READING LENZ: On Homecoming and Belong

Show Notes

When faced with an enviable challenge, how can we best use community to drive us to unity instead defaulting back to our standard of individuality?

Join us on this episode as we go back to an impactful book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by award winning wartime journalist Sebastian Junger. In this episode modernity is affecting community and how groups are in a prime position to fight for what our heart actually desires.  

More About Tommy Carreras:

Tommy never had any intention of being in ministry. Jesus found him at 17 and after 6 years figuring out what in the world that meant, he packed everything moved to Ventura CA with his wife, Lauren to work at Mission Church where they served for eight years. Earlier this year they moved to Tennessee to be close to family and work alongside Michael and Cathy Dye implementing and updating The Genesis Process (https://www.genesisprocess.org/). 

Tommy is also a contributor to the Small Group Network blog and podcast.

Tommy's Website → https://tommycarreras.com

Former Shows Referenced:

Extreme Ownership ►►https://grouptalksgn.libsyn.com/reading-lenz-extreme-ownership

Canoeing the Mountain ►►https://grouptalksgn.libsyn.com/reading-lenz-canoeing-the-mountain-w-kiersten-telzerow

Lighting Round References:

Mission's Change Workshop (Michael Dye's recovery content) 

► missionventura.com/changeworkshop

Unhindered: Aligning the Story of Your Heart

► https://www.amazon.com/Unhindered-Aligning-Story-Your-Heart/dp/1950718743

Creators & Guests

Host

Nick Lenzi

Helping people belong at Hoboken Grace. Podcast host of Reading Lenz on the @smallgrpnetwork's Group Talk Podcast. New episodes every 4th Wednesday.

Guest

Tommy Carreras

got a hunch that trauma-informed churches would be a really good idea. working on that.

What is Reading Lenz With Nick Lenzi?

Small group discussions with Nick Lenzi and guests. Applying practical tips and lessons from other areas of ministry, each month Nick shares insights for your church's group ministry.

00;00;01;05 - 00;00;21;03
Jason
Welcome to Group Talk for Shows, one podcast from the Small Group Network focusing on topics relevant to small group ministries. Whether you're in a church of 100 or 10,000, whether you're a volunteer staff, we want to support, encourage and equip you to lead well. So relax, listen and enjoy reading lessons with Nick Lindsey.

00;00;21;20 - 00;00;39;25
Nick Lenzi
A small group network. Welcome back to another episode of Reading Lenz, we're so glad that you chose time to hang out with us. I'm Nick Lenzi, and it's an honor to be your host. If you're with us for the first time, welcome. We're so excited that you've joined us. Here's how a Reading Lenz works. Each month I have with us a guest who's also a small group point person to share with you insights in books.

00;00;39;25 - 00;00;56;02
Nick Lenzi
We're reading what our takeaways were and how we plan to incorporate them into our lives, leadership or our small groups. Well, this month I have a rewind episode, which means we're going to go back to an episode from our archives. I know many of you have been jumping on this journey along the way, so you may have missed this one.

00;00;56;02 - 00;01;14;05
Nick Lenzi
But today I have with us Tommy Carreras, who is a guy I just love to have conversations with. This was the first time I had him on this podcast. You may have heard him the other time when we had him do the 2021 hit book. The other half of the church personally, that one's a huge favorite of mine and one of the best episodes that we've done.

00;01;14;10 - 00;01;36;09
Nick Lenzi
So if you enjoy this one, I encourage you to go check out that one next and one last thing be sure to listen to all the way to the end as I have a major announcement regarding this podcast that you don't want to miss. OK, onto our thoughts on Tribe with Tommy Carreras So one of the things with reading lenses that I love finding the great guests and I let them choose the books that I want.

00;01;36;09 - 00;01;39;10
Nick Lenzi
You walk us through what book you chose for us today yeah.

00;01;39;10 - 00;02;05;15
Tommy Carreras
This was literally an Amazon recommendation, so thanks, Big Brother, but this book is called Tribe, and it's by a guy who war time journalists, anthropologists. And right off the bat that's like that's exciting because your defense then makes you very different. It's not a Christian book, but what I what I loved about it was that it seemed like he was one of those guys.

00;02;05;15 - 00;02;25;29
Tommy Carreras
This was just right off the bat, literally from reading, you know, the back cover it seemed like he was one of those guys that looked and observed so well at this world that God has made, that he was uncovering the truth of how God made the world just by looking carefully at us. And I think that's so helpful because it takes from a different angle the things that we sometimes take for granted to be true.

00;02;25;29 - 00;02;47;14
Tommy Carreras
Or we say like, well, the Bible says it's true. And so it's true about how we're wired, how we're made. And I love this guy because he's like, let's just true because have you looked at the world because it's this way. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. And it just seems so interesting. And one and you mentioned this before we were talking even we were going to do a different book where we're going to talk to strangers, which.

00;02;47;25 - 00;02;49;13
Nick Lenzi
I highly recommend. Malcolm Gladwell.

00;02;49;22 - 00;03;06;12
Tommy Carreras
Yes, great book. Really interesting. But if you've ever read one of his books, he just he takes you on a weird journey. He's like, well, here are 12 ideas that aren't related. But on the last page, I'll show you how related they are. And I think that's just really fun. And this one is the same way. It's for chapter.

00;03;06;24 - 00;03;20;09
Tommy Carreras
Yeah. And he basically to write the book was like, you know, there are four things that I don't understand. I think there might be a common thread. And he wrote a book about it, and it's and there very clearly is a common thread. It's amazing. And that's why I picked it.

00;03;20;09 - 00;03;38;29
Nick Lenzi
Yeah. What's funny is one thing what you didn't mention is that the subtitle for this book is On Homecoming and Belonging. When you told me, Hey, let's read this book, Tribe, I looked it up on Amazon and I'll be honest, like just hearing Tribe, I was like, All right, well, what's, what's this going to be on? But then I saw the homecoming and belonging and I was like, Oh, that sounds phenomenal.

