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, practice the spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Hey, welcome to Life Group Leader Podcast, a space to encourage and equip you as you help others find God and take their next steps in faith. In today's episode, we're joined by our lead pastor, Vereven Jarrett, to talk about why life groups are the core of what we do at Mariners.
You'll hear how life groups connect directly to our church's mission, stories of transformation, and how we can navigate the natural transitions that happen in group life. We'll also take a look at an exciting new initiative called Intentional Parenting, and we'll explore how groups can come alongside parents as they disciple their kids and build faith at home. So whether you're a brand new leader or you've been leading for years, this conversation will remind you why, what you do matters and inspire you to keep leading with purpose and heart. So let's dive in.
Our Life Group Leader Podcast. I'm on show himself. You guys, I've been available. I don't know why you're on the list.
Oh, you're on us. You're on us. You're on us. You're on us.
You're on us. You're on us. You're on us. You're on us.
You're on us. You're on us. Jared, I'm very grateful to be here because I love our Life Group leaders and I'm super thrilled just to spend some time encouraging and talking through some practical things that I think are going to make our life groups better than they've ever been. Yeah.
Well, so let's dive in. I know, Jared, you are so passionate about seeing people connect into authentic community. And just yesterday, we had an all-staff meeting and you shared about why going together, one of our stops in our transformational loop is so vital for entire church, including our staff, our team. And so if you get to share an unpack, like, why are life groups, why are groups the core of what we do here at Manors?
Yeah. Well, I mean, the whole transformational loop is critical. So that's a discipleship plan. It's the strategy in which if you ask the question, how do I become more like Jesus?
The four stops on our transformational loop are designed that when done consistently, over time, like if you do those things for decades, the natural byproduct or the fruit of your life, you will look more like Jesus. You will think more like him. You will react more. Your life will just take the shape of Jesus.
That's called sanctification. That's the goal of any church is to help people do that. So for us, follow Jesus. We can worship services like having a regular service that you go to grow together for the most part is being in life groups.
We also have courses and some care and recovery opportunities and some affinity or community events that allow people to connect with one another. But the anchor is life groups. And then serve one another, be on a ministry team, serve the church in some way, and then change the world as our local global initiatives. See if the good's coming up.
You know, there's lots of things where be a part of what the church is doing to care for the city and the world around us. So why grow together? Well, if you only go to church regularly and you're not in a life group community, there's some good that will happen in your life. You will learn more.
You will understand more, but you will probably not apply as deeply as it could when you're in a life group. So it's really important as an individual that you hear God's word. You are engaged in it every single day, but you also have a group of people that you can regularly discuss with and bring the realities of your own life for it to allow God's word to impact your life. The highs and lows.
You go through a difficult thing or you're celebrating a new job or baby announcement, whatever the thing is, God's word actually has something to say about all of those things. And in a life group community, you get to experience the beauty of God's word met with the realities of your day to day life. And I think it's best done in relationship. That's really good.
And yesterday, you were mentioning how as a staff, we can't be working at the church and not being a life group ourselves, and communicating this to our guests, our congregants, you yourself are in a life group. Can you share a little bit how your life group has been a blessing for you? Yeah, absolutely. So my life group started and rooted.
My wife and I committed a leading a rooted group just over three years ago now. And it was made up of a bunch of families, our kids all go to the same school. And so we got linked up together. And it was a really great group experience.
And then we just continued on into staying in that life group. One couple has left, moved. That's kind of a normal transition, right? Things like that happen.
The rest of us are just kind of continuing on. So we've got a couple of great leaders. And look, our life group goes through the same thing. Every life group goes through, which is scheduling conflicts.
We struggle to figure out what content we're going to go through. We get off track basically every single week. It's a normal group. The tension I feel as a pastor here is I don't want to lead the group.
And then I can't not help but try at times. And so I try to just sit back. My life group leader kind of looks at me for approval in the middle of a gathering sometimes. You know, I'm the right track here.
And I'm just kind of, you're doing great, man. Like is everything's going great. And then it is what it is. But being in a life group is for everyone.
