Comfort Zone: Step Out

I want to welcome you to Venture Church ten o'clock service.

Glad you're here. If you don't know who I am,

I'm Brandon. I'm the lead pastor of the church. If

you're a guest, if you're here for the first time,

I'd love to meet you. I'll be hanging out in

the lobby after the service. Please come up introduce yourself

to me. I'd love to meet you today. Open up

your bibles. Matthew Chapter fourteen. We are ramping up to

Easter the next few weeks. Is preparing you for Easter.

First off, Easter is April twentieth. I have to tell

you the date because it always moves every year. No

one ever knows when Easter is except for the ministers.

April twentieth is Easter. When is Easter? Let's try it again.

When is Easter? When you leave today, you're going to

be handed a bunch of touch cards to give out

to your friends, family, neighbors, and it lists.

Our sixth service option.

We're actually adding three weekend gatherings on Easter so we

can make it an incredible experience. Anticipating all the guests.

We want to help with parking lot issues, space issues,

kid space issues. We've done that by multiplying services, and

you'll see all those service times either on our website,

on our app, and also on those touch cars.

But Easter, when is it? When is it? Good? Job?

All right, Matthew, Chapter fourteen, verse twenty two, we're gonna

read a few verses and we're gonna pray. It's a

very familiar story to many of you. Immediately, Jesus made

the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead

of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd.

After he had dismissed them, he went upon a mountain

side by himself to pray. Later that night, he was

there alone and the boat was already a considerable distance

from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was

against it. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them

walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking

on the lake, they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said,

and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them,

take courage it is I don't be afraid. Peter replies, Lord,

if it's you, tell me to come to you on

the water, and Jesus says come, I want to ask

everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes. I want

you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus,

speak to my heart, change my life in Jesus' name.

Amen. Today, I want to.

Talk to you about forcing yourself to get out of

your comfort zone. Now, most people fall into one of

two categories. We have introverts and we have extroverts. And

it's easy for extroverts to get out of their comfort

zone because they don't have one, but it's more complicated

for introverts to get out of their comfort zone. An

introvert is someone whose personality is typically reserved quiet. They

find energy from spending time alone or in small groups

rather than large social settings. If you're in this service,

then you're an extrovert or you're an introvert.

Odds are you feel uncomfortable?

There's a lot of people, it's crowded, the lobby's crowded,

the parking lot is crowded. But you've made it and

you're in your seat. But the problem is you're gonna

need to take a nap after the service because this

many people, all the teenagers running up here during worship.

It's just a little bit. Wow, that's an introvert.

An extrovert is an individual who's generally outgoing, sociable, energetic.

They tend to seek out social interactions. They're often perceived

as enthusiastic, assertive. Extroverts are typically more comfortable in group settings,

and they're energized by being around a.

Lot of other people extroverts.

This past weekend, I spoke at a men's conference, spoke

twice on Saturday, then I spoke at the church that

I was speaking a guest at three times. On Sunday,

I immediately hopped a ferry, drove back here, recorded a podcast,

then came in to a packed revival service crowd, and

I am seed that service.

So that was my weekend.

My son Elijah went with me all weekend and Elijah

was like.

Dad, are you tired? I'm so worn out.

And I was telling Elijah that the extroverted part of

me being in these large group I am amped. I

like have trouble sleeping at night afterwards because how amped

I get being around large groups of people. So out

of curiosity, we'll start with the extroverts because they're gonna

boldly admit it. If you consider yourself an extrovert, raise

your hand. Come on, okay, now I want you to

put your hands down. Now I want everybody by your heads,

close your eyes. I'm just kidding. If you're an introvert,

put your hand up and down real quick. Okay, good,

you did good, you did good. Uh, just for fun,

I'm gonna listen. That's the staff person. You tell me

introvert or extrovert?

Die beals.

Actually, my wife is a total extrovert. My wife is

more of an extrovert than I am. My wife has

never found a social setting she does not feel comfortable in.

When we were first married, the biggest fights we ever

got in were the things she kept signing us up for.

And I would say, why are we going to this?