00;03;38;29 - 00;03;51;06
Nick Lenzi
Our vision statement kind of thing, or the vision statement. What's like the kind of like, what are people do our group leaders is how people belong so that's that's what we use here at home. Grace is how people belong. And so when I saw that, I was like, all right, I'm in.

00;03;51;15 - 00;03;53;13
Tommy Carreras
And I said something important.

00;03;53;29 - 00;04;13;12
Nick Lenzi
Yeah. So I get the book and I want to share this for those who've been who've been loyally following along on reading lines. So so you know, my experience here. So I open the book and the first thing is on Native Americans, and it's written by this war journalist. And I just had like this last because two episodes are gone.

00;04;13;12 - 00;04;29;11
Nick Lenzi
I had Steve Kern, and we did a military book called Extreme Ownership, which is one of the best leadership books I've ever read. And then on the last episode I have you on Christian tells Zero, and we read a book called Canoeing the Mountain, which is the leadership book about Lewis and Clark. And so it naturally features a lot of Native Americans.

00;04;29;11 - 00;04;38;16
Nick Lenzi
So you have to imagine myself opening this up, and it's just like, here's the last two podcasts combined. People are going to think that this is like a war and Native Americans like this, and it's like something.

00;04;38;16 - 00;04;58;16
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, it's beautiful. So no, I think that's so true. The homecoming and belonging thing, it was perfect. Because that's literally what we're trying to do. And in somebody that's that much smarter than me, I'm like, I need to know what you're observing about this, because also if you're not a Christian, this is not obvious to you that like we can tell, right?

00;04;58;16 - 00;05;08;23
Tommy Carreras
At least the scripture says this is how you're built and you need this desperately. But he doesn't have that. And so I'm like, if you figure it out, you're going to have some really good information that I need. And I would love that.

00;05;08;23 - 00;05;24;05
Nick Lenzi
Well, I also think that we have a big biased in here as well because we're community guys. And so his answer to a lot of this is we need communities dying. We need to bring it back. I don't even know that the rest of the people we work with in our staffs necessarily understand that.

00;05;24;15 - 00;05;49;19
Tommy Carreras
That's a scary point that I don't think you should bring up, but you need to know that's so true because I think it's something we either take for granted or we just like kind of suffer in silence a lot of times, which is why it's good to get together to go. Is anybody else like experiencing this thing where you're the only one that's maybe flying this flag of we need a deeper commune, richer community, and it's like you're not the only one.

00;05;50;11 - 00;05;51;09
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, really?

00;05;51;19 - 00;06;09;06
Nick Lenzi
Yeah. So, you know, one of the things you shared is that it's only four chapters. This is a great tight book. It's also really good. So I do both. I read and listen to the audio books same time, too. So I really get it. I you do it mainly. Mainly so that like I can get the most for this podcast and really retain as much as possible.

00;06;09;06 - 00;06;14;10
Nick Lenzi
But so it's four chapters around a theme. Could you share with the audience, like what that theme is or what the thesis to this book is?

00;06;14;10 - 00;06;33;18
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, well, it's a good title because the theme is tribal. And what I love about it is, is it is that simple and the interesting thing. So one of the ways that I was preparing for this conversation also was I listened to Sebastian Junger talk to Joe Rogan on his podcast, and it was right after he wrote the book and all this.

00;06;33;25 - 00;06;54;29
Tommy Carreras
And it was interesting because the first question Joe Rogan asked was like, OK, so Tribe, were you worried that everybody would throw it out as some political like bad, scary tribes are bad. We don't want to tribe allies, we want to be unified. And he was like, whoa, yeah. This is not what that is like. We were building the tribes and that's the idea and he doesn't say that these words specifically.

00;06;54;29 - 00;07;16;08
Tommy Carreras
So I'll just add the intention of God and what he says. But we were designed to function together and be necessary scary parts of it is something that he said in that podcast even was community with consequences. It's part where I know, right? He said it was like, Oh, I'm going to take that. But that's the whole idea.

00;07;16;08 - 00;07;39;25
Tommy Carreras
Like, if I'm not a necessary part of a tight knit community with a purpose I will die. And that's his whole idea. Even as like how we got to here is by being those necessary parts of small communities that we're literally fighting for survival. The rest of human history, besides, like the last 5 minutes, has been fighting against the world that's trying to kill us.

00;07;40;07 - 00;08;18;27
Tommy Carreras
And the only way to do that the only way to survive is together. And his anthropological thing is looking at the world now and going, Why are suicide rates going up? Our PTSD rates going up, even though fewer soldiers are in combat? Why are PTSD rates going up and lasting longer? Why did this is one of the things I love, one of the big questions he's asking one of the chapters like why did all of the English colonists in America, not all of them, but why did so many of them run to the tribes tribes, the American Indian tribes, and not come back and get captured by the brutal, like, very brutal existence of these

00;08;18;27 - 00;08;38;09
Tommy Carreras
tribes? Why did they stay when given the opportunity to come back? Yeah, that's a good question without a clear answer. And so he just he doesn't even have a thesis like this is what you need to do. That's really just saying this is something you need to know and there's something afoot. There's there's a problem happening.

00;08;38;16 - 00;09;00;20
Nick Lenzi
Yeah. In my opinion, too, like his his thesis is all around that. What we don't see is that community is a resource that's dying. We don't necessarily see it. So I mean, it's in a sense, it's like the carbon monoxide. You know, you don't you don't see it, but it can kill you. Right. And so I think that's that's a big part of his inspiration for this book is we we shared he's a wartime journalist.

00;09;00;20 - 00;09;29;18
Nick Lenzi
He was with a military group in east Afghanistan and in east Afghanistan. They, you know, conditions aren't great. There's no TV. There's no there's no women. So these guys are alone out there just as this this crew. And they got deployed back to Italy and they he was talking with the guys and all of them wanted to go back to this deserted area in east Afghanistan as opposed to returning home.

00;09;29;18 - 00;09;53;05
Nick Lenzi
And it just seemed so countercultural like, you know, he gets into the hands of discovering is that like there's this this sense of common purpose and just having having a purpose for life meant so much to these guys that when they came home, it's just really challenging for them to come back in this modern society, because honor society has allowed things to be safe and has allowed things to be individualized.