It is not something that the church staff thinks it's good for you. We really believe it is for all of us. Same thing with, by the way, all the other staffs on the loop. We should engage in the rhythms of the church in the same way that we ask our people to.
Yeah. There's a quote that you shared from John Stott who has been a huge influence on the entire church. And I just want to read a portion of it. He says, we are not only Christian people.
We are also church people. We are not only committed to Christ. We are also committed to the body of Christ. The church is God's new community.
You also gave this great analogy of Hot wheels and the speed of that happens in some of those tracks. If you could kind of speak on what John Stott is trying to say and kind of an analogy that you gave with the Hot Wheels as well. Well, the truth of our culture today is I think so many people are trying to bifurcate Jesus in the church, spirituality and religion. Trying to find a way that I can engage in a relationship with God, but not with God's people.
I just don't think it's possible. That's really the heart of what John Stott is trying to get at here. God's plan for the world was the church. It is the church that is going to be the epicenter of how God plans to seek and save the lost.
Care for the poor and the marginalized. Help people grow become more like Jesus. The church is the place in which that is intended to happen. If you want to follow after Jesus and yet you're not actively involved in the church, you are missing a fundamental part of what it means to follow Jesus.
Not just be a part of the church, but follow Jesus. He is the one who established the church. To try to follow him and not be a part of the thing that he established, we're missing something here. That quote I think is a helpful mirror for just a society today of going, hey, where do you find yourself?
Do you want to be involved? Do you want to become more like God, but you're trying not to do the things that God invites you to do? Well, how's that going to happen? If a doctor says here's what you need in order to get better and you choose to not do those things and then go back to the doctor and say, how come I'm still feeling bad?
Did you do anything I said? No, really? I did these other things though. I found them on Chachie PT.
Well, unfortunately, that's not your doctor. The Hot Wheels analogy was me trying and I will admit to the two of you guys and whoever's listening, I came up with that on the spot. It may not be a very good analogy. I love that.
I remember collecting those Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels, right? Asher, my son, he had just an infinite amount of these Hot Wheels tracks. We still love making the things from end to end of our house.
It was a very small house. We could run a track from his bedroom to the living room. Eventually, what would happen is that if you couldn't get high enough for the inertia, enough momentum, I'm not sure which is the physics term for it, but to get the car to go from one to the house to the other. So you could buy these little speed boosts that when the car goes through it, it accelerates it, it shoots it faster forward.
That's how I view life groups. I think of the rhythm of the church. If I can stay committed, life groups as they get into God's word and they practice the seven rhythms that we learn and root it, they operate as little speed boosts that propel me forward in my relationship with God in the church or with others. They cause me to pray differently.
They cause me to be aware of my own obstacles getting in the way of me and God. Those strongholds and I can call those things out and ask for prayer. The speed boost of thinking regularly about generosity or engaging in seek the good. They're just these little speed boosts that are whipping you forward in your relationship with God and his church.
So, I don't know. I'm not sure if it's that good enough. No, life group leaders, you should be encouraged because your environment that you're creating is giving an acceleration and nitro boost a speed up. And this is something you just can't get at a weekend service.
And so we just want to encourage you as life group leaders that you're making a difference. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think that there's the partnership between the weekend experience and the life group is that what we teach on the weekends provides some of the air support for like what matters in a relationship with God. And then in a life group, it's the relational environment in which a life group leader can say, no, we have to do this.
We're going to pray differently. We're going to give differently. We're going to serve differently. So, they're in tandem with one another.
They work in partnership between what is taught and then what relationally actually drives a person to do something different with their time. That's great. That's really good. Jared, thank you for everything you shared so far.
We're going to talk about a couple of things today. One of those things is navigating life group transitions. So what we've heard from life group leaders before is that there will be people moving out of state. There will be addition of new life group members or sometimes it's life group leader stepping down.
So they experience these transitions. How can we best resource them to navigate these changes, whether it's people moving, people being added? Yeah, because the reality is that we want groups to stay together, but some groups are going to stay together for three years. Some groups I know have stayed together for 10, 15 years.
