Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader Podcast. This week the 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. Welcome everyone to the grand reopening of the Life Group Leader Podcast. We're going to take a new look on the Life Group Leader Podcast where we are tackling common questions and issues that life group leaders face.
We want to equip you to better shepherd your flock and God's flock ultimately. We hope you enjoy this new edition of the Life Group Leader Podcast and enjoy. What's up everybody? Welcome to today's edition of the Life Group Leader Podcast.
This is Sam Smith, the discipleship director for men's and life groups. And I'm sitting here today with our discipleship pastor for the Irvine congregation. Scott Kim, Scott, welcome. Hey leaders.
Hey, Sam, great to be here today. Of course, yeah. Scott never just chatting that. There was a radio station on the fish.
You guys probably know it. Rest in peace. 95.9. It's gone now.
Got bought out. But there was a radio show called Scott and Sam in the morning. And I feel like we're passing on that torch. I put the lead pass.
Yes, the legacy lives on. But we have a special edition of the podcast today. We're going to be tackling the question, what should my Life Group study? Now this is a great question for some of the new leaders that just came out of Rooted and they're beginning their journey of leading their Life Group.
Or maybe a Life Group has been around for a while and they're just trying to figure out what they should study in this fall session. So Scott, this is probably one of the most frequently asked questions among Life Group leaders. Wouldn't you say? Yes, it is.
Yeah. Kind of just reminding back a little bit, we have something called the content pathway where we help people to look at their three-year plan of what to study. Because you oftentimes can't anticipate and when you plan and map out things in advance, it's just so much more helpful. That has been shared at the new leader training, but will make it available to all current leaders as well.
And so in that content pathway, the sermon series discussion guys are the default that we encourage Life Group leaders to take advantage of. So sermon series questions really focuses on studying scripture and the way that it's formatted, it really allows the entire group to be engaged and involved rather than just one facilitator and leader. And so the way that we structure the questions is called flow questions where we look down to the word to understand and observe what the scripture is all about. But it also starts out with a starter question, iceberg question as well too.
And then it kind of moves in toward applying and living out God's word. So for us, I think it's been tremendously helpful because we are able to dig deeper into God's word, especially right now we're going through Exodus after we go on through the Genesis series magazine. So that's been super helpful for everyone to receive a magazine and go through it together. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. I feel the same way with my group. It's an opportunity for us to continue the conversation from the weekend message to look down in scripture, to look out in society and how we're seeing scripture played out and God's plans for us and then also look into our own lives.
And it's an opportunity for us to share just what's going on in our own lives and also relate it to the message. And yeah, I just think they're wonderful. They're easy. I mean, first of all, it's free, right?
It's easy to access for all of our leaders. And you can access it from the website, from the app. Sam, how would you access actually these? Yeah.
If you want to find it in the app, you would go to the Mariners app and then under media, you would go to Bible and notes and then Sermon series leader guide. You would just look for the exact week that we're, we just discussed on the weekend message. And if you want to find it on our website, you would just go to our homepage and I believe you to scroll down. I should know this off the top.
Yeah. You just go from the life group leader resources page. That's right. And there's an easy link to the sermon discussion question there.
Love it. Amazing. So let's say a group wants to take another option on this content pathway. I know we have some incredible courses offered at Mariners Irvine and all of our congregations.
Would you mind just touching on some of the options that our groups can partake in together and they can jump into a course? Yeah. So the first type of courses are the deep dive courses. And this is incredible content that we've made available for life groups to engage in in their homes or we offered on campus as well.
So many life groups have come together to attend these deep dive courses. And we have three of those a year tackling different topics like the story of God, the image of God, the theology and mission of God in its top by our different pastors. And so yeah, those are the different options for deep dive. We also have some other courses as well like how to study the Bible led by K Geiger.
That's coming up in fall of this year. So excited for that. And you can either sign up as an individual, family or as a life group. We're going to have table facilitators.
And it's open to men, women, Mary couples, young adults, whoever wants to understand how to really dig deep into God's word. So those are some options that we have. Can you think of some Sam? Yeah.
I mean, you've mentioned some amazing ones with deep dive and how to study the Bible, which is now going to be opened up to men's and Mary groups alongside women's groups. Karen recovery has how we love starting in September. It's a way to understand your style of marriage and dating relationship and also helping prepare you for relationship with others. So that's a great one starting in September.
For Mary groups, we've got a better us. It's the four-week course from Doug Fields. It's starting October 1st. And that guy might be one of the funniest humans on the planet.
And I'm sure his humor is intertwined in this study. But it's only four weeks. It starts October 1st. So be on the lookout for that for Mary groups.
So Mary groups actually could do better us material in their groups as well too. They could purchase the study from the bookstore and do that together as a group. So there's different options as well. Yeah.
We've had a ton in the past. We've had coexist led by Ed Stetser for men's groups. We've done anchored. Emotionally healthy relationships with God, with others in your community, with a significant other.
So we have a ton of great options in terms of courses at Mary and Irvine. And you mentioned- That's interesting as well too. Oh, she's done by Christine Kane for women's studies. She's incredible.
