Venture Unfiltered #14: Community featuring Pastor Di Beals

Hey, Venture, how are we doing today? Pastor Tony here with my

dear friend, comrade leader, Pastor Brandon. How are you, peb Excellent?

We made it to episode fourteen. We are almost legally able to drive.

I think we've almost cleared two thousand downloads. Will throw a party when

we hit two thousand. Unbelievable. We can't thank you guys enough. We

did not honest agodness, We didn't anticipate this or expect this. This is

awesome. Did you know that? Right before this I actually had someone from

Logos Software say they want to have me be an affiliate for Logos because of

our podcast. You are low key becoming a pastoral influencer. You're getting free

swag, free shirts. You don't wearing anything today like I know I have

so far. I've had four T shirt content and me shirts, and I

have had now logos. I don't get. I don't nobody pays me anything,

and I can literally be paid by T shirts. Okay, So there

are three companies right now that I want to sponsor our podcast because they're sponsoring

one of my friends podcasts, Athletic Greens. Oh, that would be awesome.

Hello Fresh huh and Shopify. I want past the White Whale for me,

Rayband, I want free RayBan sunglasses. Okay, did you know that

all glasses are made by the same company all sunglasses. Do you know this?

I just wanted to have the Rayband logo and be polarized. That's just

vanity my other like beyond White Whale, lamb real estate. I want you

have to say that, look at your face film that. Hey episode fourteen,

we're here. I heard you were leaving soon for vacation. Yeah,

Di and I are taking a week off right after our vision meetings Sunday night.

Let's go which if you're hearing this, prior to our vision meeting,

we have six earth shattering missional super exciting announcement. This is a big one.

You are not gonna want to But right after that, Die and I

are leaving for just a week vacation. We're going to our place in Las

Vegas and guess what I'm gonna do on Thursday night? Uh, go to

a Raiders game. Well no, no, please don't choose five. Oh

gosh, here we go Raiders role. I'm so sorry people, We're still

We're still growing. It's not his fault. I'm gonna go to the Luke

Brian concert on Thursday night. Of course you are showing amundem. Is that

okay at your condo? The guitar at the door that's signed, that's signed

by Luke Brian, Right, yes it is. Can you tell me just

for a moment. I've known you for I don't know how many years now,

why country like the last few years you like became this country fanatic.

I admit I hated country music. I honestly I hated country music more out

of ignorance than anything else, because I had never really heard any country music.

But I hated I pretty much felt music peaked in the nineteen eighties with

hair band heavy metal and def Leppard is my all time favorite band. Kind

of liked gangster rap too, but that was about the extent of my music

taste, and I mocked anybody who listened to country. But it was a

few years ago. We were doing a family road trip. We were going

through Utah and hitting all the national parks, and Die was forcing us to

go and all these different hikes, and I was all pumped because I was

going to put together a road trip jam of eighties pop and Rachel and Elijah

caused like a huge family fight and said we were listening to country music,

and I was arguing. Then finally Die stepped in and said, this is

for the kids. You need to do what the kids want. You need

to listen to what they want to for once. So I gave in and

did it. So what ended up happening on that trip is Judah and I

had to drive our jeep down to Vegas and then the rest of the family

was going to fly in and we were going to leave from Vegas for the

road trip. So we had a day and a half in the car,

and as we're driving down, Judah says to me, really quiet, Lisa's

dad, I don't really know any country songs. And see, Judah only

listens to Christian music at this point because Dad listens to eighties heavy metal,

and neither one of us listens to country music. So we thought, let's

listen to country music the whole trip. So we put it on country music.

We started listening and then Judah turns the music down and he says,

Dad, we should memorize some of these songs. And I thought, what

a great idea. Let's memorize a bunch of country songs when they get played

on our road trip, Judnile bust out singing along, and the whole family

will think that we were into country music. What would it take for you

to bust out a country song on the podcast? Way more than a Logos

affiliate. Wow, No, it would take away more. But I will

mention a few of the songs that we memorized on that trip. We memorized

that Carrie Underwood's song about the guy who cheats. What's the name of that

song? Something about boots men suck. Oh, Judea's yelling get out right

now, it's before he cheats. Of course, Luke Brian play it again,

John Party, dirt on my boots, Big and Rich? What's that

song that was on the movie Footloose, Big and Rich? Oh fake id.

So the whole drive to Vegas, Jude and are playing these songs over

and over and over again, and we're trying to learn the songs. So

I just became hooked on country music. I just don't get it because all

the music like I love it, Like when you guys took me to what's

his name? Homeboy? When we went that was awesome, And I think

it's the experience in the boots and all that it was epic America. I

just don't get it. Like all the music's the same. It's about whiskey

girls breaking your heart and like it's about town America, dogs, trucks,

jeeps, America, whiskey wife, god, beer country and it's all positive.

Now it's godly now, Yeah, they love Jesus. I actually with

this. In just a moment, we're going to introduce art special guest.

