Venture Unfiltered #15: Palouse Church Plant

Vent your church. What's up everybody? Pastor Tony, Pastor brand Welcome to

Venture Unfiltered. Today is special. This is not a normal podcast. It

is a bonus episode. Pastor Brandon, how you doing today? This is

two weeks in a row. We have a bonus episode weeks in a row.

That's just because we love our church so much and we are joined today

by someone so special, so near and dear to our hearts. Many of

you norm many of you maybe don't. That's why we have you on the

podcast today. Give it up everyone for a Pastor Scott Underwood, our pollus

campus pastor. Give him a Raider's role, Raiders role? What do you

think of that sound? Who are the what does this Raiders thing? I

keep hearing about? Scott? You have been at the church since day one?

Real quick, can you tell everyone how you found Venture? How you

got like here? And then yeah, just kind of really quick your s

okay? So come out of my house one day there's a flyer on our

I think it was on our fence, and I'm just like, I pick

it up. You see these things every once in a while, and I

was like, oh, there's a church starting. My wife and I had

just gotten married. We're looking for a new church home. And I said,

like, I think I know this guy. I've heard his name before,

Brandon Beals. I'm pretty sure that I that this is a guy that

I that I've known from college or I hadn't really pieced it together, but

it's like, let's go check it out. And so very first Sunday we

went down there and I was like, what in the world is going on?

I got this church. I mean it was like you had to run

through this gauntlet of middle schoolers and high schoolers that were high fiving you,

and then this guy Stevo who was doing comedy, and I thought, this

is a youth ministry. This isn't a church. And we stayed Wow,

awesome. I forgot about all of that. I always tell everybody when you

dream of starting a church or starting a campus, you have your first service

number one. You just hope people are going to show up, and when

they do show up, you're like, why are they here? And it's

kind of fun that you were there on that very first Sunday, very first,

Yeah, Hellywood Middle School that was raising almost almost twenty years ago.

What were you doing in life then? Well, I was exhausted. I

was running a software company and we were just at that time trying to put

together like our letting, our next generation software package, and it was I

was working just insane hours, one hundred hour weeks and stuff like that,

just really healthy stuff. And so so yeah, that's all I was doing

was work. That was it. Nothing else, just worked. And I've

gotten married, so that was also not a good combo, by the way,

to be just newly married and never seen your and your wife Sarah is

a scientist. Yes, she is a mad scientist. And at the time,

your son, Blaze, I don't think he was born yet. No,

we've just gotten married, so that wouldn't Yeah, okay, so everything

happened in the appropriate timeline. Did they make a show after Sarah called Breaking

Bad? Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, it's based off her

life story. Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah. So you started coming

to the church, became an active part of it. We eventually incorporated,

became a legal nonprofit entity. And you served on our very first board.

That's right, you talked me into it. How long they're on the board

board almost ten years? Yeah, ten years? Wow? And Scott,

I know you because my wife Ariel, when we were both interns. She

lived with you guys for quite some time, and you guys were just cool

with us, hanging out all the time of your house. We were broke,

We ate your food. You know, those guys. Those were the

good times. Man, so much had a lot of good fun times.

Too many fun stories. That's for another podcast. Yeah for you. What

was your backstory with faith? When did you become a follower of Jesus?

Sixteen years old? So I had woken up in the hospital. I had

ivs all around, you know, all through my body, and my mom

is standing next to the bed and I had just woken up from a drug

induced alcohol binge. I didn't even know what it was, but just a

mess. My body was a mess. I nearly died. They in fact,

my friend just kind of came and dumped me on my lawn. My

grandmother came out and thought it was dead, so she freaked out. She

thought they lost me anyway, So I popped out of that and I just

remember looking at my mom and going, I don't want to I don't want

to be like this, Like I don't want to live like this. We

were in a church family. We were. You know, we've been to

like Easter, Christmas stuff like that. And so my mom said, well,

I don't really know him. I mean we should probably go to church.