I don't know anyone. And I would say, how come

you feel comfortable in these highly awkward settings? And she says,

I just assume everybody likes me. And I said, so

the fact that I assume everybody doesn't like me, But

that's just definitely an extrovert. What about Morgan Butcher. Morgan

has never met anyone who's not his friend. Morgan loves

every big crowd that ever exists anywhere.

What about Sean King Sean King.

He's an extrovert on steroids sewn and is currently looking

for something to do that has people around him every

minute of every single day. Extroverts, believe it or not,

I am not a total extrovert. I am what is

referred to as an extrovert, introvert, introvert, extrovert.

So I enjoy this setting.

Did you know that I'm much more comfortable preaching to

whatever six seven hundred people that are here than I

am teaching my college class at Northwest that has eight students.

Like this is much more comfortable for me. But I

also love being alone. I love going to movies by myself.

If I had anything that I could do, I would

love to go to movies by myself. I love traveling

by myself. So I have this extroverted side that also

just likes being alone. In fact, that's why I kind

of enjoyed COVID. I enjoyed COVID because I have a

comfort zone. This is my comfort zone. I am currently

at a distance from Brandon Greenwalt that I feel comfortable

with right here. So that's why in the lobby I

shake hands like this is a firm, comfortable distance. COVID

got a little bit uncomfortable when we started elbow bumping.

That was a little bit too close for me. But

I have a comfort zone.

I was thinking about it this way, and my wife

asked me to not belabor this when I'm not listening.

We're going into weddings season.

Ministers, especially the ministers on our staff, we get asked

to do a lot of weddings. I'm gonna guess we'll

do between all of us, we'll do twenty five weddings

this summer, because there we have a young church, always

people getting married, always people calling the church asking us

to do weddings. I do a ton of weddings. I

used to do way more. In fact, one summer I

perform twenty seven weddings.

That's my record.

Ever one day, I performed three weddings on one day.

That is my all time record. So I do a

lot of weddings. All the ministers do a lot of weddings.

Whenever you have a minister come and do your wedding,

know that they're the only one that's actually done a

lot of these, like hopefully this is the only one

you'll ever do. But we do ten to twenty a summer,

So we're very familiar with weddings. But I have a

policy when I do weddings, and I tell everybody up

front that I don't go to rehearsals, and I don't

go to rehearsals because this isn't my first rodeo, Like

I know what I'm supposed to do, and then this

is the one that's the hardest for people. But I

don't enjoy going to receptions. And some of you were like,

put my wedding reception. Yeah, but I don't know anyone,

Like I know you, I know maybe the person that

you're getting married to, but I don't know anyone.

It's your friends, your family.

There is nothing more awkward for an extrovert introvert introvert

extrovert than sitting at a reception when everyone knows who

they are, but they don't know who anyone is. And

then when you're sitting down at a table they want

to they feel obligated to talk to you. You just

did the wedding and you don't know these people and

you're probably never.

Going to see them again. So that is my policy.

Now, if you want someone who will go to every

reception and go to every rehearsal, ask Morgan Butcher to

do your wedding. Morgan will be the last one on

the dance floor. He'll shove cake in the bride's face.

He will dance with the flower girl. He'll do a

synchronized dance with the ring bear. That's Morgan. Sean too.

Sean will go to.

Weddings the people he doesn't know, because he likes weddings,

not Brandon.

I don't want to do that.

This past summer I did two weddings and two different

experiences that it describes introvert extrovert. So I was asked

by a gal who used to come to our church.

She now lives in Texas. She's a Russian. It was

a Russian wedding. She asked me to do her wedding

because they were doing it in the Seattle area. I

agreed with my parameters, so I drove all the way

out to Machias because that's where you people choose to

do weddings. So I drove out in the middle of nowhere,

got there a couple hours early, did my thing, did

the wedding. You may kiss the bride. They kissed. Everything

was great.

I stood to the side for about.

Five minutes looked at my watch, thought time to bounce,

and I started heading out, and as I almost got

to my car, the Russian mom runs out into the

parking lot.

Pastor brand and Pastor Brandon.

I turn around and she walks up, grabs my arm,

starts dragging me back to the reception, says, we saved

a seat for you at our table. I am yanking

my arm away from her, saying I don't go to receptions,

and she says, but food and ke and dancing, and

I'm like, you are not helping me want to go,

So that is normally that is me. If you would

have forced me to go to that reception, I would

have needed to take like a week off from work afterwards.