Just there are seasons and transitions that people naturally go through. And so I think just kind of unpacking through what are some of those transitions, like natural experiences of transitions look like and how can we help our leaders navigate them well? Well, I think the first is that transitions are natural. They're going to happen.
So we shouldn't be surprised when they do happen. Now, if you start to notice in your own group that people are opting out, that's a moment of reflection for the life group leader to just go, I wonder what is really happening here. Sometimes again, it's a real innocent schedule change, you know, some got a new job or when you know kids life, it's not just having a new baby. It's like when your kids get involved in another sport or they pick up ASB or whatever the thing is, it's going to cause more complication to the schedule.
So if it's these really benign reasons that people are opting out of the group, that's fine. But I do think my encouragement to the life group leader would just ask the question, how healthy is our group? And I know you guys have some great resources to help somebody evaluate the health of a life group. And a great leader is going to pause periodically, maybe once a quarter, every six months, and just ask the question, how healthy is our group?
Okay, so then let's assume that the group is relatively healthy and the transition is going to happen. Again, I would love those people all the way out the door. It's fine. We just had a couple of our group and we love them so dearly.
I was just hanging out with the guy, the husband of the couple that left just the other day. My love for him and his wife did not change it in any way. What made the most sense for them is that they needed a different environment. That's okay.
The beautiful thing about our church in particular is we have lots of places where they can get plugged in and connect it with other people. They jump straight into one of the courses we run. Great job, that's fantastic. So I think that it doesn't have to be dramatic.
It doesn't have to be something that we have to, everyone has to resign a commitment together and we have to evaluate each other's level of commitment to the group. It's okay. It's all right. Let's not hold people higher accountability than we want for ourselves.
Yeah. Man, I can relate to that because my rooted group two and a half years ago, we were meeting on Tuesdays and then after root it ended, so many people could not make that Tuesday commitment after that. It was the simple trick of what about Mondays? Then that got people to continue being committed to the group, which is such a small change, but that made a huge impact for us.
Yeah. Another follow up question is like, what are some things, what are some best practices for us to be able to hand off leadership? Let's just say that for some reason as a group leader, you're having to move to a different state or season of life, you can't lead. What are some things that you can do to see a group be healthy and mission focused and hand that off?
Sure. Well, I think that can happen well before any transition ever takes place. The life of leader isn't the only person who should feel equipped to guide people through questions. Honestly, I think the healthiest groups are the one in which basically anyone in the group on any given week could be the one facilitating the conversation.
Right there, if you have a location figured out and a person who can facilitate a conversation, that's about the only skill you need to be a life group leader. That's right. The love for Jesus. I mean, the skill, there's some character things, but a skill wise, are you the one that's continuing to beat the drum of when and where and how are we going to do this thing?
You could probably start to identify people really early on and figure out how to have other people lead the group that week. Yeah. Don't you think? That's great.
I think one of the values is sharing ownership with the people in our group. We talked about in our previous podcast, kind of rotating homes, rotating facilitation, all those things. That really prepares other people and multiplies influence before any of that transition could even take place. And as a leader, I think that that's where it does take a level of humility and development in mind to say, hey, I'm in two weeks, Sam, I'd love for you to lead our group.
We're going through Nehemiah together. Why don't you look two weeks ahead and you can just start thinking, I'd be happy to hop on the phone with you or something if you wanted to head to time. But why don't you lead it and just get out of the way. And by the way, as a leader, then don't rescue that person.
Let him figure it out. Wow, that's good. How about you to catch, right? It's fine.
Let him do it. And then debrief it afterwards and then let him do it again. That's great. We have this new initiative.
We're excited about this new initiative that launched called intentional parenting. I'm glad it's called intentional parenting, not automatic or accidental or reactive parenting. But tell us a little bit more about what it is and what matters. Also, can I just say that when you shared about intentional parenting recently at one of our staff meetings, what came to mind is this Nehemiah series and how God puts a burden on our lives.