And my aunt had just gotten involved in this church called Life Center and

it's come home up. So mom said, you know, why don't we

just go try that church and called the youth pastor. Youth pastor came out

and met me in the parking lot and he looked at me and he said,

I mean I have buried kids like you. You don't want to be

that. You don't want that to be your story. I don't introduce you

to Jesus. And he told me the gospel message is really simply. Then

he said, hey, you know, we've got this youth camp next week,

summer camp next week, and we have a we have a spot.

We have like one spot left. Now one should be on us, and

so he made room for me. I wentz was like baptized in the spirit

and everything that next week. So, which is kind of like you talked

about zero to sixty. I can back now. I know my parents are

freaking out what's happened to my kid? And the pastors like having to talk

about like he's not an occult. It's all good, you know, all

this stuff. It's just was wild. It was just like people talk about

like the kinds of sort of you know, salvation and the slow process.

And for me, it was just like a switch, flip a switch for

me. Who was your youth pastor back then, John Greg John Craig,

Yeah, yeah, man, Life Center has been around forever in Tacoma.

They're great church. I love them. Countane was my dude. Wow,

Then where did you end up going to College Northwest? So you're an NU

crad yep, right on. So we are doing venture church together. Back

then it was Canning Creek Church back in those days. You've served on the

board for about ten years. At that point, we had probably moved locations

five times. Sounds about right. We kept out growing facilities we started.

You were there when we started the process us buy in our first building,

and then we bought our first large building and the church kept moving forward.

Do you remember when we first had the discussion about the potential of this Idaho

campus. Yeah, So that's really interesting because I was going through my old

Google Voice. I used to use Google Voice, and so the nice thing

about that is it keeps like all of your old text messages and all your

old voice messages. And I was going back because it was like kind of

reminiscing through my dad's stuff, and I found the original text from Terry Gurno

where he texted me. I think it was like March of twenty fourteen,

and he texted me said, are you interested in relaunching a campus or relaunching

a church out in Moscow, Idaho? And he reached out to me,

and I remember I called Terry back and I was like, yeah, man,

I don't even know. I don't even know where Moscow is. And

at that time, Sarah and I were thinking somewhere else and something else,

and then I said, but you might want to talk to a pastor Brandon

about that. So so I think that's when he called you. And yeah,

well, for those of you that are listening, there might be people

from Venture, might be people from our police campus. And there's probably many

people that are not attached to Venture, maybe future church planners. But here's

a little backstory. My relationship with that church previously was I was traveling around

the nation speaking at any church that would bring me into preach to raise money

for the church plant that I was going to do. And this is eighteen

nineteen years ago, and I had met somebody at a church planning conference that

was pastoring in Moscow, Idaho, and he said, once you come out

to my church. He said, it's a smaller church, and he said,

I have three services. It's primarily college students. But if you're willing

to come out, we'll do it. I was in California. I hadn't

been in weather that was below seventy degrees in five years, and I flew

to Moscow, Idaho, and it was in the middle of the winter,

and I remember I would breathe outside and my nose hairs would freeze, and

I got really sick, and I don't normally ever get sick. I think

that night I ended up getting diagnosed with like strep, throat and bronchitis all

at the same time. And I remember I couldn't sleep all night long,

as I was in that hotel room kind of over by where our old building

in Moscow used to be. And the Holy Spirit woke me up just in

the middle of the night and I sat down and I sketched out a message

that I preached one hundred times since then called seed Time and Harvest, and

I could barely get up, I could barely survive. But I preached in

those three services I think they had back then in that little building, and

I was not feeling well. I was just waiting to go back to the

airport to go fly home. And they took me to the Mexican restaurant across

the street from your old building. And I remember sitting there when the church

treasurer, who I believe was Jeff Bree, I think he told my wife

that it was him that did it, and he walked in and said to

the pastor at the time, Hey, this is a miracle. Is the

largest offering we've ever taken in the history of the church. So I had

preached, and I had told that story for years when I talk about you

take a step of faith and God provides. And the coolest thing about being

a church planner is you all the miracles that you read about in books and

hear stories about, you actually experienced them as a church planner. And that

was one of those moments where I thought, if this church can give that

much money, this must be a God idea. So then you fast forward

ten twelve years later that church is now closed. There's about a remnant of

about six to eight people still around. And so when they approached me about

having us take over that relaunch it as a venture campus with the sixty eight

people that are left, my heart was they seeded so much into what then

has become, that wouldn't it just be like Jesus to bring everything full circle

and relaunch it again. And I remember sitting down with you and saying,

hey, I want you to go with me to check this thing out.