It was so uncomfortable, out of my comfort zone. But

then I did Grant and Savannah's wedding and they're over there,

and I did Grant and Savannah's wedding twice because something

we're doing should be done twice.

Inside joke.

But the number one thing I heard about Grant and

Savannah's wedding for months afterwards is dude, PB he stayed

for the reception.

He doesn't ever, And.

Then I started hearing people he didn't stay for my reception,

didn't stay.

For my reception? Well why why did I stay? Why

did I?

And I say, for Grant and Savannah's reception. Well, that

was totally comfortable. I knew every single person there. I

knew every one of the bridesmaids, I knew every one

of the groomsmen. Every single person in that wedding goes

to the church. It was like being at church. And

then Grand Savannah, they're like my kids. If they wanted

to kick their parents to the curb, I'd gladly adopt

them as my own kids. But so I stay. But

that is introvert extrovert. But I want to challenge you

today that sometimes you have to ignore all of that

and you have to do something that gets yourself out

of your comfort zone. And today I want to share

with you three reasons why you need to get out

of your comfort zone. So here's what was happening in

this story. Jesus told his disciples, get on the boat,

cross the Sea of Galilee to the other side, and

I'll meet you there.

So they take off.

They're halfway to the other side, and as happens on

the Sea of Galilee, there was a massive storm. Other

translations other versions of this in the gospel. This story

is in every single gospel other than the Gospel of

Luke tells the story that it was so bad they

thought the boat was gonna capsize.

They were afraid for their life.

And then just at the point where the storm is

the worst, they look.

Out and they see something.

On the water approaching them, And as they squint their

eyes to look, they see a silhouette of a person

walking to them. At first they thought it was a ghost,

and as the person came closer, they realized this was

Jesus walking.

On the water towards them.

Their response wasn't to say, that's pretty cool. The Bible says,

they were terrified. I mean a couple things happened in

that moment. Number one, they're seeing a man do something

that is literally impossible, that has never happened before. And

in that moment, all the things that they'd seen him do,

all the miracles, all of his teaching, it made sense

in that moment because only God could do this. And

in that moment, Peter looks out and he says, Jesus,

is that you And he says yes. Don't be afraid.

He says, Lord, if that is you, only Peter would

do this, or Sean King tell me to come to you,

and Jesus says, come, what would you.

Have done in that moment? Most of us I have

a boat. I love going out of my boat.

I am totally comfortable in the confines of my boat.

Now I'm surrounded by something that makes me feel uncomfortable.

Like inside that boat, I feel safe. Everything is familiar.

I know how to drive the boat. I know how

the engine sounds when everything is right.

I have an.

Electric motor as a backup motor. I feel totally safe.

I know where my life vests are, I know where

my fire extinguisher is. I am familiar and comfortable with

everything inside that boat. But as I'm cruising on the

Puget Sound, everything outside the boat is a little bit uncomfortable. Man,

I don't know how cold that water is going to be.

I don't know how dirty that water is gonna be.

I don't know what swimming currently in that water. It

feels totally uncomfortable. At times, I'm willing to get out

of the boat and jump into that water as long

as that boat is close, because I feel safe.

And comfortable when that boat is close. But sometimes.

God is going to take us out of situations that

are familiar and comfortable and push us out of our

comfort zone.

Three reasons why.

Number One, if you're willing to get out of your

comfort zone, you might just see a miracle. Getting out

of that boat, for Peter, was totally unfamiliar.

He'd done it on the shore, but he'd never done

it in the middle of the sea.

Everything inside of him said, don't do this. This is bad,

this is uncomfortable. Trying to walk on this water is

totally unfamiliar. But if you're willing sometimes to get out

of your comfort zone, you might just see a miracle.

The second thing that might happen is you might do

something you've never done before. One of the things that

I'm very thankful for my wife being totally extroverted is

she will again sign us up for things and let

me know where're going. Uh. The last time she did

this is she signed us up for country line dancing classes.

Now, I talk a.

Big talk, and I always said I wanted to do this,

But you think I was really gonna do this, Not

a chance.

