Radical Year of Service | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

I want to welcome all of you to Venture Church

across all of our campuses. A special hello to all

of you in Spokane Pastors Amanda and Justin. They are

such a huge blessing. Excited to cheer them on in

front of you. Want to say hi to our Seattle

crew Pastor Tony Ariel, the great team that we have there.

Thank you for everything that you have done.

It is my privilege to share the very first message

of twenty twenty six, the same message across all of

our campuses.

We are referring to.

When this happens, it will happen every so often in

the months years to come. We're gonna call this Venture United.

This is an opportunity for you to get to know me,

but for us as a church to all be speaking

the same language, the same thing. One of the reasons

that you are seeing me on video time today is

I'm currently in recovery. Fourteen years ago I had my

right shoulder replaced. Believe it not, my right shoulders bionic.

And just on December thirtieth, I'm having this shoulder replaced,

so should be replaced, should be bionic. Now I should

be deep in the midst of recovery. I do want

to say, for those of you that knew about it,

that have been praying for me, thank you for your prayers.

I am trusting Jesus that I am doing awesome.

So I am excited to start off a new year,

new season at venture for all of us.

I want you to grab your bibles. I want you to.

Turn to First John chapter three, really simple verse and

I want this to be our theme verse for the year.

And it's hiss.

Dear children, let us not love with work, words or.

Speech, but with actions and in truth.

I want to ask everyone, no matter where you are,

if you would buy your heads, close your eyes.

And repeat this prayer after me.

Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

I think most of us have either read this book

or we are really familiar with the main chapters of

the book. And it's called the Five Love Languages. Pretty

much every pre marriage counselor every marriage therapist, every preacher

teaches on the five Love languages. Case you're not familiar

with what they are, let me just remind you physical touch,

words of affirmation, receiving gifts, quality time, and acts of service.

Curious. What are you I am.

This is going to be a shock to some of

you that already know me, But I am a gifts guy.

I love giving gifts.

It blesses me to no end to buy things and

give things to people. I just love doing that. In addition,

I also love receiving gifts, and that's just who I am.

Now.

My wife is an acts of service girl. Imagine the

dichotomy in our marriage. I am a gift guy and

she is an acts of service girl. I remember one

time I wanted to splurge on a nice purse for die,

I mean this purse. I went to the coach store.

I had saved money and I bought her this nice,

bougie coach purse and I gave it to her for

Valentine's Day. She opens it up, looks at it and says,

why did you get me this? And I realized really

quickly that my wife, rather than me buy something nice.

For her, she'd just rather that I squeegeed the shower.

She would rather that I did the dishes after dinner,

or I put the dishes away, or I vacuumed, because

she is an ax of service person. This year, our

theme across venture is weird calling this the year of

radical service. One Peter four to ten great verse tells

us this. It says, each of you should use whatever

gift you've received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's.

Grace in its various forms.

If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who

speaks the very words of God. But then Peter goes

on and he says, if anyone serves, they should do

so with the strength God provides, so that in all

things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him

be the glory and the power forever and ever.

Amen.

So Peter is saying, when you speak, you should speak

words that edify. But then he says, when you serve,

you should serve to the glory of God. That verse

that we read in First John. What John was trying

to emphasize is he was saying this. He said, you

need to not just love with words and speech.

Why is that because.

Sometimes we just pay lip service to things.

Sometimes it's easy to talk.

He said, rather than just be a person who only

says you love people, says you're committed, says you care. Instead,

why don't you prove it by your actions. Now, when

it comes to the gospel, we need to share the

gospel with our mouths. But in addition to that, we

need to live out the gospel. This year, I want

to challenge every single person across every single one of

our campuses with the fact that I believe the Holy

Spirit is challenging you to step up your service. I

believe that God is calling our church to be a

church that is known.

For radical service.

I think the average person, if they hear about Venture,

they think Venture is a generous church. So when I

talk about our church as a whole, twenty twenty five

was the largest tithe giving.

Year in the history of the church.

Not only that, when you consider our Central Campus expansion campaign,

where we raise money over a twelve month period of time,

you added the Seattle Lobby expansion campaign, where you guys

raise money over a twelve month period of time. Over

and above our tithe which was already a record tithe year,

our church gave over one point five million dollars to

building projects.

Well it didn't just end there.