Do you remember that I do? I never, I never in a million

years thought that that would be me. I remember because we went with Virgil.

We just had Virgil here today and man, just brought back so many

memories driving down there with Virgil and his gas station coffee and all that.

But I remember he made a joke when we came into town, something like,

you know, hey, you could be counseling people at that at that

at that coffee shop over there, and it's like, come on, man,

don't you know know? This never could be me? And I don't

know how many times I have counseled in that coffee shop, conversations with people,

and well, and you and I probably in the previous two years had

kind of flirted with maybe you're gonna lay down your software company and come on

staff, and we'd kind of talked about that, but it never went beyond

like, hey, we're just shooting the breeze talking about potentially what is because

it's rare to have somebody who is a partner in a software company whose wife

is a scientist lay there extraordinary. I was telling somebody the other day that

you and I both lived in Greenleaf, which is I didn't know it at

the time. I just got lucky and bought one of the first houses that

was built. But it is like one of the, if not the nicest

housing development in our entire region. And he probably doesn't want me advertising this,

but Scott lived in the nicest house, largest house in the entire development.

We're in a software company, White Societists living in a like five thousand

square foot house. Ariel and I had our own loft. You just don't

starve the story about someone laying all those things down to become a campus pastor

kind of an Eastern Washington Western Idaho laying it all all the way down to

start something from scratch. What made you decide you wanted to do that.

I was a little crazy, I think. No, I mean it,

I can't even answer that question other than to say, like, you know,

people pen out stories to create you know, really interesting, you know,

short stories. I don't. I don't think that you can write this

stuff. I mean, I just think the stuff that Jesus does. I

mean, you can't even make it up, like like this, this conversation

that we're having about you know, seeding into Canyon Creek Church at the very

beginning and then not just becoming something of a redemption story for the police campus.

Yeah, and I don't know, I really, for me, it

was connection to those people that is almost supernatural that that I had. It

was my wife kind of really unexpectedly buying into that too, because you know,

she had had some bad experiences at WSU. It really wasn't. I

mean, she's she's a cooog through and through, but it's not like she

had some pretty traumatic experiences. I think really deeply. She graduated from WSU.

Yeah, yeah, she's yeah, and so so you know she was

she did not want to even come close to Pullman, but but she just

something God did something in her heart, and and she was the first to

say, because I'm like, you know, if I if I try to,

I could get my way if I really wanted to go there. But

I said, you know, honey, you're gonna have to tell me.

Is this what God wants to do? And uh So we're driving down,

you know, we're making our way through town on our last visit there,

and I looked at her and I said, like, what are we going

to do? And She's like, how could we not do this? And

so it was just kind of like this I really can't explain it. I

really think it was just Jesus that at that point to Scott, how many

people at the church because it was the building right on downtown, right,

but how many people are actually attending that church there we shut it down was

fifteen people. Now, when we launched the church with fifteen people, that

was nothing. It was a parachute launched there. There was not anything there.

So when we when we launched the campus, Scott started with fifteen people.

So you got to put this in the context of thinking through the eyes

of a church planner today. When you think of not to throw shade on

any generation, but when you think of millennial church planners, they want like

incredible salaries, They want an upgrade in their home, they want X,

Y and Z. And here is someone who had, frankly everything that the

world says you want. You You guys had a nice house, nice cars,

nice everything. You lived in a gorgeous area, and you literally said,

for the cause of Christ and for the sake of the call, I'll

lay all of that down with frankly, no hope and no promise that it

was ever going to turn around or this thing would work. And the first

services fifteen people, no regrets. My favorite thing about Scott from the moment

that he decided to do I was fairly convinced. And you and I had

had this conversation a bunch. I felt like it was you were no one

I just because the area is highly intellectual. It's full of college students,

but highly intellectual, and I could not think of anyone else that I knew

that actually could minister really well in that type of an environment. Because you

understood venture. You are highly intellectual. I always say you're so smart,

you're stupid. So it's your wife, and I mean that in the most

positive way possible. But in addition to that, you guys are cool.