I am way too cool.

To dance in front of a bunch of people that

I don't know. I accept I have no rhythm, and

then I'm an embarrassment myself. But I signs this up

and we did this, and we did this for almost

a year. It was a blast. I had a blast.

I loved everything about it. And I'm telling you, if

I was unwilling to get out of my comfort zone,

I would have never experienced that. If you're willing to

get out of your comfort zone, you might just experience

something you've never experienced before. If you're willing to get

out of your comfort zone, you might just see something

that you've never seen before. If you never leave your

comfort zone, you have your bubble, you have your group

of friends, you have your your rhythm of your life,

and you never leave it, you don't even know what

you're possibly missing out on. There's a great saying that says,

if you always do what you've always done, you'll always

get what you've always got.

So what happened that day?

Jesus says Peter come and because Peter's like Sean King,

and he doesn't care what else he has planned, people

are there, He's going, he jumped out into the water.

Verse twenty nine.

Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the

water and came towards Jesus. If you're willing to get

out of your comfort zone, you might just see a miracle.

If you're willing to get out of your comfort zone,

you might just see something you've never seen before. You

might just do something you've never done before. You might

have an experience that no other person has ever had

happened before. And finally, why should you get out of

your comfort zone? Because if you don't get out of

your comfort zone, who will?

If not you? Who?

Peter starts walking on the water, which, by this by

itself like the only other person that has ever walked

on water is Jesus. So Jesus and Peter they're in

some rare company. But when he saw the wind, he

was afraid and he began to sink, and he cried out,

Lord save me. It's in that moment some of us

are a little bit more introverted. We start thinking, I

knew I should have stayed.

In my comfort zone.

Because as soon as he started thinking again, started thinking, well,

this is awkward. How are they gonna respond? They're not

gonna like me. I'm gonna end up. No one's gonna

talk to me. All of a sudden, he notices the

storm and the wind and the waves, and the Bible

says he starts to think. Peter's thinking, now I'm gonna die.

My worst fears are becoming a reality, and he cries

out to Jesus. Immediately, Jesus reaches out his hand and

he catches.

Him, and he says, you have little faith. Why did

you doubt?

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.

Then those who were in the boat worship Jesus, saying, truly,

you are the son of God. I want to point

out not that Peter sunk, not that Jesus rebuked him

because of his lack of faith, but I want to

point out that he got out of his comfort zone

and he ends up doing something that no one had

ever done before. And the coolest thing for Peter is

he lived to tell the story. Here we are, a

couple thousand years later, we're still talking about Peter getting.

Out of the boat.

When I started reading this chapter, you already knew it

was going to be something about getting out of the boat.

That's what happens when someone's willing to get out of

their comfort zone.

Church Easter is coming.

The comfort zone that I want to challenge you with

today is don't come to Easter alone. When you came in,

we gave you this card. It's called my Top five.

We do this every single year. I want you to

think through, pray through five people, five families that you

are going to invite to church on Easter. Five write

their names down. The reason I want you to write

their names down on this card. You're not turning this in.

You write their names down, Slide it into your Bible.

Because when you write something down, it's almost like you

are deciding something. Something happens in our mind. When we

take a thought and we put it down to pen

and paper, it's like a legally binding contract in our

heart and in our mind.

I want you to think about who you're going.

To invite, and then on your way out, we're going

to hand you these touch cards. And your job is

to look for the opportunity to hand one of these

touch cards to one of these people in your top five.

Some of you are saying, PBI, don't do that.

That is so far out of my comfort zone.

What will my friends think, What will my coworkers think,

What will the people that I do business with think,

if I do this, your job is to force yourself

to get out of the boat, do something that is unfamiliar,

that is out of your comfort zone. And we, as

a step of faith, have added three extra services in

anticipation of this. Now I want to share with you

quickly here's a few reasons why statistically, you should invite

someone to Easter. These are actual stats from numerous studies

that have been done. Says that eighty two percent of

people that are invited to an Easter service say they

would likely attend. Two percent of people that is a

staff from this area where twenty percent of people go

to church Easter is that one Sunday during the year

where people would come if they were invited.

Now here's the bummer part.

