We Are Family: What if Community

I was hanging out with Lindsey this past week and

she said she was going to talk about us watching

America's Next Top Model together. I'm like, I don't remember

ever that ever happened, So I'm gonna plead ignorance. If

you don't know who I am, I'm Brandon. I'm the

lead pastor of the church. Want to welcome those that

are watching online also those that are listening on a

podcast later on. Thank you for joining us here at Venture.

Your smack dab in the middle of a series, in fact,

not at the middle, at the end of a series

where I'm sharing through the values and the pillars that

this church is built on. I want to encourage you

to go back and listen to those other messages if

you really want to hear what Venture is all about.

The first week, I talked about our value of generosity,

last week I talked about our value of mission, and

today I want to talk to you about our value

of community. Genesis chapter eleven, verse six. Interesting verse. It

says if one people speaking the same language have begun

to do this, the nothing they plan to do will

be impossible for them. 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.

This past week, I overheard a conversation at a restaurant

someone was having and I went to the restroom and

now my way back to my table, decided to comment

on this conversation that I was easdropping on. And I did,

and the person invited me to sit down and interact

with him and have a conversation with him. And he

was a professor for one of our local universities. His

area would be anthropology, sociology, the study of culture, the

study of trends, the study of society. And he began

to tell me the story about how he had moved

here from the Midwest several years ago, and he was

observing the Seattle culture and the things that he's learned

in the last few years. And what I had overheard

him sharing was this story. He says, I've been on

an indoor soccer team for two years, so after our

soccer games, we'll go out to a bar, have drinks

and a couple of the guys.

Occasionally we'll go out to dinner.

And he said, last week two different guys on the

soccer team referred to me as one of their best friends,

and he said, I found that so interesting because I

don't even know where they live. They don't know the

names of my kids. They don't really know much about

me other than I play soccer. And he remarked that

this summed up his observation about the Seattle area, and

he said, this area is desperately in need of real, authentic,

meaningful relationships. This then led to this conversation that he

and I had where he shared his three conclusions about

why people in the Seattle area are so desperate for community.

I mean, he made jokes about the Seattle freeze, and

he said that is actually.

A real thing.

He said, growing up around here, I don't realize that,

but when you were an outsider, you realize the Seattle

freeze is a real thing. And he said, I've concluded

that there are three reasons that people in the Seattle

area lack relationship. And he summed it up in this

idea that this is one of the few major metropolitan

kind of wealthier cities in America that is totally transient.

So the average person lives in the Seattle area for

three to eight years, and his conclusions were this. He said,

number one, it is the tech industry. He said, most

the tech industry recruits people from other states and other countries.

In fact, many of you are here because you were

recruited to come here, and you have a three to

five year opportunity to have all of your shares be vested.

And then once your shares in the company are vested oftentimes,

In fact, I.

Do coffee with people.

In our church that every three years move on to

another tech job because they get new stock options and

new bonuses, and they kind of go through this process.

And he said, as a result of that, people come,

they work here, they make a lot of money, and

then they tend to move.

So that was one observation.

Second observation he made is the location of the Northwest.

I mean, we are in that upper left area of America.

Growing up around here, it's all I've ever known. I'm

used to having.

To drive a couple hours to do anything.

You know, I'm used to having to hop on an

airplane if I want to go visit anywhere.

We're used to that.

But apparently in most places in the nation, you can

drive to two places and visit other cities and things.

So when you're here and you're not used to being here,

it feels a little bit like you're trapped.

And when you move.

Away from your friends and your fan family, we think, oh,

we're a two hour plane ride away from our friends,

but that distance becomes problematic for people and they struggle.

If you're into sports like I am, you know that

every Seattle sports franchise laments the fact that they have

to overpay to get.

Free agents here.

And it doesn't have anything to do with the quality

of life in the Northwest, doesn't have anything to do

with our area. They love our area, they think it's beautiful,

They like our teams, they like our fan base. They

just don't like how far away it is from all

their friends and family and how much travel they would

have to do. His third conclusion was that, more so

than any other region in America, there is a constant

upsizing and downsizing in the housing market here. You know

what it's like if you're a young family, you have

it and you're about ready to start and buy your

first place.

You have in your head where you want to live.

Then you look for houses and you realize, I can't

afford it. So then you go to the number two

place and you realize, I can't afford to live in

that city either. Then you go down to the third

it can't afford to live there, and so then you

settle for a place that is affordable, with in the

back of your mind thinking, as soon as I can.

Afford it, I'm moving.