Lead our special guest today. I actually have two country songs that are mine

and die songs. One is Oh, That's adorable. One is the Luke

Brian song about Oh about rain. What's it called chocolate rain? Do you

guys remember that rain makes corn? That song, Oh, rain is a

good thing I have. My brain is not working. I'm really embarrassed.

Rain is a good thing. So that's one of mine and die songs.

And then my other favorite song to says for me and Die is she cranks

my tractor. Okay, pastor, I love you guys. Your guys are

like my parents. I don't want to hear about that. Do you want

to ask me what I'm trying to do on Friday night? Are you trying

to go to Noah Cyrus. I heard Miley Cyrus's sister was in Snohomish for

a block part. Are you going to that? Oh? No, I'm

gonna share much. Do you know that My daughter told me that she is

a seventh cousin to Miley Cyrus, Rachel liz Y, which also means Jude

and Elijah are too, which means you are well. Aparently it's on Diees

side of the family. Okay, So remember how Ariel and Rachel did the

tailor swift thing, went viral for it on TikTok and YouTube and all that

stuff, Instagram whatever. I have a what's the word, you know,

like when you there's something you want to eat but you normally don't eat it,

but you eat it like once every craving right now, like a secret,

not secret, not an indulgence. That's weird. Okay, I'll just

bear the lead. I love Drake. I have loved Drake since two thousand

and eight, when I was in high school. Drake has been like,

my dude, Drake is coming to Seattle back to back nights at Climate Pledge.

I need to go because the people need to hear about Jesus and Seattle.

So our Drake tickets hard to get. No, they're just expensive.

So on that note, can we talk about maybe we'll talk about this after

the podcast, maybe seeing if we can make it like a church expense.

We could do some missions work down there. You know what do you think?

I don't even know who is so raiders roll? Judah, good job.

Okay. On that note, if I go to Drake, I will

text you hey, I'm at Drake. We have a very special guest on

the podcast. I love the Beal's family, I do, but my favorite

Beals is with us today. I'm sorry, no offense. We have Pastor

Die Beals everyone. Oh, Judah, perfect timing, Pastor Die, how

are you? I'm doing great, Just an honor to be here now before

we dive in and really gets spiritual. Those songs that he just said that

remind you of him, do you feel the same sentiment? I feel embarrassed?

What is your song for me? Somewhere over the rainbow? That's the

first thing that came to my head. We're gonna get back to this and

I'm gonna ask you again at the end of this podcast. I want to

I want like a legit answer. I wish you guys could see Pastor Brandon's

face right now, just the deans. Oh lame I picked she cranks my

tractor stop saying that it's just making me uncomfortable. Hey, for those of

you listening, we just finished up a series called We Are Venture and we

focused on three values of our church. So we talked about mission, community,

and generosity. And if you missed any of those, you should go

back and listen to those podcasts. We've had nothing but just unbelievable responses from

people. People are super encouraging. The teaching that we had the most questions

about was on community, and I preached this incredible message where she talked about

the importance of relationships and how you need people in your life and community,

et cetera. And surprisingly it led to many meetings. Sometimes when one of

us preaches on Sunday the next week, the staff is really busy because it

stirred up a lot of things in people's hearts and they wanted to talk about

them. And this was one of those messages. And we felt like there

were so many questions about the importance of relationships and how you build community and

how you navigate through when friends move or friends you break up or they no

longer share the same values, just all the changes that happen in friendships,

and we thought it would be important. Let's have a discussion about community.

And what we're going to do today is talk about questions that people ask us

in that week following that message. Yeah, we'll just answer those questions here

and we'll use DIES feedback and DIES help as we do this. Can I

just ask like a like a really generic question first to kick us off.

So for most people, like if they're not saved or they don't go to

the church, finding communities really hard, right, So it's like either the

workplace or like maybe some extra cook activity, a coffee shop, honestly,

a bar. I mean that's where most people meet nowadays. So don't they

primarily meet on social media online now hinge, Facebook, bumble. I don't

have these apps. These are just the apps people talk to me about.

Let's talk about why the need for community in the church is so important for

a moment, why, like I mean not necessary? Why the church?

We know why? But how does that form here at the church? How

do we have community here at the church? Well? I think that was

pretty well covered in the message. But if we were to just be at

its most basic, we are created for relationship as believers. If we go

all the way back to Genesis, we see that God created man and then

brought the animals to man. There was not a suitable helper found, and

so then God created woman, and those two humans were deemed to be good

for each other. I think, going all the way back there, we

are in need of other humans. And if there's anything we learned from twenty

twenty being confined away from other humans, we don't like being away from other

humans. So I think the why is pretty pretty well agreed upon. It's

more like, how how do I do that? How do I find my

people? I think the one thing that when I first gave my life to

Jesus that got me plugged in, to be honest, it wasn't I mean,

I love the preaching and the worship. It was the people, Like

I couldn't deny there was something real here with people, like there was community,

and I was searching deeply for just real community. We've we've been doing

small groups at the church for since the beginning. Let's talk about the vitality

of small groups, why they're so important. For a moment well, even

before we jump into that, there is a statistic. And again we I

joke a lot about statistics on this podcast that we don't even know where these

stats came from. But there are things that people say all the time,

so they're just kind of universally accepted. So I don't know where this originated.