00;09;53;05 - 00;09;59;02
Nick Lenzi
And part of his argument in this is that some of this stuff, some of this stuff is is hurting us in the long run.

00;09;59;07 - 00;10;21;06
Tommy Carreras
And it wasn't even to what I thought was so interesting about it is it wasn't the big grand purpose of like I'm fighting terrorism. So that it's like if I don't perform today, if I don't behave correctly. And that's interesting. He has a lot of stuff about being judged by your behavior in a good way. Like we want to be judged good behavior and that's challenging for people of grace.

00;10;21;20 - 00;10;37;09
Tommy Carreras
It's like we've got to cope with that a little bit. What does that mean exactly? What are you trying to say? But he's saying, like, if I don't show up, if I don't perform, if I'm not necessary part of my unit, my small unit of people I love and will die for, if I don't do that, then Jeff dies.

00;10;37;15 - 00;10;57;29
Tommy Carreras
And those consequences are a lot different than like if I don't perform today. Terrorism takes this small step forward on the grand scheme of the universe. That's not actually because I can still I can the question is like if if that's the big goal, if that's the consequence, if that's the meaning and purpose, because we talk about purpose a lot as Christians, we're like, Oh yeah, purpose, you have a mission.

00;10;57;29 - 00;11;18;07
Tommy Carreras
But the mission is always so it's so grand. Save all the people who will stay home and watch Netflix tonight because I don't know what to do about that. Yeah. And it's so big and the thing is, it's like, well, if you were just fighting terrorism as a soldier, then you should go home and fight terrorism in a new way or solve poverty or do something grand.

00;11;18;07 - 00;11;35;15
Tommy Carreras
But the point is, it's it's too big. And we were maybe this world has gotten too big for our little humans souls and minds because I need to know that if I don't show up, so-and-so is not going to make it. And maybe it's a little drastic, but yeah, there's something about the closeness of the the consequences that really makes a difference.

00;11;35;15 - 00;11;46;06
Tommy Carreras
And that's what stood out to me the most about all of this soldier stuff. It's like it has to be my immediate community where those consequences live in. That's fascinating.

00;11;46;07 - 00;11;57;02
Nick Lenzi
Yeah. It's funny you said you mentioned to that, that other podcast to hear him talk some more. I listen to two. I listened to the one on Joe Rogan. There's another really good one on YouTube that Google talks are talks at Google, I think is what they're.

00;11;57;02 - 00;11;58;28
Tommy Carreras
Called or this morning, which is.

00;11;59;25 - 00;12;10;29
Nick Lenzi
And one of the things he was talking to in there too, that I don't remember being captured in the book, but he was talking about how, you know, we were designed to really only be in community with about 30 other people like small kind of village.

00;12;11;19 - 00;12;12;01
Tommy Carreras
And.

00;12;12;10 - 00;12;33;19
Nick Lenzi
That it really lined up with another book I finished earlier this year called Get Your Life Back by John Eldridge. And he has that same concept, which is which is that he thinks that's the reason why we can't handle social media, because our souls are only meant to handle the size of a village and so when we have these thousands of friends, we're actually introducing trauma and all these other things that we weren't supposed to experience.

00;12;33;19 - 00;12;52;10
Nick Lenzi
So an example of this is, you know, the, the Beirut explosion that happened, you know, halfway across the world, like we found out within seconds. And we're seeing these really graphic images right away. Like if you think like y and even 50 years ago, how long it would have taken for us to learn that news. Right. And experienced that.

00;12;52;10 - 00;13;00;10
Nick Lenzi
So it's interesting how those kind of ideas align as well of just like Our Souls War and tension to be to have this many people have influence into it.

00;13;00;15 - 00;13;21;09
Tommy Carreras
Right. Well, and the interesting thing about that, too, you think about some of the reasons he talks about the American Indian tribes. What was so compelling to the the English colonists. And some of the things that were so compelling was that, first of all, they actually worked less. They you know, most American Indian tribes, the hunter gatherer tribes were like, you know, 4 hours of survival work.

00;13;21;09 - 00;13;37;24
Tommy Carreras
And it's tough work, but it just didn't work as much. But because of the nature of the tribe, because of the size and because it wasn't like if you don't listen or follow the rules, you go to jail. Right. It wasn't that. It was like if you don't like it, just leave or get a new one. And it was OK.

00;13;37;25 - 00;14;00;28
Tommy Carreras
So it was it was a looser order kind of. But then also it was what that caused because they were hunter gatherers and nomadic it was it was more egalitarian. Right. There was it was impossible to just pass down. Well, it was whatever I have now. And so there were there was much lower wealth inequality. And then also everything was like the unit was the most important thing.

00;14;00;28 - 00;14;19;06
Tommy Carreras
And I think that can go too far. Right. We can't be totally collectivist. Yes. And we can't be totally individualist. There's a beautiful balance. But we've we were probably a little too far on the list. But it's interesting because this idea, like a wealth inequality is lower. And it was almost impossible to abuse power. And I thought that was really interesting.

00;14;19;14 - 00;14;39;24
Tommy Carreras
Yeah. But those things like if you look at social media and just the nature of the world, I know that Jeff Bezos has more money than I can actually even grasp. Yes, I know that because if I look at my neighbors, one house next to me, they rent and they probably have a little bit less than me, the other house and we're in So-cal and everybody's broke here in Jersey.

00;14;39;24 - 00;14;58;26
Tommy Carreras
Everybody's actually yeah. Next to me is a little bit broker than me and the house next to me on the other side. Definitely like the random nice house. But so but I can deal with that level of inequality really easily. Yeah. Because it's like we could pass it around if we need to. And my friends, I can deal with our levels of inequality.

00;14;59;04 - 00;15;21;19
Tommy Carreras
But with social media, I know all the celebrities whose net worth is $1,000,000, and that's hard to deal with. It's confusing because I'm not meant to deal with that many other people's lives. And so that size, that like unit of 30, 50, 70, 100. There's another book called Discipleship that fits. And one of the interesting things about that.