And people buy their first house and then they steadily

upsize their houses. And one of the things that we

know living here is that no community is the same.

That even though it seems like Seattle is one city

on top of another, Everett has a different field than

Milk Creek, which has a different field than Snahomish, which

feels different than Lake Stephens.

Or Bofel or muckle te O.

And all these cities are within fifteen minutes of each other,

but they're all unique. Some of these cities are safer

than other cities. Some of these cities have better schools

than other cities. So we're constantly moved and upsizing and downsizing,

and as a result, we end up with a lot

of long distance relationships here. We're so used to people

that we were really close to moving away. We have

all these friends in these other places, does.

This sounding like any of you.

But that becomes challenging over time when you're trying to

maintain multiple long distance relationships, because it's hard.

Those take time, and it's hard when you're.

Maintaining all these long distance relationships to develop new ones.

Because you only have so much time. Diane I.

It was about ten years ago we made a conscious decision,

and part of it was we're very relational. We are

very quick to allow people to become part of our

chosen family and invite you into our life and hang

out with you and vacation with you and travel with you.

And you know, do things with you.

And then constantly, over our first ten years leading venture,

we would get really close to some people and then

they would leave, they would get transferred somewhere, and they

just kept moving in one after another, and that was

really sad for us, and it became really difficult to

maintain all of these long distance relationships. So we eventually

made a conscious decision that when people moved, we would

release them, and we would release them so that they

could make relationships in the community where they live, and

that we could open ourselves up to the new relationships

of all these new people God was bringing to venture.

And we have concluded, after ten years of living this way,

that for every family that we deeply loved that moved away,

God brings four new ones. And because we have been

willing to release people and open ourselves up to new relationships,

we are blown away by all of you people every time,

Like some of the people that I hang out with

on a regular basis at this church, if I was

only holding on to my long distance relationships, I would

have missed out on getting to know some of you.

And I look at that and I think what a

bummer that would have been. I think many of us

struggle because we don't understand that holding onto all of

our long distance relationships causes us to miss out on

all these new ones that God is presenting to us.

I would argue that proximity is the key to community.

I can't spontaneously call a friend who lives in Arizona

and say, Hey, I got an evening free this week,

you want.

To come over and play Settlers of Catan.

I can't spontaneously say to a buddy of mine who

lives in California, you want to go with me to

the Mariners game tomorrow night? You have to have friends

that are in your proximity, people that you connect with.

That is one of.

The there's people always complain about social media. I think

one of the challenges with social media is it falsely

gives you the impression you're close to people that you're not.

Because someone that lives in another state, another area comments

on your post or likes your Instagram picture. You think

your homies, you think you're best friends, but you don't

know that person. You just get to see their highlight reel.

Proximity is the key to relationship. And you and I

are not supposed to live life alone. It is healthy

to live life in community. When you hold on to

all of these long distance relationships, sometimes because by the way,

those take more time, sometimes you miss out on opening

yourself up to all of these new relationships that God

is presenting to you. And let me tell you, we

need people. We need people in our lives. Did you

know you need people in your life?

Did you know people.

Here need you?

When we do things together?

This text in Genesis says the result of it when

one group of people is speaking one language heading the

same direction, nothing is impossible for that group of people.

Not only is community healthy personally, but we accomplish more

when we do things together. The interesting thing about this

Genesis passage is it talks about one people speaking the

same language, heading the same direction, that nothing will be

impossible for them.

And I agree.

If you can unite a group of people, get them

heading the same direction, speaking the same language, you can

do much more than you ever would have been able

to accomplish on your own. But there's something that is

a problem with that Genesis eleven text. For those of

you that know your Bibles, God didn't like what was

happening there so much so that he ended it. He

actually dissolved this one group of people speaking one language,

going the same direction. It was problematic, so he confused

them and separated them.

It's the story of the Tower of Babel.

They lived in community, but it wasn't healthy, so God intervened.

You need to ask.

We agree that living a community is healthy, that we

can do more together, but why is it God had

a problem with that. There was something unique there that

was different from healthy community. There is something that made

this group heading this direction toxic, not healthy, So what

was wrong here? Community is a value adventure in the

Book of Acts, I think Acts two gives us an

example of the exact same thing that happened in Genesis eleven,

but was done in a way that God honored. It

was done in a way that it was healthy. And

I want you to notice what is the unique difference

between that story in Genesis eleven and what you're going

to see in Acts chapter two. In Acts chapter two,

there was a group of early believers that said this

Acts two forty four. It said all the believers were

together and had everything in common. It's a similar scenario

to Genesis eleven, but God blessed it very similar, saw

similar type results, saw impossible things happen. But this is

a healthy community church. It is spiritually and emotionally healthy

to live life in community. I want to share with

you quickly this morning. I want to take a lot

of time to share with you. What are the two

keys that we read about in Acts chapter two that

developed this healthy community Acts two forty two. You with me, okay?

They devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching and to fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Quickly, two

keys on what made this community different. Number one, the

people were willing to devote.

Themselves to it.

Everybody wants friends, everybody wants to do life in community.

Why did God bless one community and why did he

dissolve another? Well, the one that he blessed, the people

were devoted to it. That word devote Luke uses a

Greek word that we translate devote in English. That word

devoted means a strong loyalty, an affection, or.

A dedication to.

But the actual Greek word that's used here is much

stronger than the word devotion that you and.

I would use.

Now we know that any family, it takes devotion to

be a part of that family.

But the actual.

Greek word means to be earnest towards something, to preserve something,

to be constantly diligent in something, to continue to adhere

closely to something. The key with devotion is that you

choose devotion. You choose to be a part of something.

You choose who your friends are going to be, You

choose what community you're going to be a part of.

It was a year ago where our church's attorney came

and met with our board and said there is a

new nonprofit regulation in the state of Washington by our

Attorney General that makes it problematic for churches in the

Northwest to use the term member or owner for people

that are like identified members or owners of the church.

He said, you guys got to find a different word

for that. So legally, and he said, by the start

of twenty twenty five, this new law is enacted, you

have to change your terminology. So he said, I have

a suggestion. This is This is what our attorneys suggested.

Instead of saying owners are members, he wanted me to

refer to you as spiritual participants. Only an attorney could

come up with something that terrible. Uh, So I said, no,

I don't think so let us let us pray. So

our board and our staff begin to meet, and we thought,

let's just let's call it family now. Not because we

want to be some sort of weird variation of the

mafia here, but because that's really when you become a

part of this community, you're part of this is your

chosen family.

You become part of this church family.

So instead of owner meetings, we would have family meetings.

And one of the things about family is family. It

just it speaks to devotion, It speaks to loyalty, it

speaks to commitment, it speaks to working through disagreements and

you're gonna work through them because your family, and that's

what people that are a part of families do. So

we presented this idea of using the phrase family instead,

and fortunately he said it was okay. So that is

why tonight we have a family meeting. That is why

when you go through Discover one oh one, you get

the opportunity to join our family.

And we love this. We as a staff.

Love the terminology because you are really our chosen family,

like many of us were from other areas, and we

have lots of our biological family lives in other states

and other areas. And while we're here, we understand that

proximity is the key to community, that it is the

key to relationship, and you are our chosen family.

But the Bible says that they devoted.

Themselves, and here's what they devoted themselves. Remember you're trying

to figure out what was different from the Genesis passage

versus this Acts passage, and it says they devoted themselves

to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread,

and to prayer. So number one, they devoted themselves to

the apostles teaching. In other words, they had a church,

they had a pastor, they were committed to it.

I would argue that.

That is the significant difference between the Genesis Passage and

this Acts passage. In the Genesis Passage, this was a

group of people spoke the same language, had the same message.

They were working together to build something that made them great.

We are a group of people trying to speak the

same language, trying to We had the same direction to

build something that makes Jesus famous.

We are trying to make Jesus great. So what is

the difference. It's the difference between.

A toxic community and a healthy community. It's the difference

between a self centered community and a selfless community. It

gives your community a purpose, it gives your community a goal.

It's what we're trying to do.

Years ago, when I first taught on the idea of

membership at a church, I used an analogy that made

sense to me.

I said, if.

You're playing Texas, hold them and you have a really

good hand, what do you do?

You take all your chips and you go all in.

And so when I taught on membership the first time,

probably fifteen years ago, every buddy that decided they were

going to become a member or an owner at Venture.

I gave them a poker chip, a Venture branded It

was Canning Creek at the time, branded magnetic poker chip. Today,

as you leave this service, because you are a part

of this family, I have a venture branded make Jesus

Fameless magnetic poker chip.

For you on your way out.

So they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching. They devoted

themselves to fellowship. Remember, proximity is the key to relationship.

They hung out together, they spent time together. They intentionally

built relationships with each other, and relationships take time. They

devoted themselves to breaking bread. Scholars have argued what exactly

does that breaking bread mean. Scholars have argued that that

is communion. But most scholars and I tend to agree

with these scholars, say it actually means sharing common meals together.