I have seen this be more true than not true, so I'm going

to throw it out. And the thought is this, if if there's a

new person that comes to your church and new family, they can love my

preaching, they can think David Diaz is the greatest worship leader in the world,

but if they don't find a relational connection within three months, it doesn't

matter how much they love everything about it, they won't They'll they'll leave,

they won't get committed to the church. So it's one of the reasons why

relationships are so important. And we I'll let Die answer this small group question,

but I'll just say fundamentally, when we start Adventure, we didn't have

a facility, so we couldn't do classes. So our strategy was all adult

discipleship had to happen in small groups because that was the only options. So

from the very beginning, we weren't a church with small groups like oftentimes churches

small groups of the rage. So they throw them in, they read a

few books and go to a seminar, and they try to add them into

the culture of the church. But we're a church of small groups, like

the culture of venture is. You're part of a growth group, and so

everybody's talking about what growth group are you going to be in the next cycle?

Just kind of who we are. But maybe I can explain the why

well as the person who oversees small groups here and has for a long time

and is also a big believer in small groups, I will say that small

groups are not the be all, end all, but they are a great

way to begin the process of getting to know other people. Having said that,

there are some challenges that come naturally with small group participation. I mean,

a you gotta put yourself out there. And let's say you decide you're

going to jump into a small group, and that small group meets at someone's

house that you've never been to before, and you got to go knock on

the door and you got to meet someone you've never met before, and you

don't know if you're going to like them. So early on, in our

church, we went away from small groups that go forever and or don't have

an ind date two small groups that are term based. So eight to ten

weeks at the most. Some groups have found their people and they just stay

together and we don't We don't tell them they can't do that. But some

people try a group and you know, they give it a go, and

those aren't there people. And so my encouragement is, Okay, those aren't

your people. Try again. Because your people are out there, it's just

a matter of finding them. And it could be hobby based, it could

be season of life based, it could be where you live based. But

at some point, putting yourself out there will lead to finding your people.

You just gotta put yourself out there. But I think I think that is

just the lowest level. Yeah, there's got to be a level beyond I'm

going to go to a group once or twice. And when we first started

growth groups, there was no example of like semester based groups. Every group

was it started and it lasted forever. The challenge that you had and a

lot of people that are listening to this or thinking I wish we had I

call them till death do us part? Groups, and there's people that wish

they had that. And one of the number one reasons you stop doing that

is because people don't want to lead those groups. They don't want to lead

a group that never has an end. People don't want to host a group

that never has an end. By the way, the average person doesn't want

to commit to being in a group that doesn't have a beginning and doesn't have

an end. You're speaking in generalities, so it's in general true, but

there are and we try not to make a bunch of rules for people.

If a group of people start meeting together and they determine these are our people,

we want to do life together. I'm not the one that's saying no,

here, you can only meet for eight weeks and then you've got to

go find new people. We hope they'll continue to include new people along the

way, but sometimes people find their people and they're good to go. And

both are okay. You need both. You need deep relationships and you need

opportunities for new people to join. So you said something really important. You

said you have to put yourself out there, like you have to try it,

you have to go, you have to sign up. Okay, here's

something I've heard over the years, and I think I'd love to address this

on the podcast and maybe someone listening to struggle with this too. I've heard

sometimes people say, well, I've tried, I've gone to a group,

I didn't connect, or it wasn't on a night of the week that worked

for me. What would you say to that person? Well, so,

as Brandon mentioned, I made a lot of work for myself in the best

way possible after this message because it stirred a lot of questions and a lot

of deep emotion from people. So I actually got asked that numerous times in

the past couple of weeks. That happens. It happens that we try and

maybe we make a good connection, but then we feel broken up with,

or the person moves away, or their life circumstances change, or they decide,

you know, they're going to move on in their life to do something

else, or it could be just really hard for someone to put themselves out

there. And so the question is, you know, I'm an introvert,

how do I do that? Or I live far away, or my schedule

is really busy, and that it looks different for everybody. So there's no

formula that we just generically apply to everybody. But at its very core,

it requires putting yourself out there. So in my message, I just kept

saying, you have to try again. And that might be maybe you need

a little more control over it. Maybe you invite people to your house,

or you're the one who says I'm going to lead the group and it's on

this topic that I appreciate, And maybe maybe it's not even at your house,

maybe it's at a coffee shop or at a park or something. But

you have to put yourself out there. Otherwise, how are people going to

fall into your lap? They're just not. I always whenever I have the

same conversation with people, I always say, help us, help you Venture

in particular, this is not just a friendly church. You know, on

the outside it looks like we're friendly, but this is a church where people

want to make friends, where they deeply want communities. If you're gonna get

connected at a large church, it's gonna be at Venture. But you need

to help us help you you're gonna go to And again that's why I go

back to the whole growth group death do us part. We don't tend to

do those because you'll you'll do a growth group and you don't connect with people,