You shared how God put a burden on your life for this intentional parenting program. So I would love to hear a little bit about that too. Yeah. Well, thank you guys.
So intentional parenting is not Jared Kirkwood's ministry. This is just simply me getting something going, knowing that I am by far not the greatest parent on the planet. I am though trying hard each and every day to be intentional with how I'm raising my kids in partnership with my wife. So the great news is, as we say at intentional parenting, that there are no perfect parents, but there can be intentional ones.
And look, I was having this conversation with my father-in-law last night who has been in ministry for 30 years more probably at this point loves everything that we do. And he's like, I'm just not understanding what the point of intentional parenting is. There's so much great content out there. And I'm like, you're absolutely right.
There is so much content, like books to read, podcasts, blog posts, you can find an exceptional amount of content. So why this at our church? Really it's because I wanted to create these gatherings about once a quarter, four times a year, where we can set aside time in our lives to sit together and actually work on our parenting because everything else in life is just the day to day of working it as a parent. And then the grind of parenting all the time.
It's never ending. You're getting kids out of bed, you're making lunches, you're getting them out the door. The second you pick them up, you're trying to figure out how to get them to get their homework done before you go to soccer practice and get back in time so they can go to bed. And then we do it again tomorrow.
So when does a parent ever sit down and go, who are we becoming as a family? What does it mean for us to think about values? What do those values actually look like on our calendar? So intentional parenting is a really practical environment where we just set aside enough time for somebody to actually work on the kind of parent they want to be, which ultimately is the type of children they want to raise.
So that's all it is. We gather a few times a year. We have a podcast as well. That is me just sitting down with the pastors of our church, some friends of mine who I know are kind of in this environment.
And it's really practical to our church. I'll be recording in this very room tomorrow with Chris and Will, our junior high school pastor at the Irvine campus. And they're both our recent dads and they're doing youth ministry to teenagers. And I just think there's a beautiful contrast in working all day with teenagers and then going home and having a two year old.
Like there's a funny thing, you know, and I was that. And when my kids were born, I was the junior high pastor when Asher was born and then the junior high bachelor when Ellie came along. And I can remember I viewed parents instantly differently when I was doing youth ministry as soon as I became one myself. So I just think there's so much there's so much fun with that.
Anyway, very long way of saying it's really just gathering together as parents and giving some space to say, how are you doing and where are you going? How can we help? That's it. I'm actually going to be a first time dad.
Come on. Yes you are. Oh my goodness. I'm still.
Okay. Can I have you on? Can I have you on the other show? That's okay.
Oh my gosh. I would totally do this. Okay. Here's what I want to do.
I want you to just talk about how are you feeling right now knowing that becoming a dad is in your future. And yet you have no clue what you're doing. So we're going to do it before and after kind of thing. I am 100% excited and like just have so much faith that God is going to take care of this little one Annabelle.
I know that my wife and I are in a really good spot. No marriage is perfect. But I think we're creating an atmosphere for her to be just a really great disciple of Jesus. And I think it stems from our communication with each other.
So I don't know. I'm just I'm really excited. It's good. Scott, did you notice he's very excited?
Oh, he has no confidence yet. I didn't think there's no competence in him. Oh, man. I took one birthing class and I wore the fake belly.
I did. So I can sympathize, empathize. It's great. It's great.
I love it. I love it because you're in the honeymoon stage and it's perfect. You are not sleep deprived yet. Totally.
So having like the week after we should be told we should be told we should be. But meeting a first time dad coming up was wondering if you could share a few of those practical tips that you share in intentional parenting. Just anything for our listeners right now that really helped me. Sorry.
And that's it everyone. Have a great week. I really think I should just have you on. I think this will be a fun crossover to be able to talk through.
Like, how are you feeling and what are you preparing for? Sure. Yeah, it will be so fun. It will be so fun.
To make an effort at your question, you know, honestly, I think if parents have a forward lean in the desire to be intentional parents, that's like 80% of the battle. And that truly today is most people. Most people are trying really hard to be present with their kids. That's probably a reaction to the homes that a lot of us grew up in where your parents were more latchkey kids, your parents were, you know, making best with what they had.