00;15;21;20 - 00;15;22;02
Nick Lenzi
Is the author.

00;15;22;09 - 00;15;27;05
Tommy Carreras
Of It's Bobby Harrington and Alex Absalom, and it's you.

00;15;27;05 - 00;15;30;04
Nick Lenzi
Will make sure to put these in in the notes you guys do.

00;15;30;14 - 00;15;48;02
Tommy Carreras
Totally the five kinds of relationships God uses to help us grow and it's interesting because it's not types of relationships. It's really sizes of relationships. And the whole idea is that if we don't have all five pump in, in our church, we're missing something and it's really hard to get them all like the divine relationship, me and God, of course we know that one, right?

00;15;48;11 - 00;16;07;18
Tommy Carreras
Transparent relationships, which is often what we're hoping for in a lot of cases as groups, people our deepest relationships, two or three other people where we share all the intimate personal relationships people gathered in small groups, probably they describe that as like four or five up to about 12 to 16. But then after that you're like, Oh, that it's too big.

00;16;07;19 - 00;16;22;04
Tommy Carreras
That's not real community. And we skip right to the crowd, the church gathering. Yeah, it's like, we need that we need the bigness we need. That's what we learned in COVID, right? Like, yeah, I need, I need to see a bunch of other people that are as crazy as me or as broken as me or as worshipful as me.

00;16;22;04 - 00;16;44;00
Tommy Carreras
I need to see all that. The one we miss is the social context, which is this like 20 to 70 with a common mission, common purpose and common unifier. And that's what this whole book it's. Yeah, I don't have everybody know me completely, but I do need to know that it's that, like, why most churches in America are like many 75 people.

00;16;44;06 - 00;17;04;01
Tommy Carreras
It's because it's a sweet spot. And I'm not saying that all of our churches should just divide into 75 persons. I don't mean that we need to. I've been grappling with like how do I create those feelings? Is it all the people in groups? Is it multiple groups? Yeah, I don't know exactly methodologically, but there's something about that size that matters a lot.

00;17;04;02 - 00;17;22;09
Nick Lenzi
We just, we just gave you guys so much from this book. And what's interesting about this book is like, I've been talking to other staff members about it because I just really liked some of the concepts and I'm so glad I finally have somebody to talk to about it. That's always the hardest thing I have about books, and being an extrovert is like, as soon as I get done, I'm like, Who else wants to talk about this?

00;17;22;09 - 00;17;28;20
Nick Lenzi
Book, you know? And then there's there's sometimes no one. Tommy, how how has this book influenced your ministry? How does this help you think about it?

00;17;28;20 - 00;17;56;07
Tommy Carreras
Interestingly enough, one of the things that's been really helping is that I've just I can't not talk about it, the concepts, because they're so interesting. And I think that's actually an interesting place to start when we care enough about learning why the problem is bigger than we thought, we can actually then have some of the confidence and the competency to speak out against things that are real ruining the human experience, speaking out against the things that are clearly hurting us.

00;17;56;07 - 00;18;13;06
Tommy Carreras
And that is something that God does and that we want to do. And so I want to champion that. And this book is really helped me go like, I need to question things in a deeper way because that will also help me speak more to the the heart, the broken heart of the person in the seat, right. That I'm trying to reach and go.

00;18;13;08 - 00;18;28;21
Tommy Carreras
I don't want to do the flowery promo. Don't you want some nice friends? Don't you want to grow? Don't you want it? Like, first of all, what is any of that be? How about what if we sometimes just shoot it? Like, have you ever noticed that we have a deep isolation problem and something's wrong and you know it's wrong?

00;18;28;21 - 00;18;44;02
Tommy Carreras
We're trying to combat that on every level that's like that's interesting. That even gives us a little bit of a common enemy. We're trying to we're not trying to, like, have some nice friends, like you have some nice friends. None of them are good enough, though. And you know that what we really want to do is learn how to be human again.

00;18;44;02 - 00;19;08;24
Tommy Carreras
And what does that mean? That means actually being known by people in a deep way. Yeah. Who will die in the trenches with you and who are actually going combat loneliness together. We're trying to destroy isolation inside of our midst. Like we're trying to unite against those things. And so this gives me this book gives me some of the excitement and also the liberty, the expertize, honestly, to speak out against those things.

00;19;08;24 - 00;19;10;19
Tommy Carreras
That's the first way it's been influencing me, I.

00;19;10;19 - 00;19;32;16
Nick Lenzi
Think, too. It also really just highlights, you know, nothing that Rick Warren didn't teach us 25, 30 years ago in that, like, we all need purpose in life and obviously we have the advantage of knowing that that purpose, but just really helping understand that like everyone needs a role, everyone needs to have a purpose. They need to know that they are able to contribute to a community.

00;19;32;24 - 00;19;49;03
Nick Lenzi
And I think that's one of the biggest advantages that we have as a small group of people in our churches. Is giving them this outlet that they actually need in life to help them psychologically and, and, and mentally and everything else that comes with it.

00;19;49;11 - 00;20;03;26
Tommy Carreras
So and this is that's a good rabbit trail to go down because I remember we talked this was it, this last lobby or was it the last one? It was one of the lobbies ago. But we started talking about something that was that was really on my mind a lot that I was trying to move kind of my whole ministry toward.

00;20;03;26 - 00;20;24;13
Tommy Carreras
I was like, I don't I don't like the goal of my group's ministry. That's a sort of scary place to start. Like, I'm not I'm not jazzed about trying to find people better friends. You know, that's like, why do you have this? That doesn't sound healthy. But I just wasn't excited about it because I also I saw that, like, groups weren't staying together.

00;20;24;13 - 00;20;47;01
Tommy Carreras
People were just in and out and maybe and I don't know. And leaders were just dying being consumers. Yeah. Because it just it's nothing like nobody was getting what I thought they could get out of it. And I realized this is the scary question that I asked myself or the statement. The system that you created is perfectly designed to get the results that you're getting.