so you know there's another cycle where maybe you can try again. If

you are a person that puts yourself out there and gets rejected, and that

rejection is so hurtful, you don't want to put yourself out there again,

you are going to be really lonely. In general, you just have to

you have to try. I have seen, and it's eighteen years of Diani

leading this church. We have seen person after person when they make an effort,

they make an attempt, they make lifelong friends here. And that's part

of it. The one commonality that everybody has in Western Washington is and it

really became evident after COVID, is that people have a negative when it comes

to relational connection. They are desperate for relational connection. They have resources,

they're surrounded by beauty and things to do, but they're busy and when and

then when they have free time, they're like, I'm not connected. And

part of getting connected is you gotta get connected to a church, I think.

And then in addition, you gotta, as guy said, you gotta

put yourself out there. So last fall we hosted a group in our home

called Soup Sundays, my wife loves to cook soup every Sunday night. And

it was filled with people that were newer to the church. And really they

did this. They put themselves out there. And the thing I think I

love the most about it is that they weren't just connected to Ariel and I

following the group. They now many of them are friends. They hang out

together, they vacation together, all because of that group, and I think

that's kind of helps move the mission forward of the groups is that they not

yes, some of them can be lifelong you bond these lifelong friendships and whatnot.

But seeing people create new groups and inviting new people to those groups,

I think that's awesome. And I think sometimes people want to do groups because

like, oh, pastor so and so is in this group, and yes,

we love connecting with our people, but the group isn't. The purpose

isn't to just draw people to the pastor it's to make friendships and bond together.

I think something you guys have done really well building culture here at the

church is like it's really hard. I mean, it can't happen, but

it's difficult to go unnoticed. That venture maybe week one, maybe, but

by week two, week three, Nicole, Heather die Cole, someone's chasing

you in the lobby, Curson and getting your name and seeing how to get

you connected and plugged in. I have loved that. That has been kind

of no matter how much we have grown, that has been just it's embedded

in our DNA. Well, here's the thing I think at the nature of

a lot of people is this, especially people that have grown up with some

church background. I want the church to stay small so I can have my

friends, and that's just that's just not going to be venture because we want

people to find Jesus, and there's a lot of them that need to find

Jesus. So we are going to continue to be a growing church, which

means it's incredibly important that we find ways to stay small. And the way

that we grow big but stay small is you've got to find a circle of

people. And if I were to just segue us a little bit and say

groups is a huge way that venture provides an opportunity for you to find people.

It's tailor made. However, you may have to look beyond that too,

and you have to So this is a conversation I've had quite a few

times in the last couple of weeks. You've got to understand the place that

people fit in your life. So the three of us sitting here all have

friends, and we're friends with each other, which is an added blessing.

Our staff is friends, but we all have friends who live in different spheres

in our life. So Brandon and I often teach this, like think concentric

circles. You have your inner circle of people. These are the who am

I going to call in the middle of the night. People you know I

have a sick kid, or I have an emergency, or I just got

dying knows with something. Who are you calling? And outward in the concentric

circles are the different layers of friendships. So you might meet people in a

group. You might go to a group and you meet people and you're like,

these are great people. They're quote unquote friends, but I haven't yet

found my inner circle middle of the night person. Or of that group of

people, you know all of them but one are friends. But then you

found your one inner circle person. And depending on you know your time and

your season of life, and maybe even your personality style extrovert versus introvert.

We all need people, but you might be able to maintain more inner circle

friends or less, And there's not a right answer to that. But I

personally, besides my immediate family, would say I have five really inner circle

people. And even amongst those five, we all have busy lives and we

have different seasons of a year, and in some seasons I might spend more

time with one or two of them than the other. But these are my

people. I have an emergency, these are the people that I'm calling,

and they would call me. So it's okay that not everyone you meet is

an inner circle person. There's not something wrong with you or they're not mean

or rejecting you. But that doesn't mean that we get the excuse to stop

looking for the inner circle people. And I think one of the challenges that

people have is they think I can only be friends with someone if they're a

lot like me. So I've I've heard this a few times. I just

haven't found my people and what does that mean? And what that means is,

well, I wanna have a urban farm, and I want someone that

likes Slean Dion and wants to play board games every single Thursday and Friday night.