We launched Kingdom Builders, our missions local globally church planning

this year. So in addition to the largest tithe year,

we gave over one point five million dollars in building expansions,

and we gave an additional over one million dollars to

Kingdom Builders. This church, you were generous. You are a

big giver. You blow me away with your generosity. I

do want to say this, there are some of you

that don't tithe yet. This is the beginning of a

new year. It's twenty twenty six. I think you should

start tithing. If you're too afraid to start tithing, you

should start giving something consistently every single week. Join in

your friends that are sitting next to you, that are

extraordinarily generous, and really make the dreams that we as

pastors have come true and allow us to move the

mission of Jesus forward because of their generosity.

Partner with them.

Make twenty twenty six be the year you start giving.

But our church is known as a generous church. When

people think of venture, they think those people are generous.

My goal by the end of this year is that

when people think about our church, not only do they

say this church is generous, but they say this church

is full of deeply committed people who serve radically.

I want to explain to you, really quickly this morning.

The three reasons why I think it's important that I

serve me Brandon, but if it's important for me to serve,

but also the three reasons why I think it's important

for you to serve. Number one is serving is a

gift of your time. When you serve, you are giving away.

In the Seattle area in particular, what is probably our

most priceless commodity.

The one thing we are all given the.

Exact same amount of We have twenty four hours a day,

seven days a week. We don't get any more, we

don't get any less. We all have the exact.

Same amount of time. We can't multiply it.

So we have to do what we can in the

time that we are allotted.

And some of us.

This is our moment where we startoritizing some of our

time to serve. Just as I think twenty twenty six

is a great year to start giving. I think twenty

twenty six is an incredible year for you and I

to start serving.

Again.

Let's look at the words that Peter said. Peter said,

if anyone serves, they should do so with the strength

that God provides. Oftentimes people say, peb I don't have

energy to serve. I don't have time to serve. When

you serve, God gives you the strength. God provides the

energy that you need, and it says, then in everything

you do, do it as.

An act of praise.

I'm going to make a really bold statement, and here

is one of my concerns when I look at our

church as a whole. Our church now has a reputation

of being extraordinarily generous, and I think to some degree,

we have created a culture where it's easier to give

than it is to serve. Where people think, well, they

need me to help with the trunk retreat outreach, or

they need me to help in the kids ministry, or

I should serve in this local outreach to the community,

but I don't really have time. So why don't I

just give a couple hundred dollars towards it? So we

I think in our minds we've thought instead of actually

do it, I want to give towards it.

I'm gonna argue.

That we need to create a culture where we do both.

I believe your serving is a gift of your time, that.

It is.

Really important because I think it's harder to serve than

it is to give, and It's really easy to give

one hundred dollars to something or one thousand dollars to something,

but it's hard to come fifteen minutes earlier, stay an

extra hour in church on Sunday, and serve. And I

want to challenge you this year give the gift of time.

Number one. Number two. I believe that serving is an

act of love. This is officially.

Beginning my thirty third year of full time ministry.

So I do this.

I've been doing this for thirty three years, So that

means for thirty three years. I come to church on Sunday.

And not only do I come because it's a powerful

church service, all the reasons that many of you come,

but I come because this is my job.

This is my profession.

This is what I do to make a living, This

is what I do to provide for my family.

This is a job.

Across all of our venture campuses, we have fifty three employees.

Fifty three people that.

Facilitate our weekend gatherings, facilitate our small groups, our youth services,

whatever it may be.

They do that.

Professionally because it's their job. We meet across all of

our campuses for a pre rally an hour before the

first service starts on Sunday. And the thing that the

staff hears me say over and over again is that

what we are about to do, even though we are

professionals and we are doing the job that we are

hired to do, we walk into these auditoriums, we walk

into these classrooms serving as an act of worship.

Unto Jesus.

We might not have the opportunity to participate in the

actual worship service because we are facilitating that worship service.

But our facilitation of it.

Is our act of worship. That is us.

Saying Jesus, we love you, Jesus, we want to worship you, Jesus.

This is who we are.

And one of the things that I find ironic is

people that have served in the church. If you serve

a lot, you do burnout.

I get it.

You get tired, you burn out. When people come to

me and say, PB, I can't serve as a youth

leader anymore, I need a break, PB. I can't serve

on the worship team anymore.

I need a break. PB. I can't serve in the.

Kids ministry anymore, or on guest care anymore.

I need a break.

To be blunt, I don't I don't think you understand

break the way I understand break. I think a break

is two weeks. If you've been serving faithfully in the

kids ministry for six months, you need a two week,

three week break. Take a two week, three week break.

I don't think break is quitting serving. That is not

the type of culture that Number one I think is biblical.