00;20;47;01 - 00;21;04;16
Tommy Carreras
And even more so the results you're getting they came from the system that you made. And so I went, Yeah, I'll shut up. Yeah, I'll look at me then. So what did I do? Like, what am I doing to make this happen? And I realized I wasn't aiming high enough and that my goal was too low. And I want to find people better friends.

00;21;04;16 - 00;21;21;09
Tommy Carreras
My real goal started to become to make people better friends, all the people, not just the leader. Yeah. And that sent me on a weird long journey where I'm like, I mean, I went a little too far in some places, and now I'm changing some things back. It was really interesting, but it was the right question to be asking.

00;21;21;09 - 00;21;26;10
Tommy Carreras
So I started trying to train group members instead of just train leaders. Yes. And started.

00;21;26;10 - 00;21;44;21
Nick Lenzi
This is the concept we talked about this year. How do we train our group members to be good group members? And that concept alone set me on my own rabbit trail. It was just like genius. That was the thing from this every I think every lobby or small group network event thing always leaves me going home with one.

00;21;44;24 - 00;21;56;11
Nick Lenzi
One big idea in this past year. Was you just challenging on us, on, you know, how do you train group members? We we train coaches to be coaches. We train leaders to be leaders, but we don't train group members to be group members. And the.

00;21;56;21 - 00;21;58;24
Tommy Carreras
Year most help you're like.

00;21;59;05 - 00;22;17;06
Nick Lenzi
My my associate Sarah and I literally just tackled that. And the way that we did it in our is that every every group starts with a ten we group with us and we used to have this video that was done by our lead pastor. It was 40 minutes long and it was like y how we do groups.

00;22;17;25 - 00;22;19;02
Tommy Carreras
And nobody watched.

00;22;19;02 - 00;22;24;08
Nick Lenzi
Like no one but we took that video and we broke it up.

00;22;24;22 - 00;22;25;03
Tommy Carreras
And.

00;22;25;03 - 00;22;45;11
Nick Lenzi
We put into it elements that taught people this is how our groups work. This is how it's different. This is how it's not a traditional Bible study because you need this fellowship, you need the act. Like for us, it's all about the taking steps and activating your faith. And our groups have just really solidified and we've gotten better group members.

00;22;45;11 - 00;22;49;02
Nick Lenzi
So, Tommy, I thank you for bringing this, that idea and stuff like that.

00;22;49;02 - 00;22;51;27
Tommy Carreras
But thank you for going on the journey with me because it's been stressful.

00;22;51;28 - 00;22;52;03
Nick Lenzi
Because.

00;22;52;13 - 00;23;13;00
Tommy Carreras
It's a lot weirder, and it means I'm never actually hitting my goal or because that's a lot higher goal. But it's interesting too, because the main thing and just to put a little more behind that too, because I like I'm so obsessed with that idea still a little more oomph even is like because if, if I only help them follow Jesus right now.

00;23;13;00 - 00;23;30;25
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, I've missed the mark completely because getting them good friends now is giving them follow Jesus now, teaching them how to be good friends helps them follow Jesus for the rest of their lives and helps the next guy follow Jesus. Because what's values are more than taught and they're going to spread that around somewhere else. They change the world if they're better friends.

00;23;31;06 - 00;23;46;26
Nick Lenzi
That's a sneaky advantage that we have here in Hoboken. So we're across this. We're across the river from Manhattan. And so we have extremely transient community. So we get people for about two to three years before they move on. And a couple of years ago it hit us like, OK, how do we send these people out better than we found them?

00;23;46;26 - 00;24;01;09
Nick Lenzi
How do we send them to the next church? And that attitude has helped us so much. And I love it. Like you're kind of picking up on that too, of like, I can't just teach them how to be great here and now. I need to teach them so that they can be they can they can go out and help this community large.

00;24;01;11 - 00;24;19;21
Nick Lenzi
So, hey, let's let's bring up this other thing from this book. He taught me a new word. This is funny. I don't know whether people know this way or not, but modernity is a word that I didn't realize I always thought was modern entity. But it's modernity, which is like the concept of becoming more modern and things like that.

00;24;19;29 - 00;24;50;18
Nick Lenzi
And the only time so Tommy talked about this earlier of how as societies become safer as they become more affluent, suicide rates and depression come up with it. And one of the only one of the rare things that goes against this that's countercultural is when extreme circumstances come about, whether it's through war, whether it's through he used 911 to talk about rates in America and the also I think it was Bosnia was the other one he talked about or Sarajevo serious.

00;24;50;26 - 00;24;52;17
Tommy Carreras
Yeah civil war and yeah.

00;24;52;26 - 00;25;08;01
Nick Lenzi
And he talked about like these people afterwards wanted to go back to that time where there was the extreme circumstances because they felt more community they felt more needed. Meanwhile they're being bombed. They're being taken out of their homes, they're being you know or natural disaster hits them, those kind of things.

00;25;08;01 - 00;25;20;02
Tommy Carreras
So the blitz in London was another example. 30,000 people dead on their own. Streets in London. Yeah, people longed for those times. It's like, that feels wrong.

00;25;20;06 - 00;25;21;29
Nick Lenzi
Have you guys ever experienced that in your own community?

00;25;22;02 - 00;25;49;01
Tommy Carreras
Well, so three, three, years ago now, we had at the time it was like quickly overtaken in size, which is interesting. But at the time, the largest wildfire in California history yeah. By acreage started in in Santa Paula, which is about 15 minutes, 15 minutes away from Ventura. And I remember going to sleep at 1030 that night and hearing that there was a small brush fire that started in Santa Paula is like make sure to check in on that tomorrow.

00;25;49;12 - 00;26;07;16
Tommy Carreras
And then it turned out a lot of things happened overnight. I fell asleep like literally 10 minutes before the executive pastor texted everybody and says, by the way, we're opening up as a shelter. I'll be there all night, blah, blah. This whole thing's I wake up at 530 randomly and I look at my phone and my city is on the city next to me.