Of Basically, this person has to fit into this absolute little, tiny

bubble that you might be the only person like you. Yeah, well,

anywhere we're going to call this friend the unicorn friend. Yes, they're a

mythical creature and they probably just don't exist. You're not going to find the

person that has every single thing in common with you. That's normal. This

is like what I meet with young adults and they tell me here's exactly what

I want in a husband. I'm like, bro lower the standards. Yeah,

I used this example one of my closest friends for years. He's subsequently

moved away, But was Daniel Carpenter. So many people that are listening to

this, No, Daniel, Daniel and I have nothing in common, literally

have nothing in common, Jesus, Jesus nothing. But we became great friends

and it was based upon just kind of this mutual commitment that we had to

each other. We met, I would say, two or three times a

month for lunch, and we talked about our families and life and things.

But we don't like the same music. We don't like the same movies.

He isn't into sports, and I mean, I go on and on and

on, like you can be which watching soccer on TV is pretty much the

worst torture. You could force something, but but in the end you beat,

you become really good friends. And and I think that's part of it

is stop putting the expectations. And I will tell you this, a lot

of people, I won't say most people, but there's a lot of people.

They're never gonna be good with the expectation I'm gonna be a hang out

with you three times a week friend because we have families, and we have

jobs, and we have other friends and and so I think this expectation that

I'm gonna have my one person, we're gonna talk on the phone every single

night, and where every Friday our families are getting together, if that is

your starting point, you're just gonna be disappointed. So if I could just

even poke it this a little bit, because Tony, you made a comment

about young adults and who they're looking for in a life partner spouse, and

you said lower your expectations. And I think if we rephrase that too,

there should be some non negotiables, but everything else is negotiable. So like,

if you're looking for a spouse and you're a person of faith, non

negotiable. This is a person of faith and I'm looking for but if they

have blue eyes or brown eyes or green eyes is probably not as relevant.

So what are your non negotiables? But if we move this over into the

friendship category, there probably are some non negotiables. But I and I have

actually had this conversation six or seven times this week with people. Look for

areas in someone's life that you admire, respect or would love to be better

are at, and that's where you align with that person. So maybe you

have a friend in your life who you really respect their marriage and so for

marriage things, that's the person that you share marriage things with and they make

you better and they pray with you. Maybe you really respect how someone parents

their kids, and so you know, parenting, you guys are shoulder to

shoulder, sharing advice, helping each other. And maybe it's a hobby.

Maybe you have you know one or two people that you know you don't have

the same life season at marriage or parenting, but you definitely love the same

hobbies and that's your adventure buddy, and that that's great. You don't have

to it doesn't have to be a friend who has all the things in common

with you. So that's looking for shared interests or you know, shared life

season in people in different categories. That's so good. I had this one

buddy in the church that I went out to lunch with them one time and

we're just shooting the breeze and I hadn't really done lunch with him for maybe

three or four months. And in the middle of the conversation, as we're

just kind of bantering back and forth talking about life and kids and different things

like that, I made the statement, Oh, yeah, you're one of

my really good friends. And he paused, and he looked at me and

tilted his head sideways and said, we never talk. I don't even consider

us friends. And this is part of as you get older and you become

an adult, more meature, and you've had people that have lived in your

area moved out of your area. Just to echo what Dye said is I

have lots of people. Maybe this is just a bel's thing. I have

lots of people that I consider really good friends. I don't spend time with

them every single day of every single week. Some of them I hang out

with once or twice a year, but it's always based upon these people are

really into the UFC. So there my UFC buddies. These people are huge

Husky fans are my Husky buddies. These people are huge into investing, and

so I talk about investing. And these are people that I like to travel

with. And these are people that die and I have mutual like couple friendships

with. And that's part of like being an adult, especially an adult that

wants to stay connected to your actual family, that your family takes time and

you have. It's okay to have friends that fit into certain categories. As

I said, there's the ones that have a really strong marriage. There's the

ones who you mutually love each other's kids, and then there's like we would

say on our staff, we're all friends now for different reasons. But number

one, the thing that's united us together, made us friends is our mission

to reach this region together. And we believe that the vehicle that God has

us in right now is venture Church. And I think to some degree,

you have to understand that as as you get older, it's okay to have

more friends where you might not have the We pour out our souls to each

other at every moment, not saying you can't have that and die. As

a comment, well you've you've just tapped on I think two things. One

of them is people have different personalities. Not to be sarcastic, but maybe

we haven't noticed that different different people have different personalities. Some personalities value define

friendship differently. So some personality styles would say a friend is defined as somebody

who I spend a lot of in depth time with. That's not wrong or

right. It's just a different personality style. It doesn't mean that not all

personality styles can be deep. It just means some personality styles value that as

their friendship definition. While some will say, well, I, as Brandon

gave the example, you know, oh, I consider you a good friend,

and the other person says, we haven't even talked recently. Some personality

styles can do that. They can go months without deep conversation and then jump

right back into deep conversation and then go months again, and that's not a

negative in their friendship. That's just time and schedule and how they define it.