In other words, they would eat dinner together at each

other's houses. They would go out the coffee together. They

do breakfast together, they do lunch together. Something happens when

you eat a meal with someone versus schedule a meeting.

It breaks down the formality.

There is a huge difference between having a meeting with

me and my office versus having a meeting with me

at one of the local coffee shops. It feels different.

It's not formal. It's more an opportunity. When you have

coffee with someone, you're expecting we're gonna sit down and

get to know each other. We're gonna hear about each

other's family. We're gonna hear about each other's likes and dislikes.

You know that's what you're gonna do.

When you have someone over for dinner, or you or

I go over to someone's house for dinner, you are

inviting me into your home.

You know you were.

Inviting me to see who you really are. If you

come over to my house for a meal, you will

quickly see how obnoxious my dogs are. You will think

Brandon and guy seem like they got everything put together,

and then you see our dogs and then you're like,

they're like everybody else. You go downstairs in my house

and you're like, this.

Guy is really into sports.

You find out really quickly about someone when you share

a meal at their house.

I want to encourage you.

You should be constantly looking for people in this church

that you don't know and thinking, I want to get

to know them.

We're part of the same family.

Randomly, ask people to coffee, randomly, ask people to do lunch,

do breakfast, randomly, ask families to come over for dinner.

Be intentional about fellowship and about breaking bread. If we

want to be a community that is similar to the

community they had and acts too, not only do we need

to be intentional about it, but we need to be

devoted to it. And finally, it says they were devoted

to prayer. They love to pray for each other. When

there was a need, they would gather together and pray.

It's like the thing that I love about family. Family says,

if you cross this person in my family, you cross me.

So I guess that is a little bit mafia. I

guess you mess with them, you mess with me.

I mean, that's the way, but that's the way we

operate with the devil. If one of you is sick,

you better tell your family, because we're going to go

to war against the enemy. And believe, if the devil

is messing with one of your kids, you better tell

your family because we will kick.

The snot out of him.

In prayer for your kids. We come together and we

pray together. And we see this over and over again

in the book of acts that when there was something

bad that happened to one of the early church, they

would take this and they would go back to their

church and they would share it, and they would pray

about it.

They devoted themselves to it.

The second thing they did is as a result of.

This type of community.

Not only is it something they were devoted to, but

they experienced something special as the result of being a

part of it. As a result of their devotion to

each other, Jesus and their church, they experienced something special.

Verse forty three says everyone was filled with awe and

many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. They experienced

many things that were special. They witnessed miracles. They saw

unexplainable miracles. When they got together, they prayed about something

they saw a miracle. I think about even in the

last year, the things that we have seen. Tonight at

our family meeting, I ain't telling you about it.

Now got to come tonight.

I'm going to share with you a miracle that God

did for this church, that he did for you, that

he did for me, and every one of us in

that meeting is going to cheer like crazy because He

did it for our family, and we celebrate these things together.

We experience miracles together.

At the same.

Time, there are people in our church that recently had babies.

That is nothing short of a supernatural miracle that we

ain't gonna be a part of together. We had a

guy in our church, Larry Beatty, who was he was dead.

We united together as a church and prayed and God

literally raised Larry from the dead.

We got to be a part of that.

In community, we get to experience miracles.

But something else special happens.

Do you know what all of these people, they were

all happy.

They were happy.

Some of you think happy, What a lame point, Brandon,

I am surrounded by people that are unhappy at times,

that are sad.

Just being happy is a big deal.

Listen to the way that they were described verse forty six.

It says every day they continued to meet together in

the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes. They

ate together with glad and sincere hearts God and enjoying

the favor of all the people. People that have friends

are happier than people that don't. People that live in

community are happier than people that are lonely. It just

it just happens because everybody wants friends, and by the

way you make friends by putting yourself out there and

being friendly, people oftentimes end up lonely when all they

have is long distance relationships because you only have so

much time, and if you refuse to release people that

move and open yourselves up to new relationships, you won't

have time to make new relationships and you will all

of a sudden look around during the day when you're

bored and have no one to hang out with, and

that will make you sad. Proximity matters in relationships. I

think people also end up lonely when they refuse to

put themselves out there and be vulnerable. There's people that

come to Venture for like two months and then they

inform me or one of my staff members that they're

not coming to Venture because they didn't make any friends.

And we hear that all the time. I mean, that

is really the key.

People no matter how much they enjoy my preaching, how

much they enjoy our worship, how much they enjoy everything

about Venture, in the end, if they don't make friends,

oftentimes people will transition. And I have a lot of

sympathy for that, and I want to help in that

process because I want you to make lifelong relationships here,

but I cannot help you make friends.