00;26;07;16 - 00;26;27;23
Tommy Carreras
I live in Oxnard, which is right below Ventura, but Ventura is on fire and I wake up and my city is on fire and I'm like, I call Jim. He's like, up in here all night. You've got people sleeping in the building. And I look outside and beautiful thing about soak houses really common. You know, I can, like, smell the beach from where I live, but then also see the mountain this awesome.

00;26;27;28 - 00;26;49;05
Tommy Carreras
Except when the mountains are orange, you wake up at 530 in the morning, the mountains are orange and it's like, this is really bad. Yeah. Our homes were destroyed. Friends of mine lost their homes, lost everything. They had all of that. Right. So just like intense trauma, only only two people died is amazing. But a thousand homes. It was a full of.

00;26;49;08 - 00;26;50;08
Nick Lenzi
So much property gone.

00;26;50;15 - 00;27;07;12
Tommy Carreras
We I like literally, I wake my wife up and I'm like, I got to go to work. And she's like, what's happening? All the city's on fire, so I'll see you in a week, I guess. Like, I just didn't know. And so I pick up water, we get to the building, we end up every day, every minute. We're changing the plan.

00;27;07;12 - 00;27;25;18
Tommy Carreras
We're by the end of the week. We had been a shelter, a distribution center. We had our whole building full of stuff three times over because stuff would leave. We had a thousand families come through to pick up things that they needed at the moment because all their stuff was gone. It was all donated. We like it was insanity.

00;27;26;13 - 00;27;50;02
Tommy Carreras
We got money from every church that we were at all connected to anywhere. Even the other churches in the city were like, We'll be the fund. We're handing out money to other churches to give to their people. It was like insane. The crazier part is that we had over and at the time we're a church of 800. Maybe on the weekend we had over 2500 people in five days come through as volunteers.

00;27;50;02 - 00;28;03;09
Tommy Carreras
That's in front of a building. It was anybody. People would show up and be like, We heard you're the place that's doing stuff. Yeah. And so what do I do? And they did anything and they did the most menial, frustrating work at.

00;28;03;15 - 00;28;04;29
Nick Lenzi
First and not a single complaint.

00;28;05;11 - 00;28;13;27
Tommy Carreras
And everybody was thankful. It was like they, it was like put me to work I'll do anything. It's hard work. You got to wear mask outside because you can't.

00;28;14;22 - 00;28;16;23
Nick Lenzi
So we've just got that.

00;28;17;20 - 00;28;39;20
Tommy Carreras
Actually normal now. It was abnormal there. Literally, you can't see there's smoke in the air and everybody was like, Thank you so much for doing something. I don't know what I would have done as I was sitting all this idea that crisis is is so important to bringing communities together. That's confusing because I don't think we should probably start crises.

00;28;40;19 - 00;28;43;24
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, but that's a really good for us, so I don't know what to do.

00;28;44;12 - 00;29;03;03
Nick Lenzi
I'll keep this quick. We went to the same thing in Hoboken. Grace, I lived here during Hurricane Sandy. We took on six feet of water. It completely took out our town crazy. Just had to you know, once the flooding subsided, just taking everything out and like, you know, usually think of flooding. You think of it along river. Obviously we're along a river, right?

00;29;03;10 - 00;29;26;16
Nick Lenzi
But you usually don't think of it in high populated areas. And so you know, we really rallied around that and it was huge for our community and opened up so many doors in our community that that was such a great opportunity and brought our staff together and everything that goes with that. But yeah, there's a quote from this from the book about a psychological study that I'm going to read this real quick.

00;29;26;24 - 00;29;50;07
Nick Lenzi
It says When people are actively engaged in a cause, their lives have more purpose with the resulting improvement in mental health. And this is from the Journal of Cycle Matic Research in 1971 said that it would be irresponsible suggest that violence as a means of improving mental health. But this study suggests that people feel better psychologically if they have more involvement in their community and.

00;29;50;07 - 00;29;51;10
Tommy Carreras
Make sense of that.

00;29;51;28 - 00;30;01;22
Nick Lenzi
Which then naturally do OK. So then the question that we have to ask ourselves, you know as the group goes we can't root to have natural disasters or these emergencies or.

00;30;01;28 - 00;30;02;20
Tommy Carreras
Irresponsible.

00;30;02;29 - 00;30;10;06
Nick Lenzi
Create war, right? So what can we do to build stronger bonds in our community when there's not an extreme event that's gone on?

00;30;10;06 - 00;30;26;03
Tommy Carreras
Well, I think it's interesting because Ephesians gives it to us already, right? Like our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Sometimes it happens like, OK, don't fight each other. Remember, the bad people aren't the enemy. We got to love them anyway. You know, it keeps going. Your struggle is against the rulers, the authorities and the powers of this stark world.

00;30;26;03 - 00;30;46;08
Tommy Carreras
I'm literally hearing of kids against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power so the Ephesians gives us this answer. And because our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it's not against the people. The people aren't our enemies. But yeah, there is a struggle and it's against the rulers, against the authorities and the powers of the art and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

00;30;46;08 - 00;31;13;20
Tommy Carreras
Like there's a real enemy and the enemy is destroying people and if we're not rallying against that, like we're going to crumble. It's interesting, and this is who is a big topic, but this is good this is why it's so clear that if our church is not tipped always and I guess leaned over toward like rooting out hopelessness, in our community, finding the lost one.

00;31;14;00 - 00;31;31;18
Tommy Carreras
Right. There's more rejoicing in heaven when the lost one comes home than when the 99 stay home. If my church isn't and if I'm not personally more geared toward God now I got to push myself out. I've got to push myself to find the Lord. So I'm going to push myself to reach my hopeless and broken friends and to push myself out toward evangelism.

00;31;31;18 - 00;31;54;04
Tommy Carreras
If we're not leaning in that direction, always like our church will crumble. Not because we didn't pay enough attention to the inside. And yes, we have to build up the inside, but it's actually the looking outside. It's actually unite against the common enemy of hopelessness. And against the common enemy is the fact that people that God loves are lost and broken and hurting each other and hurting themselves.