So personality styles are different, and there's not one that's right or one

that's wrong. So respecting that someone's wired differently. I've had conversations with people

who are opposite personality style of me, who feel frustrated by wanting to be

friends with me. But I don't respond in friendship to what they need,

and we've had to understand what coming to the middle looks like. So for

a deep I want lots of time, quality time person. It might be,

hey, don't I don't define friendship as you know. You only call

me once every three weeks. I need it to be more often. I

might say, if I call you over two months, we're close. How

can we meet in the middle. So if I shoot you a text once

a week that says hey, I'm thinking about you, praying for your kids,

that's me coming to the middle. I think about you a lot.

I just maybe don't do the hour or too long phone call. So I

think that that's a big piece of it. And the other piece that I

think you touched on is sometimes friends are for a season. And you know,

this was a big life lesson for me when I was a young adult.

I think that somewhere inside of me was this broken thinking that every friend

I'd ever had I needed to maintain that friendship, which is utterly overwhelming and

impossible. And so I'm reaching out to my old second grade best friend and

my fourth grade best friend, and these people are like, I don't need

you in my life anymore. And so yeah, so my closest friend,

when Brandon and I got married, we had a bit of a falling out

that I was basically unaware of, and her life circumstances changed and she needed

a fresh start, and so essentially she needed to break up with me,

and that was really hurtful to me. Shocker. I know people think I

don't get my feelings hurt, but my feelings were really hurt by that,

and I made some inner decision no one's ever going to get close enough to

me to hurt me like that again. And so I really spent a few

years just keeping people at arm's length. And that maybe people who are listening

right now, you've been hurt and you're thinking nobody's getting that close again,

to which I would say, we have to try again, because according to

the quote that everyone keeps quoting back to me now is you can do it

alone. You can do this whole life thing alone. But if you do

it alone, you will be alone. And so if you don't want to

be alone, you gotta put yourself out there. But it is okay to

go, you know what, that second grade friend, I know this is

a joke, but you know she was my second grade friend. I love

her for that, but she's not my adult life friend. But that could

also be. You know, that friend I had when I had little babies

and I was sitting in a rocking chair every night, rocking a baby to

sleep. That friend I had is maybe not the same friend that I do

life with when my kids are in college. And that's okay. We can

appreciate friends for a season and love what they contributed to our life and what

we contributed to theirs. We don't have to maintain every single friendship all the

time, and you can be super friendly when your paths cross again, and

you can kind of pick up where you left off it. It doesn't mean

that it's gonna be that in no bad feelings. So I want to for

those of you that are listening, we're assuming you've heard me or Die talk

a lot about these relational circles. So if you put like a bullseye target

on a screen or you wrote it down on a piece of paper, you

have your inner circle, which told be your closest friends, and then you

have kind of your next circle, and then your next circle, and then

your next circle, and then your next out two acquaintances, yeah, and

associate. And one of the things that I encourage people with is there is

nothing wrong with you setting boundaries and saying, you know what I thought this

person was in my inner circle. There's still a friend, but I'm not

quite as close to them and being able to And so I guess what I'm

saying is that those lines of that circle, there's people that are constantly being

moved and that they're all lumped into These are friends people that I'm connected to.

But but really I think the people that I have seen get hurt the

most and end up the loneliest. They struggle in two areas. Number One,

they do not understand that sometimes in the eighty to ninety year life we

have, you're gonna have friends for seasons, and they don't understand that.

And they think every friend I have is for life, and there might be

I haven't experienced that. I have figured that I have discovered that proximity matters

and friendships that when I can be super super tight with somebody, but if

they move to another state, I just am not the type. I don't

like talking on the phone, I don't like a text back and forth.

That proximity determines the closeness of relationship. And I'm going to say that's for

most people. And what I have seen over and over again, especially with

the mass exodus from the West Coast that happened over the last couple years of

all of our conservative brethren to the Conservative States, I have watched person after

person in our church be devastated because their friends moved. And then they always

tell me, oh, we're gonna still say stay super tight. Proximity matters.

And what you have to do is you have to be willing to say,

Okay, these people move, They're not near me. I'm not going

to be able to have game nights with them. I'm not gonna be able

to go to movies with them or watch games with them or whatever, or

do dinner. And it's okay to let go of those people in your heart.