Number two I think is the type of culture that

we want to create ad venture. If you need a break,

we want to give you a break. But a break

is not quitting. You don't want the staff, who all

they do is facilitate ministry and facilitate services, to take

a break the way that some of you are taking

a break because that would mean they quit. They said,

I'm tapping out. I'm gonna go get a job at Boeing.

I need a break. I'm gonna go become a firefighter instead.

I'm gonna sell cars instead. You don't want the staff

to do that. You want them to take a break,

and in your mind, a break is two weeks. That

is the way we need to think and when we serve.

It is an act of love. If you view this

as an act of love active worship to Jesus, it

changes your perspective with service.

If you think of it this way.

When I serve in the kids ministry, not only am

I doing this as an active worship unto Jesus, but

I am showing families that I love them. And you

don't know who those families are. There's that famous passage

of scripture in Matthew twenty five where Jesus is sharing

a parable and he said, I'll know how you love

me by the way you serve these other people. And

people said, well, Jesus, when did we When did we

show you we didn't love you?

Or when did we show you that we loved you?

And Jesus says, whatever you did to the least of these,

you did to me. And one of the issues I

think we have with that text is we only apply

it to helping the broken and poor. But we should

take that text and expand it to every area where

we minister. When you are in the nursery holding a baby,

you were showing Jesus that you love him.

When did I show you that I loved you?

Jesus, when you held that baby in the nursery, When

you stand at the door as a welcoming face and

greet people when they came in, Jesus would say.

You showed me you loved me.

Well, when did I show you that I loved you

when you greeted the people that I love. When they

came to church apprehensive, worried about church, had never stepped

foot there before, but their life was in a circumstance

situation where they thought, I have no other option, I

gotta try this church thing. They came here nervous. All

of Hell was trying to keep them from coming. They

pulled into the parking lot thinking I shouldn't go in.

No one's gonna accept me, no one's gonna love me.

I'm gonna be alone, I'm gonna get judged. All the

things the enemy tries to lie to people about. But

instead of experiencing that, they saw you, your smile, your

friendly hello, your willingness to greet, direct, treat, and seat

that person. You said, Oh you're here for the first time.

Oh you have kids, let me walk you over to

the kids area. Immediately, those people that came in apprehensive

are like, is not what I thought church people were like.

Then you come into the service and they're thinking, who

am I going to sit by? And this greet says, oh,

let me introduce you to somebody, and they walk over

to one of their friends and say, hey, this person's

here for the very first time. Can I have them

sit by you and immediately they may become friends. When

you do that, that is just as much of an

act of worship as you standing in a service, singing,

raising your hands. For some reason, we have missed that.

For some reason we think, well, when I'm serving in

kids ministry, I am missing out on worshiping, and we

don't understand worship then, because Jesus says, I know you

love me because of what you did for those people

people over there, serving is an act of love. There's

a guy that started coming to our church about five

years ago. He only came because his wife made him.

She took their kids. He did not want to go.

He came the first time I ever met with him.

He informed me how much he didn't like me and

how much he disagreed with the things that I was

saying when I would preach. But he kept coming every

week because his wife wanted him to. And since he

was here, he volunteered to serve in the kids ministry.

They were here all three of our services. They attended

one and served him two. The entire time. He did

this before he believed. Then he gets saved, and when

he gets saved, now he's able to contextualize all of

his serving as an act of worship under Jesus.

He continued to come all.

Three services, serve it two of the services, attend one

of the services, but now he has the contextualization of

this being a part of his faith and serving his

church family. I want to say this about this person.

Many people think, well, he was probably poor instead of

being able to give and contribute at the level that

he wanted, he would serve. If you thought that, you

would be so dead wrong. To this day, this individual

is one of the wealthiest people that I know. So

you have this person that has more discretionary income and

is more financially generous, one of the most financially generous

people that we have ever had in history of venture.

Yet every single week he serves in the kids ministry.

Here's the crazy part, also the sad part. They moved.

I don't want families like this to move. Every one

of your campus pastors, we will all attest we hate

it when people move. It's such a bummer. But they moved,

but they come back to visit often. And did you

know that every time he comes back to visit, he

volunteers to serve in the kid's ministry on the day

comes back. Every time he does that, he's saying, PB,

I love you, and not only do I love Jesus,

but I love you.

I love the kids. Pastor.