You guys understand culture and things like that, and it is fortunate that God

had you in a financial position to be able to take a risk like this.

What percentage of your church even today or in the last eight years nine

years have been college age students? Oh wow, I mean early on that

would it would have been forty five. You were leading like a young adult

campus pretty much. I mean, in fact, the very first year the

kids ministry was my son. Oh my goodness, how did anyone tithe?

Oh? Look at Chipotle? I'm sorry. Well again, I mean some

of the people that did tithe, they've moved up to the Spokane campus.

They again, it's the beauty of multi site. So it allowed for this,

this campus that is now flourishing, to grow organically. It wasn't without

hiccups or headaches along the way. But when you look back at the journey,

been doing it for eight years now, right, almost ten? Almost?

Oh my gosh, time flies, but not Yeah, we're about nine

and a half. Yeah, So when you look back, tell us a

couple God moments that you remember along the way that let you know this is

worth it, risking everything and doing something that's a little bit unorthodox, a

little bit unexpected probably to many of your friends at the time, but you

look back and you think, this is what I knew, this was worth

it. You know. There's a couple of dimensions to that, but I

think the main one is just getting to have a front row seat seeing God

do things that are just faith expanding stuff like like marriages that are coming together.

You know, people getting married all the time they met at your campus,

met at the campus like six I'll do like six weddings average on any

given summer because it's a yeah, I mean it's it's crazy and just to

watch just to get a front row seat on that, I mean, it's

just been through time. If I had to think about like a couple of

big events for me, one is I just can't ignore with what happened last

year with the building, you know that, And I have to say,

like if you go, it's been a year and a half since we first

heard about the building. But I had a very low faith threshold for that.

I think, you know, I we heard about the building coming up,

that it was a possibility, but I just never saw us. I

just couldn't see it actually happening. And so you know, God really in

fact I've shared this with the staff is at our campus. Is that I

you know, I my first fear was my goodness, Like, you know,

they're going to be disappointed when they find out we can't get this,

and I fully just expected that. And then you know, God has just

busted through so much of that of that doubt. And for people that might

not know, uh, fill them in on the building. Yeah, used

to be the used to be the Mormon tabernacle in your region. Yeah,

if it was a Mormon church, and that means there's a basketball hoops,

there's a basketball hoop, there's like fifty little rooms around two big rooms.

Yeah, you know, and it's crazy. He was just talking to a

realtor and he was like, you know, I hope that you understand,

like Mormon churches do not come up for sale. They'd just he's never heard

of it. And so when that came on the market, like everybody kind

of jumped on it because it's a it's a fantastic building, but more than

that, it's just in a great location. It's beautiful. It's right next

to some brand new sports fields and stuff, and uh and yeah, I

mean so there's a ton of offers on it we had. I think in

the end they were considering five offers and ours was the lowest. I know,

isn't that crazy? Yeah, And so at every level, I'm just

like, yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna hitch my faith into this

yet. And I just really learned that you know, you can and you

should expect God to exceed actations. I think it's important for people that are

hearing this to understand again, don't us what Scott said, we were the

lowest of those five offers. One of the main reasons that they chose our

offer versus the four that were higher was because of the reputation of our church

in the community. That the campus and the church that you and your team

built developed such an amazing reputation that a Mormon organization would think we'll sell to

you guys. Yeah. And I think in addition to that, honestly,

you'd have to say that the a huge factor though, was the partnership that

we have with the with the Canyon Creek, I mean, with the adventure

as a whole. And I mean I think that you know, the leadership

that you guys have provided, you know, and the support that you've provided

obviously we couldn't even have begun to take that step. So that's just another

example of what we can do better together. Yea for our listeners, would

you remind them? So you guys start out with fifteen people your first service

nine and a half years ago, how many of you guys have now?

