desperate before God and we want to help people see that in the way that Jesus interacts with her in this text. And then the next part that we really want to spend time in is this look in section where after we look at the text and see that she came to him and Jesus shows compassion, we want to look at, you know, the series is called unexpected words of Jesus and what he's saying to you. So we really want to help people think what is Jesus saying to the people in our group?
And what I found in groups that I've been a part of is that there's, it's easy for times of prayer or prayer requests to just quickly become that list of, well, here's, and these are all important things, but things about family members or someone we know at work or situation at work, what I'd really like to encourage groups to take this opportunity with this text here is say what's going on in our own lives, personally. What are those personal things on our heart that if we knew we had this opportunity with Jesus like this woman did where we could just say, Lord, you know, if you're willing, like, this is my heart's desire. What are those things that we pray for and how can we come alongside one another in prayer? So it's getting deeper than just the grocery list of God, I want this.
I need that. Right. We're trying to cut a level below the surface where we can have an honest conversation about the more of the root issue rather than the thing we think we need, right? It's not, it's not just a God, I need, I need to have, I don't know that conversation with this person and would you help me to handle myself well in that conversation?
It's like, no, no, what's beneath that? Maybe it's God, I need patience or Lord, I need to understand forgiveness better. And that's what I need prayer for forgiveness that I would have the capacity to share God's forgiveness for another person. Right.
Now we're getting beneath the surface of just the conversation or the thing. Yeah, absolutely. And then the text we see kind of the backstory to Jesus trying to be alone with his disciples is that the religious leaders and Pharisees have been kind of antagonizing him. And so people, even in our own groups can often get caught up again in just religious debate in conversations that really distract from what's personally going on in our own hearts.
Where on the other hand, we see this woman, this mother coming on behalf of her child and she's being truly vulnerable. And I think a lot of times people can be honest without being vulnerable. Like, this is honestly what I think. This is honestly, you know, we can argue about this or that.
I can share my honest feelings. But to be vulnerable is to share. These are those deep desires and we all have those and hopefully our groups can kind of become the space where we feel safe enough and comfortable enough knowing that the people around us love us that we can truly be vulnerable like this woman was. So we have a couple recommendations and I'd love to get some of your ideas too.
We really want to encourage people to take time to literally pray for one another and not just talk about prayer and not just talk about the fact that Jesus invites prayer. But ask them how can we be praying for one another. We've also included a link to a song. Our worship team has selected songs for each sermon, each message.
And this week there's a link to the song that you could choose to listen to and sometimes it helps to use words from worship songs or the book of Psalms. And we see scripture, this full of poetry and songs because sometimes we don't quite have the words ourselves and we need to hear someone else articulate something that we need. And so there's a song that's been chosen about God's faithfulness even in tough times. And so what are some of the ways that you've seen that the groups can practice this rhythm of prayer?
Yeah, there's really three things that come to my mind. The first one is what you've shared me is you've already lead it, let us towards here, which is the vulnerability and sharing about the things that are deeply personal. The things that are, again, not just I want to share honestly about something we hope that honesty is kind of a root reality in all of our groups. But the vulnerability is I'm going to take a risk here and I'm going to share something that I was not intending to share, but it's really something that's been eating away at me.
It's that thing that keeps me up at night. It's the thing that seems to haunt me for a repeated pattern in my life. It's perhaps a shadow of that stronghold that I know has been broken and yet is still a reality. When we share these things and we take the time to pray individually and specifically for each person, attaching scripture to the promises of God, speaking identity statements over each other, reminding people of who God is in relationship to that person and the significant issue, that can create a really powerful prayer experience.
Another option. It might look like choosing a scripture and saying we're going to camp out on the scripture for 45 minutes. We're going to take time to read through together Psalm 139 as an example, one that comes to my mind of a beautiful psalm that has so much to unpack. There's movements within one psalm and you can take the first third and we could read that slowly together and take time to pray individually.
Then we read the second third, do the same thing and then again with the third and then you gather together after about an hour and you share what did God speak to you through that time. What we see is it's less about talking as prayer and it's more about listening in prayer. Then maybe the third option would be something like taking concentric circles and think, we're going to spend 15 minutes on each of these circles and we're going to pray for our group and our families represented here in the group. For 15 minutes we're just going to pray openly about anything that comes to mind there.
In the next 15 minutes we're going to think about expanding that circle and that might be your neighborhood. It might be praying for our church. It might be praying for our city and getting really specific about the things in our city that we want to pray for or the things in our church that we want to pray for. Then lastly is you expand that circle one more maybe it's praying for our country or it's praying for a global issue that you're seeing right now.
But again just starting focused, expanding a little bit and then getting wider. What that allows us to do is to guide our time over 45 minutes. God is going to do remarkable things in each of us through a prayer experience. I would love if our groups get into the habit of doing these things every couple of months to take an extended period of time in their group discussion to not just talk about prayer but we've got to stop and we have to actually practice it.
I think it's one of those things that we're all familiar with that sometimes we sort of take for granted. Hopefully this week will be a time to do just that, to pause and really appreciate the fact that Jesus invites us to come for Him and share our hearts and He loves and cares for us and there's nothing too big or too small to bring before our God. We wrap up this lesson just by thinking of what are some of those needs around us, kind of like you mentioned in those concentric circles. As we walk through our days as the group departs and everyone kind of heads back to their own rhythms of life, what are those places where you can be mindful and continue to live and just kind of what Paul says praying without ceasing.
As I go through my day, I'm seeing the people around me being prayerful and mindful of what God may be doing in their lives and how He may be inviting us to be a part of what He wants to do in those people's lives. So I'm excited about this this time and pray that people would take this opportunity just to be refreshed and experience something different together as a group. That's awesome. Jeremy, I just want to take one last second with our Life Group leaders and remind us that we're just weeks away from Easter and Easter is always an opportunity for us as life groups to consider who is it in our lives, our neighborhoods, workplaces, family members who don't come to church.
This series has been a beautiful invitation type series where people are going to be familiar with who Jesus is, whether you come to church or not, you know who Jesus is, but we can be shocked and surprised at these unexpected words of Jesus. So I'd encourage you to consider who it is that you're inviting to church over the next couple of weeks as we head towards Easter. And then one last thought, we just want to make note here that we have reopened the worship center for indoor church services. I've been hosting in there the last couple of weeks and I have loved singing and worshipping inside the worship center again.
We're doing it safely. We're spread out. We have masks on and we watch a huge screen in the center of the worship center. That's a one to one ratio of Eric.
It actually looks like he's in the room, even though he is still teaching live from the lawn. I encourage you Life Groups, would you consider joining us inside the indoor worship center and pick a service? Let's do this together for the next six or eight weeks or so because we want to create room at our outdoor services for people to, to be able to invite their friends as well. Easter is right around the corner.
We always see a big surge of attendance and we got to create room. And so one of those great ways to do that is by joining me in the worship center. I'd love to see you there. So with that being said, we're praying for you this week.
We hope you have a great discussion and we will see you next week.