That only two percent of that eighty four percent say

they've ever been invited to church. And you might think, well, pbe,

why don't they if they just they would go to church,

why don't they just go?

Well, for most people, it's.

Awkward taking that first step until you're invited. But only

two percent of those people ever get invited by anyone.

We know as pastors that statistically, in the average church

in America, less than two percent of people in the

church invite people to the church. Here's our commitment to you.

Our commitment is based on the reality that there are

people that are gonna come, and they'll come for the

very first time, and they'll discover that they belong here.

Our commitment to you is that we will have everything

done first class. All six messages will be about twenty

two minutes long.

I will preach on who is.

Jesus, and I will present an opportunity for people to

begin a relationship with Jesus.

Our worship, as it always is, will.

Be top notch, on point, done with excellence. The kids

ministry will be safe and fun overstaff. There will be

people in the parking lot parking cars. Our greeters will

be ready to go, our ushers will be on point.

The whole experience will be just like your first experience here.

We promise.

It's up to you, though, Will you invite someone? Eighty

two percent of people say if I'm invited to an

Easter service, I would attend. Other stats say that thirty

five percent of people say they would attend church if

they knew there were people there like them.

Why is it best.

If you invite people because you were like them. You

work together, you live in the same neighborhood, your kids

play on the same sports teams. They immediately have someone

familiar that they know right when they come.

Seven out of ten unchurched people.

Say that not one time in their entire life have

they ever been invited to church.

Seventy percent of people.

Don't let that be the people in your sphere of influence.

Look for opportunities, look for that moment when God opens

the door, and then you got to take the step

out of the boat, and you got to make the

big ask. One of the things that I challenge people

to do all the time is all of our relationships

are strategic and there for a purpose, and hopefully there

will come a point where you will be able, you

will be willing to leverage your relationships for the cause

of Christ. And that is simply to say, I'm not

saying you got to try to, you know, preach to

the person, lead them to Christ.

I'm only saying, invite them to church. Let me do

that other part.

Only two percent of people who attend church will do

so because of a church advertisement. So I can spend

all this money I'm marketing for Easter banners newspaper ads,

direct mails, radio spots, all of which we will do.

But only two percent of the people that come will

come because of that. But eighty six percent of people

will come because someone invited them. You might be inviting

someone to a place they find out they belong. You're

inviting them to Easter, and it could end up being

the most important invitation they ever receive.

You realize that you were sitting next to people.

That showed up at church at just the right moment,

and Jesus crossed their path. It turned their life upside down.

It changed everything. It changed the entire course of their future,

course of their life. It saved their family, It saved

their marriage. It all happened because someone was willing to

invite them.

And if you don't invite them, who will.

If you don't get out of your comfort zone, who's

willing to get out of their comfort zone? It starts

with us. I want everybody to stand up on your feet.

I want you to grab this my top five card.

If you didn't get one of these, would you wave

and the ushers will run around and make sure that

you get one. Looks like everybody has one.

I want to pray for your top five.

And my prayer is going to be that you have

such a burden for these five people, five family LEAs,

that it keeps you up at night, that it's the

only thing on your mind, that until you get to

that point where you actually hand an invite card to

these five people, you just are unsettled and restless that

you have to do something. So I want you to

grab this card. I want everybody to close your eyes,

Holy Spirit. I ask that from the tops of their

heads to the soles of their feet, you would overwhelm them.

God give them a burden for people that is so heavy,

so strong, they have to do something about it. Lord,

I asked that you would burn an image in their

mind of the person, and in fact, even at this moment,

you're beginning to give them a picture and a name

of people they need to invite. Now, Lord, I ask,

as your word says that blessed are the feet of

those who bring good news. Lord, I pray that you

would open up the opportunity for them to make the

big ask and then give them the courage.

To take that step.

And when they do, I ask that their feet would

be blessed, that those invite cards would be supernaturally anointed.

In fact, Lord, I pray that every one of these

invites that's placed into the hand of another person results

in a person coming to church.

I claim that in Jesus's name.

Now, Lord, is these people are willing to get out

of what is familiar, get out of their comfort zone,

and do some thing that.

Maybe for some they've never done before.

God, I want to pray that you will bless them,

go before them, use them. In Jesus' name, I pray Amen.