How many would say ventures my home? Oh? You know the during the

school year we were three, three fifty. Wow. Yeah, that's so

awesome. Wow. And that building is on such an amazing location. It

really, it really is a god thing. And what's so cool is you

know we sent one of our favorite interns of all time, Nathaniel, who's

now youth pastoring and associate pastoring is Scott's sons youth pastor. That's so wild

and that's better together. Man. You know, Daniels so great. He's

the man you have. He still have a really thick beard. He shaved

it. He has a girlfriend. Now I'm allowed to say that we need

to talk offline about this. Oh my gosh, does that is Daniel?

Does he still do magic tricks? Not? No, in front of me.

Okay, maybe for the girlfriend. You want to see a card trick.

I'm sure he does. I am curious your pasta. I would like

to know again to keep this serious as much as Tony wants to just turn

it into a comedy routine since it's you. But I have faith that there's

going to be a lot of future church planners, people that are going to

launch campuses with other churches or ours, that are going to listen to this.

And I want you to be really real. What were some of the

most challenging things you had to deal with. Everybody's going to go to the

pandemic, I think in their answer, and that would I would almost reflexively

go there. Well, it was tough, you know. I mean I

didn't really like the idea of doing preaching, you know, in front of

a green screen with you know, I didn't like that to do that in

my basement. It was a lot of content. I'm not a video editor,

although I had to slip into that role for a bit. But it

wasn't terrible, you know. It wasn't like we suffered a little bit,

kind of lost a few families, but it wasn't horrible. I think the

thing for me, if if I could go back to that second or third

year where it was kind of like if I go further with this, I'm

committing into something the long haul. Yeah, And I think you have to

reach that point as a church planter or where you go, Look, this

isn't an experiment anymore. This is this is this is your future, this

is your this is your livelihood. I'm staring down the barrel at retirement.

Am I going to really do this for the long haul? Am I going

to be a ten year guy at twenty year? Or am I going to

flame out at five? And I think that you have to actually face that

at some point. And so practically for me, what's helped me through that

stage and kind of that it wasn't just one stage that actually happened again,

you know, like several years later. When you get to those stages,

I think what gets you through that is you conceptualize your calling like not as

to and this is the way it works for me, not to a location,

not to like a city or a place. And it's weird because like

I always thought of myself like I'm gonna go would be a missionary to like

Africa, you know, and I always like envision myself in a place.

What I have come to believe is that it's actually a calling to a people.

It's a calling to like a community which which are real humans like known

and loved by God. And that when that calling at that level, when

you really truly like love in action, that efficacious Jesus love to other human

beings, your calling goes deeper than it would be if I'm just like prayer

walking the community like you know, in sort of like an abstract way.

I love my city. To me, I love my city, yes,

but I love my city. I love all of those people that God has

brought me into that sphere of influence in my city. I feel like every

church planner PB and I have talked to in all of our campus pastors.

They their language, yes, their titles church planner, but their language sounds

more like missionary. I am called to these people. Jesus has led me

to minister to these people. Its beautiful. I've said this repeatedly in Novembers

my nineteenth anniversary birthday also ventures nineteenth anniversary birthday. And I would say,

if you would have told me nineteen years ago that I would be pastoring the

same church in nineteen years that has said not a chance. I just I

didn't know. And there's those multiple moments where you kind of reach across roads

where is this it or is this just for a season, Let's pass the

baton to somebody else. But then you kind of cross over that and I

call it the moment you bury your heart. And when you bury your heart

is when you this becomes like your city. And I think part of it

too is the people become your chosen family. Two. And one of the

things that I've watched over and over again with other church pastors or other senior

pastors is they just switched churches every five years and then never quite get to

the point where they have that relational depth where they have the reputation in the

community and different things like that, because they never stay long enough to really

pastor a community. And you know that verse that we quote all the time

at venture, don't grow weary and doing good. If you're at the proper

time, you'll reach a harvest if you do not give up. Like if

you would have known eight nine years ago when you moved to Moscow that hey,

you're gonna have this huge building, there's gonna be three four hundred people

coming, you'd be like, I'm all, I'm signing up. That that's

great. I'll give my life to that, but there was many times along

the way where it didn't even seem like that was possible. Yeah, definitely.