And by the way, I would say that that's healthy. It's super

complicated to maintain long term, long distance relationships. But then I think the

biggest thing is, so you got to understand the season thing, and so

there's people for seasons. They might have been an amazing friend for that season,

but due to circumstances, they moved and proximity matters. You have to

be willing to take a deep breath. And as hard as it is to

release people, you've got to release them to be able to make friends in

their new community where they live. And in addition to that, you've got

to be willing to say, I'm opening myself up to new relationships. So

one of the unique things that I heard was there is a a person in

our church that people love, and this person's like, I don't have time

for more friends. I just don't have time for more friends. I don't

want more friends. I actually don't want to help because I don't have time

for more friends. The problem is you're going to need them at some point,

and you just got to learn the habit of opening yourself up. If

you'll remember one of the things that I told our staff when the mass exodus

of people to the other states happened, I just looked at everybody and I

said, can you let those people go? Can you open yourself up to

your relationship? Well, but what ended up happening is when we started opening

ourselves up to new relationships, we saw these extraordinary people that God was bringing

to venture and we're like, you know, I might never have ever sat

down and gotten to know this person. I might never have met their family,

and then you look at it out. So I think that is part

of it, is understand the seasons. And then the other thing. There's

this thought that like, I have to stay connected to my high school buddies.

And one of the number one issues that whenever I have wives complain about

their husband's friends, it's usually because their husbands are hanging there Now. Fifty

year old husbands are hanging on to friends that they had made when they were

sixteen, seventeen and eighteen. Fast forward thirty years. Their values, their

life is radically different. Like if you're buddy from high school that you're still

hanging out and going to Vegas with all the time, has been divorced three

times, wants nothing to do with Jesus, wants to go to Vegas and

hit on women, and you are a happily married man. Your wife is

not going to want you to be friends with that person. It sounds ridiculous

and you guys are laughing, but that I have that conversation over and over

again. I like, I have talked to wives that say, why will

my husband not let go of his loser buddies. At some point you have

to say I want to be around. I want friends that are gonna make

me a better husband, friends that are gonna make me a better father,

friends that are gonna motivate me in my work environment. But most of all,

I want friends that are going to draw me to Jesus. And I'm

not saying you don't hang out with those buddies you had when you're fifteen.

They might not belong in your inner circle anymore because they're the ones that you

end up hanging out with and you do stupid things and then you end up

having to work out issues with your wife later on, all because you hung

out with the wrong person. And so there's a scripture that says bad company

corrupts good character. Wow sounds yes, Well, yeah, it's a proverb,

But I think that is. It's always amazing to me when I have

guys that like, oh man, I still have my three best friends from

college, Like you have nothing in common with your three best friends from college

other than you went to college together. So what I hear you saying in

just to tie back in those concentric circles is we define the circles the people

in our lives, don't don't define where they're at, which circle they're in.

It's good and we have to take that responsibility seriously. So people get

a voice in their life if we give them a voice in our life,

and we choose who has a voice in who doesn't. There have been times

where I remember one time Brandon and I were we had some space in our

inner circle, and we're like, hey, this couple, what a great

couple. Maybe they're an inner circle couple. This is the language we use,

and maybe their inner circle in our life. And then we found out

that they had said some not very nice things about us behind our back.

And we still love them, but we're like, well, Clay, are

now in an outer run more. Yeah, I don't have people in my

inner circle to talk crap about me, right, Yeah, they just can't.

They don't, and I won't like that. There. If you talk

smack about me behind my back, somebody is going to tell me and I

will move you to another circle very quickly. The solar system things, Yes,

we hit on one more thing before we wrap up here. Well,

I've got like three more things, but go ahead. We are okay,

hey man, we are going for it. We should bring in lunch.

So a word that I hear all the time, used by people all the

time everywhere church and on church is boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. I have

boundaries. That was one of mine. So good, we're on the same

page setting boundaries. Let's unpack boundaries for a moment. I would love to

talk about boundaries, and I will be very brief, and maybe we don't

need to repeat each other, so hopefully I'm going to say something too so

I might repeat. Repetition is the key to retention. Okay, Boundaries has

become a word that we've our culture has defined as here's my line, you

can't cross into it. But that's only half of boundaries. So if you

think about a property line between your house and your neighbor's house, that line

defines what's on my side that I'm responsible for and what's on your side that

you're responsible for. And this shows up in relationships all over the place,

especially in marriage, where we say here's my line, you can't cross it,

but we forget we shouldn't cross into the other person's side either. So

it just really is about I have to own my own choices and I have

to let that person own theirs. That's really good. There is nothing that

as someone who struggles with anxiety, there's nothing that triggers my anxiety more than

when people violate my boundaries. And I have discovered that if you allow people,

your boundaries will constantly get violated. So there's moments in a friendship where

you have to redefine what the boundaries are for the friendship. And by the

way, I think that's maturity. It's something that you have to do.

And part of it is the boundaries, the expectations that come where this person

might be thinking this in the relationship and you're thinking this, and because they

think, like you, guys are going to hang out together three times a

week and for you, hey, I need space, I need time.

And they're constantly violating your boundaries that you never set with them, and it's

hard and you really find out who your friends really are when you sit down

and say, hey, these are some boundaries that I want to set up.

I love you, I love hanging out with you, but I'm adjusting

this so I agree mildly would die. Oh. I just wanted to jump

onto that and say, if I were to describe a relationship issue, illustrate

it that way. Let's say you're in a friendship with somebody and they tend

to shut down when they get stressed out. And this has been a conversation

I've had this week too. I've had a few people come to me with

this one. The other person shuts down and then they start feeling disconnected.