00;31;54;04 - 00;32;10;10
Tommy Carreras
If I don't if I'm not stressed about that and if I'm not really focused on destroying that enemy of hopelessness, I don't think my church is going to make it. It's not if I don't focus on my church enough. And so I think that's fascinating. Like we have to rally the forces against a common enemy if we're going to make it.

00;32;10;10 - 00;32;23;16
Tommy Carreras
And we have one, we have a lot. And that comes back to the countercultural voice, right? Like we need to root out things that are anti-human, like addictions and the inability to change and people being consumers only.

00;32;23;16 - 00;32;25;14
Nick Lenzi
Like there's stuff.

00;32;25;14 - 00;32;25;29
Tommy Carreras
In this book.

00;32;25;29 - 00;32;47;26
Nick Lenzi
Growing and growing amount of loneliness, right? Yeah. There's another quote from that against another quote from the book that just says, humans don't mind hardships. In fact, they thrive on it. What they mind is not being necessary in society has perfected the art of making people feel necessary. And I think like, this is where our groups opportunities are helping them find purpose, helping them.

00;32;47;27 - 00;33;12;00
Nick Lenzi
I think a lot of it is that like we're so focused on ourselves. And I think one of the things that groups can really help with is helping them turn that vision around to see others. And usually they're going to see it within their own group. I think as group directors, we've probably each dealt with several groups that had a problem with someone who just came and spilled and then leaves and doesn't actually understand the concept that like now we're in this for everyone else.

00;33;12;20 - 00;33;31;07
Nick Lenzi
And and I think one of the things that helps I actually got this idea from just being around Steve Glennon who's our our founder of Small Group Network, but in his book, Small Groups with Purpose, a must for any small group direct is just that like figuring out what your group's weakness. So we want to be balanced obviously in those purposes that that they use.

00;33;31;18 - 00;33;52;06
Nick Lenzi
And I think one of them that would be really helpful in this is knowing what purpose your group is weakest and spending time in that. And obviously maybe that's evangelism, right? Or sharing sharing their faith with others if you're able to challenge your group in that area, it's going to be hard for them, but they have each other and then that's really going to help bring them together.

00;33;52;24 - 00;34;13;08
Nick Lenzi
You know what's fascinating is I have one of our groups when we were just starting out, they were having a really hard time getting people to stay together and they decided as a group that they would go skydiving together. They had a guy in their group who is a professional skydiver, and he took them all skydiving and like literally that brought that group together.

00;34;13;08 - 00;34;31;16
Nick Lenzi
And this was like when we first started church playing, too. And like, I wish I could tell you the magnitude of this, but like that group alone has now started like several, several, several groups because they decided to come together eventually. So putting yourself challenging yourself to get outside that comfort zone is so important at building community and fighting loneliness.

00;34;31;20 - 00;34;51;19
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, very clear that like Jesus, His glory came from suffering the path to glory is always through suffering. And so as leaders, I need to be in touch with my own suffering. I need to be in touch with my own brokenness and my own weak places, because that's where my strength comes from too. I said, Gideon's 12. My strength is only found when it's not mine, when it's his, and it's only found in my weakness.

00;34;51;29 - 00;35;06;06
Tommy Carreras
And so I'm reveling in my strengths as a leader. That's interesting when you think about leadership development we're not just trying to make stronger leaders. This is a little, little weird sounding, but like we're trying to actually make weaker leadership probably more humble leaders. That's what I'm going for.

00;35;06;06 - 00;35;08;02
Nick Lenzi
But yeah, I think that's what you're looking for.

00;35;09;09 - 00;35;30;01
Tommy Carreras
It probably takes a little more thought in advance, I'm thinking, as I go here, but it makes sense that we're not trying to just give our our leaders better skills and our skills. We're trying to create dependance by actually pushing them toward their weak places. And if we really want to get granular, that means I have to be always pushing toward my weak places.

00;35;30;01 - 00;35;50;26
Tommy Carreras
If I'm not in touch with the place like the bleeding edge of my own suffering, and my own incompetence or sin or temptation or whatever those things are, if I'm not in touch with those, why in the world that I expect my leaders to be and why would I expect a group to gel honestly? And I'm not saying like massive codependence, like, well, if I'm not OK, then nobody else will be OK.

00;35;51;04 - 00;36;05;12
Tommy Carreras
That's not what I mean. But it does mean that I want to lead by example. It means I'm very humble and also leaning into my weakness and suffering and that that I'm talking to myself right now. So I think that's really important place to start. Yeah.

00;36;05;14 - 00;36;25;21
Nick Lenzi
All right. So I'm going to I'm going to start to win this down. Listen, I've really encourage you guys to pick up this book. It's only 100 some five pages. There's like several topics that we haven't hit that are just really fascinating stories. There's one in there that we're going to talk about that's about this fight between French and Moroccans that is excellent at talking about like conflict resolution.

00;36;25;21 - 00;36;43;27
Nick Lenzi
That is really important as group leaders. And I'm sorry, we're not going to get to it, but that's going to be my enticing to get you guys there. So, hey, let's dove into our little lightning round. Tommy, it same questions we have every every podcast, but so what's another book you've read recently that's had an impact on your leadership?

00;36;43;27 - 00;36;58;25
Tommy Carreras
Yeah, honestly, probably the most challenging and helpful book. And this is just a journey we're going on as a church and as a as a ministry we're trying to build out a whole kind of new arm called the Care Academy at Mission. That'll be a cool next cool thing.

00;36;58;25 - 00;37;00;10
Nick Lenzi
We just can't stand for something.

00;37;01;07 - 00;37;26;22
Tommy Carreras
No we don't. But it stands for care, which is anyway, there's a there's a guy at Mission who he's been around for about five years, but for 50 years he and his wife have been working in the recovery worlds. It's recovery from everything so they built a curriculum and a program and a process and a whole organization. They train counselors.