If you're not friendly.

There are some people they come to church, they stand

in the lobby.

Like this, someone's going to come and talk to me.

No one's coming and talking to you.

I'm afraid of you, like you have to open yourself

up and be friendly. Well, I don't want to join

a growth group because I don't know anybody. No one

that signs up for growth groups knows anybody.

We had a thousand people in growth groups this summer.

You want to make friends, you gotta put yourself out there.

You gotta go for it. You have to make an attempt.

And by the way, everybody wants friends. We're all, for

the most part, everybody's new to this area. Everybody has

that in common. They want friends. Odds are they're just

as new to this church as you. A buddy of

mine sent me this book. It's called Fearless Man. His

name is Dave Novak. I was a youth pastor in

the Northwest Ministry Network the state of Washington for eight years.

My friends, my tribe were here once a year.

Our denomination has something called network Conference where all the

ministers get together.

We're supposed to.

Go to meetings, but really all we do is just

hang out and me see our friends. So for eight

years that was my entire life. I loved network conference

because all my friends were there. Then I moved to California.

I was brand new and it was network conference in Sacramento.

Our entire staff was going to network conference, but because

there's only so many hotels, we were spread out in

different hotels. So I drove to the church that was

hosting network conference, got there at eight am, only to

discover that at the church that I was now a

part of, they didn't really go to the meetings.

They skipped, so I was there by myself. I knew

no one.

I sat in a three and a half hour meeting

by myself while everyone else knew each other. Then it

was lunchtime. I didn't know where anybody on our staff was.

I didn't know where my wife was. I didn't know

what to do, and I just knew I didn't like

being alone. So I thought, I'm going to go to

my car, drive around Sacramento, figure out where the rest

of the staff is, and I'm skipping these meetings with them.

And as I got into my car. I thought, is

this really the way that I'm going to spend my

entire time serving at this church in California? And I thought,

if I don't put myself out there.

I'm never going to make friends with people. So this

is literally what I did. I closed my door.

I walked around the lobby and I looked for people

that were close to my age, and I asked if

I could go.

To lunch with them. Do you know how awkward that was?

I'm an extrovert and this made me feel weird.

Walked up to the first guy, said, Hey, I'm Brandon.

I'm a new youth pastor at the house in Modesto. Man,

I don't know anybody here. Can I go to lunch

with you? I'd love to say? He said yes, He

looked at his buddies. He felt more awkward than me,

and he said, sorry, I got plans all right.

I went up to the next person. Hey, what's your name?

I'm Brandon.

I'm the new youth pastor in Modesto.

Man, I don't know anybody. Can I go to lunch

with you? We're supposed to hang out with our staff. Sorry.

The first three people that I asked, said no. Finally,

there's three guys that walked out.

One of them was really buff with tattoos.

And I thought, I like that guy.

So I walked up and I introduced myself.

His name was Dave Novak, and I said, I don't

know anybody man. I would love to do lunch with you.

And I could tell they were about to say no

because they were all going to lunch together. Dave pauses,

He looks at both of his buddies and says, hey,

I'll catch you later.

I'm gonna go to lunch with this guy. And so

Dave and I did.

Lunch that day. Thirty years later, we're great friends. Every

time I speak in Northern California, he always airport shuttles me,

picks me.

Up, and drops me off.

And this week got he came out with a book

and he signed his book, sent it to me and said, Brandon,

thanks for your amazing friendship. Knowing you has changed my life.

That only happened because I put myself out there when

I didn't want to. But I thought, I can either

be the lonely guy that has no friends and complains

that no one reached out to him, or I can

make myself feel very awkward, stand in the law and

invite myself to lunch with people. Here's the coolest thing

that happened as a result of all of this. I

think it's the coolest. So they saw miracles. They were

all happy, because.

People want friends. They're happier when they're in community.

But it said this, it says, and the Lord added

to their number daily, those who are being saved.

This wasn't enough for no more.

Never did these people say I got my four friends,

I'm good. I mean this was daily. This thing was

growing daily. There was new people coming. Why Because this

type of community is irresistible.

People want to be a part of it.

People want friends, They want to be a part of

something that has real meaning.

And their numbers grew.

So not only do you personally grow in community, but

a sense of community makes this community that much more

irresistible to the community that God has called us to reach.

We want to change the Seattle area. There's a relational

deficit for people in this region. That's why we're here

on everybody to stand up on your feet. So this

is your official challenge.

Look for somebody who don't know