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. Well hello leaders, this is John Thomas and Liz Powers. And we're joining you on this very special edition of the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast.
We know that many of you use this resource every week and we hope that it's a great resource to you as you prep for your sermon discussions every week. And what an amazing kickoff we had to this series this last week start with the ending with Pastor Eric leading us through just a great conversation as we're gonna be studying deep into the book of Revelation. So we know that your groups have enjoyed that. Well today we're here to just bring you inside to some great information and some things that we have a plan right around the corner to equip you and your life group in this new year ahead.
And I guess can we still say happy new year? Is that a thing? Happy new year? I think we can.
Yeah. Sorry, you're only January 10th 12th. Yeah, it's the 10th of recording here. I don't know if it's one of those Labor Day when you can wear white after Labor Day.
I don't know what the rule is, but the day is January 10th and I'll just give you an insight look today is the 10th that I am wearing my San Francisco 49ers hat because my team crushed it yesterday. Liz, what are you wearing tonight? And why? Only the greatest team Easton and Mississippi, and we're pretty hopeful that the Cinderella story is ours too tonight.
So what is that? Georgia, what do they play? What are you talking about? In the South, we have something called football on Saturday that we get really excited about.
Great. College football tonight. So it's Monday during the day. So you can hear the hope in Liz's voice, which will be dashed tonight, I'm sure, is a roll tie role perhaps.
You can tell. Anyway, this is not a sports podcast. So we're here to talk more about life groups and what is going on. So we were very, very sad.
Liz and I and our team are very sad to have to postpone our life group leader gathering that we had scheduled for Sunday, January 9th. But we thought you know what? In light of that, we'd love to just connect here and share a few things that we have coming in this exciting new year ahead. One of those that we want to talk about is just really this posture around open groups.
We talk about this from time to time with you, our life group leaders. We really do believe that actually one of the best ways to encourage people to jump back into community. Well, primarily we want to have that as they start groups. But also we know that joining healthy life groups, such as your own, is a great way for people to get plugged in to new groups here at Mariners.
And you know, guys, we went some great stuff. We started on 86 new groups for so it was the last few months. And group ministry is growing. But we still know that we have lots of people, lots of rutigrads out there that are always contacting us, aren't they, Liz, and wanting to get involved into a group.
And we really see this as a great opportunity for you as a group leader to begin praying now with your group about, man, what would it look like for us to open up our group? We really see that as a gospel value, hospitality, multiplication. This is something that we see all throughout scriptures. And it's really a great exercise for us to make sure that we have this posture of openness and welcoming others in because really it helps us replicate the gospel through our groups.
It helps us to grow other people. And it really furthers God's mission in and through our groups as others come to join us. And so we're excited to share a little bit more about some of the wins and the hows of what that's going to look like. Yeah.
Yeah. We're so excited. And like John was saying, one of the most important parts of this is going to be you prayerfully seeking a decision on adding some more people to your group for me. I actually started a conversation with my group back in December about this of let's just go ahead and start asking God together and looking around at our group is this a good time.
Because there is a good time to be adding people. And sometimes you're in seasons where it's not. I think you can look at things like what rhythm your group is in with the studies that you're doing, or just how long have you guys been meeting as a group? If you're relatively new, we always encourage our groups that are just starting off to stay closed for some time and then reevaluate maybe three and four months in, whether or not you want to start adding some people.
So go ahead and talk to your group. Of course, ask God, pray, and also look at your like group coaches. Some of our pastors do are happy to give counsel on those kinds of things as well. Later this month, we do have a great opportunity that's going to be coming up where like John was saying, we have so many people that are still looking to be a part of a biblical community here at our church.
And we're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to get into your groups. And we're going to be putting together something on our website where people are going to actually view all open groups. It's something that we haven't done here before. And we're really excited about it and think that it'll be a really useful tool and resource for some people to get plugged in.
So here in the next few weeks, actually, we're going to be launching this. But it's going to really, really require the help of you as our amazing life group leaders to tell us about your group. So probably in the next few days, by the time you're hearing this, you're going to be getting an email from our team that's going to ask you to fill out a form in that fancy groups portal that we launched back in November. So you guys will go in, tell us a little bit about your group, who you are, how many people you're looking to add, and then hoping that on January 22, we'll start launching that on our website.
And people will actually be able to sign up for the group directly. There's going to be way more information that comes in, probably through email from some videos, training videos from John and myself and some of other pastors. So be looking out for all of those, but just kind of keep this on your radar that we want to know now, are you guys open? And when you get that form emailed to your inbox, go ahead and let us know.
That's it. So what you're hearing is begin having that conversation if you haven't already now with your groups. Hey, are we open? How many people would we love to join into our group and again, have that conversation through the lens of the gospel.
This isn't just a logistic thing. This is a discipleship growth thing. So have that conversation. You know, how much space do we have?
And then Liz and the team will get you all the information pathway that you need to do that so that you can help us populate this really exciting new group view of tool that we're going to have on our website. So people will literally be able to go online, hopefully see a picture of you, all your group information, and sign up within a two-week window or so to join into your group. And then what that's going to look like is Life Group Connect on Monday, February 7. We're going to take all those signups and you, of course, and encourage you to come on the seventh that Monday night.
And if you haven't already done so up until that point, meet the people that have signed up for your group. It's going to be a fun kind of connecting event. You can meet in person with all those folks and even share more about your group on that night. But again, we're going to talk more and more about the process leading up to the seventh.
But for now, two things to be doing. Praying, asking, and then making the plans to open up your group in the new year. So that's great. Anything else that you think Liz that they should know for now with that?
I don't think so. That should cover it. And yeah, of course, look out for more information from us and stay closely connected to your Life Group's coaches and John and myself, our team. That's it.
All right. So what's the score prediction for tonight? This is Georgia, Alabama. Let's hear it.
Hot take from Liz Powers. What do you got? I got to have faith in my team. Don't ask me this question.
So I heard a 45-10 Alabama. Oh, OK. No. One last thing before we let's go and watch Georgia, Liz, tonight.
Also, we've been working on a new Life Group starter study, which is pretty exciting. If you've been around Mariners for a little while, you know that one of the main strategies that we have here is something called the transformational loop, where we talk about what it means to follow Jesus, to grow together, to serve one another, and to change the world. And so what we've been working on is a four-week study that looks at all four stops on the loop, particularly for new groups that will be coming out of rooted to help them just to run that strategy in and through their groups, all parts of the loop together. So the other lookout for that, that should be coming sometime in March or so.
And that'll be a resource also for existing Life Groups. But really a great tool for a new group that are starting out. So I think that's about it. We're looking forward to all that God wants to do in this new year.
And as always, we're praying for you. We're so thankful for you. And please always feel free to reach out to our team. But not just your questions, but your stories.
We love, love you here with guys doing it. Liz, find a word. It's word prediction now or no? No, it's OK.
I'm getting a big guy. 45-10 Alabama. All right, you guys.