00;37;26;22 - 00;37;44;03
Tommy Carreras
They have something called change groups, which is there's I'm excited to talk about this if some point because it's crazy. They're phenomenal. He's one the most brilliant people I've ever met. And he's just like sitting in our lap right here at Mission. So it's like awesome. It was Michael Dye created this genesis process. So he has a book called The Church Helping or Hurting A Guide to Practice.

00;37;44;17 - 00;38;04;23
Tommy Carreras
The one of his main ideas is we need to be full of grace, but also competency. The local has to be full of grace and a competency effectiveness we have to like real hope comes when somebody looks at you and says, I accept you as you are, but I also know how you can change. And not just like I know that Jesus will change you.

00;38;04;27 - 00;38;26;02
Tommy Carreras
Like, I know what's wrong in your brain. He's a neuroscientist and also an addiction counselor. And he built this recovery program and it is phenomenal. You can actually we just did a seven part workshop on it. We tried to fill his seven part and it was distilled down was like 20% wanted to do. It's all about mission, better outcomes, less change workshops.

00;38;26;02 - 00;38;31;04
Tommy Carreras
Phenomenal. Thank you. That's a lot of his stuff. We just made it all free and really easy, accessible because it's.

00;38;31;04 - 00;38;32;19
Nick Lenzi
Almost name again. What was the.

00;38;32;26 - 00;38;49;06
Tommy Carreras
Book is called The Church Helping or Hurting? It's really thick. It's really long. But also you can read a page and basically stew on it for a week. Is the nice what he calls himself, which sounds arrogant but is actually just really true, is he's the king of one liners. Like literally every page he highlights like a one liner.

00;38;49;06 - 00;39;05;18
Tommy Carreras
And it's like, yeah, I never would have been able to do that. He's that's awesome. And it's a beautiful balance of neurochemistry and Bible. I highly encourage it. Another book I've been reading, Faith for Exiles, David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock OK, David Cameron's the president, the Barna Group, for example, which.

00;39;05;18 - 00;39;07;27
Nick Lenzi
I personally know you're an enormous fan of.

00;39;08;01 - 00;39;11;09
Tommy Carreras
I am. And also it's it's is.

00;39;11;09 - 00;39;13;01
Nick Lenzi
It can blow a glue. What's the.

00;39;13;10 - 00;39;38;21
Tommy Carreras
Glue? Do they work together now? But glue, big data and big research on stuff but Barna Group is here in the tour, which is really fun so. Oh, cool the David get into the restaurant anyway. So he wrote a book called Faith for Exiles Five Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus Digital Babylon. It's like if you took the The Social Dilemma and then said, what do we do about it as the church?

00;39;38;21 - 00;39;57;27
Tommy Carreras
How do we build more mass staples? The research is about the nine out of ten millennials that leave the church, right? This book is about the one out of ten. It didn't OK, how they got there. And what makes a resilient demand. It is still so good and so dripping in research and information. It's so good. So I love both.

00;39;58;05 - 00;39;59;20
Nick Lenzi
OK, what's one book you're looking forward to?

00;39;59;23 - 00;40;01;27
Tommy Carreras
Well, two books I'm looking forward to.

00;40;01;28 - 00;40;02;29
Nick Lenzi
I said one.

00;40;03;09 - 00;40;28;17
Tommy Carreras
Not that I one book is called Unhindered. It's Aligning the story of your heart. It's by two PhD counselors that run a phenomenal ministry that I'm and may or may not have benefited from personally called the Blessed Ranch in Florida. It's literally a week of intensive counseling for pastors, and we have up to four individuals or couples at a time only they have just the two of them.

00;40;28;17 - 00;40;51;09
Tommy Carreras
It's charity and John. And they you're like four or 5 hours of counseling a day. It's a little intense. But they wrote a book with all of their stuff called unhindered. And it is like if you if you are if you're hurting or feel misaligned in your own self, it's interesting how much the Genesis process and their stuff goes together.

00;40;51;09 - 00;41;09;26
Tommy Carreras
It's very similar. But it is so good and it will bring so much clarity. And the refreshment to your soul, I promise. It always. She brought it for my wife tonight, but also the book, I would imagine. I haven't read it yet. I just got it. But yeah, I would imagine it would do the same thing, man.

00;41;09;26 - 00;41;31;17
Nick Lenzi
Isn't Tammy great? I love having conversations with him and getting to hear his opinion and I hope you did as well. I share at the start of the podcast we have a pretty major announcement for you. Reading Lions has been a show on the group talk podcast since June of 2020 and in that time I've recorded over 20 episodes I personally really enjoyed getting to work with the other shows inside Saddleback here to there and the leadership journey.

00;41;32;03 - 00;42;00;13
Nick Lenzi
Perhaps it's their shows that led you to mine and I'm so thankful for all that they have done. And now they are letting me leave the house and start my own podcast, which is phenomenal news with this change. We're also going to be renaming the podcast from Reading Lions to the group Takeaways. The show is going to run nearly identical to Reading Lions, which is where we share with you insights from books we were reading and what our takeaways were, but instead of from books we're going to be making a bit more broad so that we can find places to learn some outside of just books.

00;42;00;20 - 00;42;27;23
Nick Lenzi
I think you're going to really enjoy what we have in store for you. On the group takeaways we already have some fun shows scheduled already with guests that you will love. Join us next month on the final episode of Reading Glenn's Where Peter Engler from the podcast Why God? Why we'll be joining us to cover the book Wooden, which is a book about the best college basketball coach of all time, John Wooden, and his leadership lessons he learned as a coach this is a fantastic book with an even better guest, so please join us.

00;42;27;23 - 00;42;35;28
Nick Lenzi
It's going to be perfect for March Madness. Again, thank you to Tommy for joining us and for you listening. Remember leaders are readers. Take care, everyone.

00;42;36;10 - 00;42;52;25
Jason
Thank you for listening to Group Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our podcast through iTunes and get new episodes downloaded automatically. Also, if you enjoy this program, please take a few minutes to give us a positive rating on iTunes so that other small group point people can find us more easily. We encourage you to visit our website.

00;42;52;26 - 00;43;08;00
Jason
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