That's great as well. Yeah. And a lot of these options, let's say it's difficult for a group to all meet on the same day on campus for a specific program or session. There is a way for them to access a lot of this material on demand within their homes so that way they can practice it on their regular group meeting rhythm.
So for those that don't know the Rooted Network, you can access flourishing women's course from Christine Kane. We have my anxious thoughts from Eric Geiger, what to do in an overwhelming world. You can access the Deep Dive, how to study the Bible, better us courses on there as well. So can you share a little bit about all the amazing options on the Rooted Network?
And I know that we have a new course material that we're releasing. So I don't know if you want to share on that as well. Yeah, no, I'd love to share more about that. So a lot of groups who have obviously completed Rooted, their question is like, well it's after Rooted and we just talked about a lot of options.
But what we want to offer is getting deeper into the rhythms that we learned about in Rooted, like prayer, sacrificial generosity, devotionals. Within those 10 weeks of Rooted, there's so much that's covered. And what we hear from people is like, wow, we want to learn more about those specific areas. And so we're really excited to partner with the Rooted Network as they've released two of the rhythms, the Rooted rhythms, prayer and sacrificial generosity.
And we're going to be rolling out in the future of different rhythms as well too. These two rhythms, prayer and sacrificial generosity, there are five sessions, studies that you can do together in your life group. And you can purchase that at our Mariners Bookstore. By the way, at our bookstore, we're so blessed to have this resource.
You can purchase any of those materials that we talked about from the Rooted Network as well. Amazing. So yeah, take advantage of these Rooted rhythms and look out for future ones as well. That's incredible.
As a team, we're actually going through the prayer workbook right now and it has been incredible. It's a great reminder that everything that we lived out in Rooted in terms of the rhythms, we should not stop doing that once we transition into a life group. We want to carry that on. And these workbooks have been a great way to just dig deep into prayer, making it experiential, doing it alongside your brothers and sisters.
So yeah, we've been doing this as a team and it's been really fun to hear from others and learn from others. Yeah, is there anything else that you just wanted to share that would equip our life group leaders that are listening right now? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the questions I get posed is like, hey, I know you guys have all these different options, but what if we are interested in something outside of this, specifically for what season that we're going through right now? I think we have these recommended studies for a reason.
We want to make sure that we do our due diligence and the fact that it's aligned with the mission vision strategy of Mariners, that it is biblical, that it is accessible to our life group. And so we do consider all those different factors when we create this content pathway, these recommended studies. So we encourage the life group leaders, hey, connect with your coach, reach out to our life groups team and let us know if there is something that you're interested in engaging in, tell us and then we can look into that as well too. And maybe that could be something that we can include in our recommended studies.
So we want to continue to be open, great resources that are out there, but we also at the same time want you to have the best experience in a biblical focused study as well. Wow, that's so good Scott. I really appreciate your insights today. One of the things that we've covered are the content pathway and just reminding ourselves to look at that.
And so that way we can plan out our next 90 days and plan out each session and what we're going to study. We've got the sermon series discussion questions. You can take a course at Miriner's Irvine or at your local congregation. We've got Deeptive coming in the fall.
How to study the Bible, going to be open to men's married and women groups, Karen Recovery, how we love starting in September. Just a ton of great options. And of course, we've got the Rooted Network, Rooted Rhythm series that is now available. The prayer study is available and sacrificial generosity, flourishing.
Just so many great options. And we're so thankful that God is providing all of these resources. Yeah, other than that, I know we've got a leader huddle coming up August 3rd. We do.
And we just want to encourage all of our leaders to RSVP and attend. It's just always a great time to connect with your coach, with other leaders, and just be equipped and encouraged. You know, sometimes we think we're alone in all of this. And Sam, you and I both lead a light group and we know the challenges that we can face.
But we also know what a blessing and a gift it is. To know that God is doing a great work and God is using us to shepherd our groups. And so I want to encourage all of you to attend the leader huddle. It only happens three times a year.
So make every effort to attend. And subscribe to this podcast. It's a new format that we have. Let's go hit that subscribe button.
Hit that subscribe button. And we have some amazing upcoming episodes that we tackle new topics, different topics that will help us, the challenges that we face in leading groups. So I'm excited about that. Yes, incredible.
So Scott, I think the only appropriate way to close this out is in Word of Prayer. Would you mind praying just over our leaders and just a prayer blessing over them? I would love to. Perfect.
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for just this gift of community that you have given to us. Thank you for allowing us as leaders to shepherd and care for your people. We know that we're not alone. We lead by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So may we lead with grace and truth. May we lead with courage and wisdom. May we lead knowing that you are with us, you are for us. And that we can do all things to Christ who strengthens us.
So bless our all of our life groups, some are meeting throughout the summer, some are meeting once a month for serve experiences and for socials. And we just ask that you would bless our gatherings. And as we launch in the fall, we ask that you would give us all that we need to lead with confidence. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Amen. Amazing. Well, thank you leaders for tuning in.
Until next time.