You know, I think about a lot about like, you know,

I'm sure you've heard this too, that there's like a ten year threshold and

if you and a lot of pastors they pack it up well well before that,

and you know, they're like, you know, they preached through all

their sermons in their cabinet, and they just pack it up and go somewhere

else and repreach the same sermons. And it's just a kind of an opportunity

thing where you shop those opportunities. And I was thinking about, you know,

that ten year because I noticed, like even with you know, when

you got to your ten year mark, I remember like there's something unleashed,

like there was something in you that just seemed to like you just became more

like and you know, I don't know self like differentiated or whatever it was,

but you becom came yourself. Yeah, you become comfortable in your own

skin. And yeah, is it you just not feel the pressure like you

have to prove something anymore to anyone. You're just confident in the calling,

or I'm a pretty confident person. But I think it has to do with

this, like and when when you're first starting and like for me, because

I was a pastor. I was a youth pastor and a socio pastor,

but that was back in the nineties. Like we're in different universes now,

Yeah, okay, so I'm trying to figure it out in the you know,

in the twenty tens. And so a lot of it upfront is imitation.

I'm imitating Brandon, imitating people that I respect, Like I'm just that's

it's an imitation. And that's all because and that's not wrong because you don't

you don't know what your voice is yet that's all you have. So it's

only till this point where I'm not really imitating. I do feel like I

have my own voice way of saying things. That's billion. Yeah, so

it's it's comfortable. I think the longer you're out of place too, And

I especially think after that ten year point, you start realizing that I'm going

to be able to outlast any controversy, outlast any conflict, You're going to

be able to work your way through challenges that you have come out the other

side. And after a while, you just have so many stories of Jesus

coming through and the miracles along the way that you're able to always go back

to why I remember when we face this and God came through, then he

can come through now. And it seems like as that and the mountains they

don't get smaller, they get bigger and bigger, but for whatever reason,

they seem easier to climb because we have we conquered that mountain, we conquered

this one, and Jesus helped move this one. And then you face the

next big mountain, like with that that police building, where you just say,

God did all of these things, He's going to be able to do

this thing. And I think that only comes from being there for a long

time. And there's nothing greater for people to be a part of a church

and not have to worry on a yearly basis. Is Pastor Scott going to

stay? I mean the one like I think, if we are anything,

we should be able to be a constant in people's lives. We should be

able to be people that they can count on that we don't change. We

don't have emotional highs and lows. We're not changing our strategy and our mission

and our vision and we're just faithful people who love Jesus. If people go

to the police campus getting a fight with you, leave and come back a

couple of years later, and you are going to be the same Scott,

and they'll be they can think Scott's still here, Scott's still faithful. Even

though I had this issue, Scott still loves me. And I think there's

a lot of beauty and that I think would you agree with this one too.

I think another thing that happens is we I think as you get older,

the crazy bizarre, not god dreams maybe we had as younger people kind

of laid them down to the reality that, you know what, I want

to have a good marriage. I want to be a godly father, and

I just like whatever God has for me, I just want to make the

greatest impact that I can with my life. That's you know. And and

there's something that this kind of like indescribable about that opportunity when it comes that

you have to seize it. In other words, like you don't get an

opportunity every day to say yes to something that gets to be a kingdom builder

thing. You know, where you're you know again that front row seat and

I've had the chance to be able to do that, and that's like,

you know, I mean, it's the most meaningful thing. And when you

get those decisions, you really have to like, hey, go for it,

you know. I mean it's not just vocational ministry either. It's like

for anyone that if you've got an opportunity to make a like use your particular

skill set and your gifts and make a huge difference, how can you,

like, how could you choose something that is of such lesser value than Christ?