I love Pastor Jonathan, I love Pastor Morgan, I love

Pastor Tony, I love Pastor Amanda. And this I do

this as an act of love. I asked him one time,

I said, why do you serve so much? And he said, well,

I came from the Mormon Church and we were just

trained at a young age just to serve. He just said,

so it's just a part of who I am. I

think if I have ownership of this place that I'm attending,

well I have to serve and I have to be

involved in it. Serving is an act of love. Finally,

serving is a part of ownership. You were sitting in

a volunteer organization, you'd say, well, Brandon, you have all

these employees. So between all of our campuses, we minister

up to four thousand people a week.

The filter through all of our churches, all of our campuses.

We have thirty pastors full in part time to minister

to four thousand people.

At the Central campus alone.

It takes two hundred volunteers just to facilitate our Sunday

Service volunteer organization. This organization runs because people give of

their time. We have a youth ministry at our campuses

because we have people that volunteer to be youth leaders.

We have worship at all of our campuses with a

worship leader oftentimes who is volunteer or part part part time.

And all musicians and singers that come here extra early,

rehearsed during the week, and are not getting paid to

do it. They do it as an act of worship,

as an act of love, as an active service because

this is their church. To move the mission of Jesus forward,

we need every single person, whether you're at the Spokane campus,

the Seattle campus, the Mill Creek campus, the online campus,

whatever it is, we need every single person that says

this is my church to find an area to serve.

Now, let me explain it to you this way. I

own a house like many of you. I own a house.

Both my wife and I work full time. There are

times I have to hire people to do my yard.

So I have my yard guy come in, and he

comes in maybe once a month. Do you really think

that that's the only time there's any yardwork done. Even

though I pay somebody once a month to help with

yard work, I'm still out there every single week pulling weeds.

I'm still mowing the grass.

I'm still like sweeping the driveway, pressure washing the deck.

I still do all of that. Why do I do that?

Because I own the home. It's my home, it's my responsibility.

Yes, there's other people that are paid to do certain things,

but I still get involved because that's the reality. Both

my wife and I again work full time like many

of you, we don't have time to do all the housework.

So we have a house cleaner. She comes every two weeks.

Do you think the only time that our house gets

cleaned is every two weeks. We are sweeping and cleaning

and wiping and dusting every single day.

Why. Because we have pride of ownership.

We want people when they come over to our house

to not see a house that's messy. And somebody that

is a guest in my house. I don't want to

look at them and say, hey, uh, the housekeeper's not

here for another week. Sorry, No, we pick up and

clean the house because it's our house.

I'm I live in muckle t O.

I live right next to where muckle Tee on Everett

connect and there's a bridge that connects the two cities.

And the bridge has been in the middle of a

replacement for a year and a.

Half, so the bridge is out.

People ignore the bridge outside, they get to where the

bridge will no longer let them go, and then they

turn around and drive back the way they came. Five

times now someone has accidentally knocked over and destroyed my mailbox.

Here's a picture of my recent time that it happened.

This happens five times now. I could hire somebody and

pay somebody to fix my mailbox, or I could just

leave my mailbox on the ground. Or I could say

this is serving as a part of ownership. I had

Monday off a couple weeks ago, got up, watched somebody

knock over my mailbox. It wasn't on my Bingo card

that I was going to be spending the day replacing

a mail going to Low's to buy a new mailbox,

dig in a hole, putting in cement.

That wasn't on my Bengo card. Why did I do it?

Because I'm an owner. That's what owners do.

If you say this is your church, you should find

an area to serve every single one of us.

There shouldn't just be a small percentage of people that serve.

We should all serve because this is our church, unapologetically.

If your kids are on a sports team, you have

to volunteer with that sports team.

You do it.

You might complain about it, but you still do it.

If your kids are in a school, they need volunteers.

You're always volunteering at your kids' school. Why is it

weird that churches need people to serve in their churches.

We do this.

Not always because we're passionate about it, but because it's

part of being on the team, because it's a part

of ownership. Twenty twenty six is ventures year of radical service.

Just as we're known as being a generous church, I'm

believing that this is the year we're also going to

be known as being a selfless church. So I want

to challenge everyone to find an area or two to

help around the house. When I was a kid, my

parents gave me chores. I said why, and they said,

it's because it's your house too.

You need to help around the house.

I want to challenge you, let's all help around this house,

in this family that we're all a part of. Each

campus is going to have a couple of their key

leaders come up and share with you an area that

you can serve. Thank you, Venture love me and your pastor.

I'm proud of all of you, and I'm excited to

see what God does in.

Twenty twenty six. Let's make Jesus famous.