But there was a real absence of great content for them to consume. So now we're entering into like the gentle parenting crisis where parents are trying to be best friends with their kids as opposed to the spiritual leaders of their children. So you know, we're just trying to find the middle, the middle of being intentional, but recognize that like your job is not to become best friends with your children. It's to raise, raise your children.
And that is a picture of intentionality. It's discipleship. It's remembering that you do have to keep clear lines at times. And it's great to be close with your kids.
I'm very, very close with my kids. But at the end of the day, I'm still dead. And they have to know that. And it's never too late, right, Jared?
I'm Dinester. You don't want me on your show, right? We can have the barbell kind of like aspect of it. Oh, man.
We should just keep this one rolling. I could use it. Oh, man. Hey, so this is directed to our main audience as life group leaders.
And so what would you say like in terms of how life groups helps us as parents leading our kids in our faith and for our own spiritual growth as well, too? Well, yeah. Okay. So you can't tell your kid that going to church is important if you don't go to church.
You cannot tell your kid that being involved in a church community is important if you aren't in one yourself. Um, tonight, you know, we're recording this on a Wednesday. Youth life groups are tonight. My son is in a high school group.
He doesn't understand or feel the value of that. If he knows if, if, um, if Kim and I didn't go to our life group the night before, right? So we have our group on a Tuesday. He goes to his life group on Wednesday.
Sure. We miss our group sometimes and he misses his group sometimes. But the truth of the matter is, is we don't, um, we don't get to tell him to go to something that we don't go to ourselves. So there's that as it comes to raising a kid.
But then probably the deeper version of that is Kim and I are not at our best. My wife and I are not at our best to raise our kids in a Christian home unless we are surrounded by others who are also trying to do the same. Our life group community is all raising kids of around the same age and the topic of either marriage or children comes up every single week because it is the reality of our life stage. So we're always in conversations about what does it look like to enhance our marriage and to raise great kids?
Well, you better believe that over three years that's made us better parents. Our kids have been made better because of just the group community that has formed. And so as a life group leader, if you are, if you are leading a life group where there are kids represented in the age group, my gosh, like what, what a legacy impact you have that you may not even realize. You are impacting a future generation because you are helping create great marriages and families based off of the life group community that you lead.
That makes a difference for years. Well, that's okay. I think about my personal life group again, we're starting to have little kids in the mix and oh my gosh, it is organized chaos sometimes, maybe even not organized. But I think about the impact of having them watch their parents sit around in a circle talking about Jesus.
That's going to last for that impact is going to last for years for sure. But Jared, it's been up a blessing having you on this podcast. You are an amazing leader of this church, the Irvine congregation and everything else that you do that we don't get to see behind the scenes. Would you do us the pleasure of praying us out and praying over our life group leaders?
I'd love to. Thank you guys for having me on this. You guys are doing a great job equipping caring for our leaders. So yeah, let me pray.
Father God, thank you for who you are and for what you do. Thank you that for each of our life group leaders. You love them as much as you ever can. And it's not because of what they do.
You love them because they have place to faith in your son Jesus. And it's from that place that we serve. It's from that place that we try to create environments for others to experience and find what we have found ourselves. So God, I pray that you would just continue to bless each of these group leaders.
Would you equip them with everything they need to create a healthy environment for people to find you? Would you give them ears to hear and eyes to see so that they might be attentive to the spirit's work in each person in their group? Would they have the ability to follow curriculum while also being curious so that as your word starts to impact a person's life, they might follow you and understand what you might want to be doing in a person. So God, thank you for just these amazing men and women that you have called and that you continuously equipped.
I pray that you would allow them, even in this very moment, whether they're on a walk or they're driving to their group right now, would you just allow them to feel your own pleasure on them that they might know that you are pleased with what they are doing and who they are that they might experience the growth that you have for them as well. So Father, thank you. Thanks for all that you do in our next your present name is Jesus. Amen.
Amen. Thanks, Eric. Nice. Nice.
Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.
Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.
Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.