You know, Paul said, I consider everything a loss compared to the

surpassing greatness of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord, who for whose sake I've

lost all things. And that's Paul basically saying what we're talking about here,

which is like you're leaving something that's so and Prairian, so like it's gonna

be it's dust, it's a it's a it's already like it's gone. It's

here today, gone today, and and so you know, this is of

such eternal value and worth, it's like there's no there's no regrets, there's

no question. You gotta do it. And when you go back to that

moment ten years ago, when you had to consider, do I lay down

this company, do I sell this gorgeous house? Do I uproot my whole

family? Just simply uh, for the hope that maybe God will use me

in a in a great way. When you were brought back to that point,

if you if you would have said no, you would have had a

great life. Your your life would have been blessed, and you'd probably serve

faithfully at venture and we'd be going on eighteen years of you being on the

board. But you'd have missed out on this. Yeah, it kind of

one of our creeds as a church. Like we talk about what are the

culture statements? One of them is playing it safe is risky and you are

a living example of a courageous step of faith for Jesus. Thank you.

It's again. I wouldn't I wouldn't have it any other way. So a

couple more questions for you before we finish. What advice would you give to

a church planner, somebody considering planting churches, maybe somebody who's considering being a

campus pastor what advice would you have for them? I would say, you

know, prepare yourself. Prepare yourself to be flayed open by Jesus and laid

bare before him over and over over and over again. Yeah, and and

and that's important too. And you know, I was just doing a study.

I've been on spatical. By the way, thank you for that.

Thank you to Brandon dian Aldie. I'm just glad you're coming back. Oh

yeah, is that? Is that really a thing? By the way that

I don't know who said it, but there's some statistic that's floating around in

the church, statistic fear. We don't know who. It's seventy percent of

ministers who go on a sabbatical resign within a year of their sabbatical afterwards.

I don't know where it came from. Somebody said it, you know,

church stats, we just love to like pick those out of the air.

All I know is that we continue to be have staff members that are the

thirty person that stick around. Oh no, I'm actually fired fired up to

go back to the office next week now. And you know, you I

was doing a word study on what you know, metanoia is repentance and you

know the idea that it's mad, it's not. You know, we think

of it as just like sorrow and this emotional response to sin, but it's

actually a change of mind. Yes, that's actually what metanoia means. It

literally means and you're changing of the mind, yes, And and so you

know that to me is what you know constitutes church planning. Like, if

you're going to go into this, whatever you think, whatever you think you

are and who you are is going to change radically in ways that you do

not understand nor nor will you understand. Right, You're gonna go through it.

And and it's kind of like when you know people don't have kids and

then everybody tells them when you have kids, your life is going to change.

And as you know, if you're a single guy, you're like,

ah, yeah, yeah, whatever, you'd sort of like that's the thing

everybody, yeah, But then that happens and you're like, oh yeah,

you're definitely right. Everything changes, you know that, right, Tony.

So that that's the way I look at it is is there in a way

you can't prepare for it, but you have to expect that you're going to

have so many moments where your mind is going to be changed or you're gonna

have to repent, and where you're gonna you're gonna have to reevaluate and be

super flexible. You're gonna learn to love through the most difficult people and circumstances

and persevere through it. And it's just and I think again, you know,

we talk about, you know, church planting being lonely and and and

in a way it is. But you know, you kind of have to

accept that, you have to really accept the fact that you're as a leader,

that you are going to be a bit and I want to lonely is

the right word, but you're going to be alone and a lot of decisions.

So I was Tony, and I've talked a lot about campuses and church

planting, and there will be announcements that our church will hear about in the

next weeks, months to come. And the thing that I have told Tony

repeatedly he's probably heard me say it to a dozen times is every church planner

has the story of the first three years and how difficult it is and lonely

and humbling and growing. And you used Filet And I've told Tony repeatedly,

you don't get a skip those three years. Like I don't know of a

church planner who doesn't have a story of having to persevere in those three years.

But once you overcome those first three years. You come out the other

side, and what God has put together is pretty extraordinary, and you've realized

how much you've grown and how much you've laid down. Like part of the

processes, God does crucify your flesh. He kind of humbles you, takes

away your pride, and then builds you up again. And what you learn

in that, I think those initial first three years is absolute total dependence on

Jesus. And then you also learn that when you're totally dependent on Jesus,

he comes through. Yeah. Crazy, so so right, I mean,

like I want to tell you, like I thought, I don't really care

about the trappings of green leaf and the money and all that stuff, the

nice house. I just want to serve Jesus and and uh and so you

know, it's no problem to give all that up. Fast forward a year

or two later, and I love money and I miss all of it so

much, you know what I mean, Like you know, and and then

so it's one thing to say it, but then you walk through it and

it usually be like, man, that's still an idol for me. And

then what God, dang it said, God phlats you. Yeah, And

then you come out you come out the other side and you are ill.

I would rather be in God's will doing something that has a kingdom lasting impact

versus have everything else. Sometimes it'd be nice to have all of it,

but that's not always the case. All Right, one last question, and

then I have one humorous question. What are you believing for for our police

campus in the next year, a couple of years. What are you believing

for? Oh Man? The Police campus is such a great place to be

right now. I mean, I'm so excited to get back to it.

We've just had some some some staff transitions and they've gone really well. I'm

excited to see all the cylinders firing for us now we've got this building.

We've got a great team, and so for me, I'm just I want

to see us just begin to get out there and just till everyone hears in

months ago and that's kind of my motto's till everyone hears. And I really

want to get our church on board with this incredible apprenticeship to Jesus and just

going on mission. And so my my goal is to see our church become

that sending you know, that church that's the catalyst for people being sent out

into their homes, their neighborhoods there, you know, workplaces and and that's

that's that's just really something like it's always been a part of our dna At

adventure and so so it's just an exciting thing to like see that actually happen

on the ground in the city that I love. So in the six weeks

that you have been on vacation and sabbatical, many things have happened around the

world. Many things have happened around the Northwest. One of the biggest that

affects the state of Washington in your area because you're kind of like smack on

the border Moscow and Pullman. Is you dub going to the Big ten?

The demise of the Pac twelve? So my question is USU hanging Man,

what happens to Sarah's alma mater? Are they Mountain westbound? They about to

join Idaho in the Mountain West? I you know, I think so,

I think they probably will. Yeah, that'd be fun, though, was

you versu of I? I mean it used to be a rivalry, right,

Yeah, we're in the same division. That'll be cool. Back in

the day and they used to actually have like a bowl if I guess,

like it's more of a fun thing that you know, between the two schools,

there used to be a rivalry and I, by the way, at

that time, you have I was the was the top dog. So go

vandals, Yeah, go vandals, Yes go Well, but I mean,

obviously you're really pleased with this, right, you're really pleased with the whole

Well, I saw the way that this thing was going. I feel bad

for w SU and LSU, and I know in one of our podcasts in

the last few weeks, I was teasing WSU before I knew how this was

going to play out. I felt a little bit guilty about it because I

do feel bad for them. But once USC and UCLA left the Pac twelve,

and this is about a year and a half ago, and I'm obsessed

with the stuff. A huge college football fan, which isn't a shock to

anyone, I saw this as the only potential positive option for the Huskies,

and this is what I had been hoping for. So when it was announced

that you dub even at a partial media rights share for a while, eventually

look at the full Big ten media rights share. I saw this as the

future for the Huskies, and really the only future that didn't relegate them to

a to a next level conference. That being said, I do feel bad

for WSU. I do hope that the Huskies will continue to be able to

play and beat you dub in the Apple Cup. But we'll see Scott.

Thank you very much. Honestly, I know I'm given this crazy privilege of

being the pastor that oversees the whole thing, and just say, as kind

of your boss, man, I'm so proud of you. You and Sarah

are two of my heroes. And what has happened at that police campus It's

one of the joys of my life. I love being able to brag about

it and talk about it and thank you for partnering with us on this crazy

journey. And let's do this again and again and again with other campuses and

other locations. Amen to that man. Thank you. Oh gosh, I

think it's time to wrap it up. Our one Raider role Raiders roll.

Thanks guys until next time. We'll see you guys later. Sorry for that.

As always, Jesus is the hope of the world.