If we use the illustration of boundaries, I am not responsible when you shut

down and separate yourself from people. You've now made choices that make you feel

disconnected from whoever is important to you, So you now have to reconnect.

That's on your side of the property line. You made that choice. It

doesn't mean I'm rude about it. It just means, hey, I'm here

when you're ready to re engage in the relationship, and I get and I

have grace for you. If life is so crazy right now, you need

your time, But you also have to realize you made a choice to separate

yourself and you got to re engage. That's so good. The part of

this that I think is true too, is sometimes we revert back to habits

we had when we were kids. So you know, when you're in school

and somebody hurts your feelings, you give them the silent treatment, and then

after a while they like, oh are you mad at me? I'm really

sorry, And sometimes as adults we revert back to those childish habits. Can

I say that with probably getting canceled, But I think there's sometimes people get

frustrated and they pout and they just think, well, I'm just going to

give that person the silent treatment. The problem is when it happens to someone

like me, like some you's naturally extroverted, we don't notice that we're getting

the silent treatment, Like we don't know that this person is stewing and angry

with us and not talking to us because we're like floating around like a social

butterfly, hanging out with all these other people. And I think that that's

part of what you need to not do too, is if if you choose,

as Di said, to isolate yourself, and you've set a boundary that

no one needs to know about, you're not allowed to turn around and be

hurt and offended when people didn't chase after you that they didn't know they were

supposed to. I want to just say two quick things. These are just

things that I have to say and give advice for. And by the way,

I want to mention that I love you all. I'm for you all

part of this podcast. So why don't we Why don't we end with each

of us share our final sentiments? These could be your final two? How

about that. I think one of the biggest things that people need to do,

and I just to reiterate what I said earlier is let go of people

and they move away. And I think that is what is hurting way too

many people because their friends move away, they think they're gonna stay super tight

and it never happens, and they end up lonely. And when the first

exodus from this area happened, and really Seattle, our area is very transient.

People move, it's expensive, and lots of times they move here for

a job and then they move away for a job. And there was this

season where it seemed like everybody that Di and I were tight to kept moving

and in the end it was like all my buddies moved. And I looked

around and I thought, who relates to me here? And I saw two

guys in our church. This is probably like ten years ago, and it

was Dan Lane and Daryl Taylor, who, by the way, I wasn't

really tight with either one of these guys. I didn't know them. They

had their circle of friends and I had mine, and all of our circles

moved, and the one thing that the three of us had in common is

that our wives were not going to let us move. Two. So I

remember I scheduled a coffee with Dan and Darryl and I literally looked at him

and I just said, you guys agree with me that all of our friends

keep moving away. And they're like, find this contract a friendship you had

like a road agree. We literally looked at each other and we said,

we're not gonna move. We're not gonna move. We're not gonna move.

We're all going to be a part of venture. We should be friends.

And we literally said, well how do we do it? And we just

said, let's start doing dinner together once a week, Let's start watching UFC

fights together. So we started doing that. We did that for like three

straight years. We just started hanging out together and then we became friends.

Sometimes you need to realize that other people feel the same way you do.

Other people need friends like you do, and you need to just open yourself

up and go for it. That's my last thought, Tony, what do

you think, what's your last thought, die, I think my last thought

would be we need a part be how do you communicate and handle conflict?

But outside of that, I would say, if you are somebody who is

feeling like you have found your people, you are blessed. But the mission

of our church is still to connect people. So how can you be part

of the mission of the church. You can either a decide I can take

on more people, I can take more friends, or be help us connect

people to other people. And that I mean for Brandon and I that looks

like we invite over people we don't know very well for dinner and we hope

that they make friends with each other. We know that we physically cannot maintain

friendships with all of them, but we are helping facilitate friendship making. And

you could be a facilitator. That was really good. What about you,

Tony, what's your word of advice? Well, we are coming out of

a season where we're in our early thirties and we have kids now, so

our seasons have changed. There is a season where Ariel kept making these deep,

deep paul with people and then they'd move, and then she'd be really

sad, and then she thought, no, I'm going to do something about

this, and she made her own friend group and they've been going four years

strong. They vacation together, they watch The Bachelor together, they do life

together, and now they it's gone beyond just fun. It's like when one

of them struggling, they're all struggling, like they're all in there. They're

all in it together. Now they pray together and talk together, and that's

from powerful. So I'd say being proactive, putting yourself out there. And

I think too, it's seasonal right. We've discovered our friends who don't have

kids don't understand what we're going through. They just don't. They don't understand

that I'm actually when I mean I'm busy, I'm kind of busy now like

I have kids. I can't just hang out every night of the week anymore

so finding people in similar season groups as you and I think. The last

thing, and this, because this was so practical and happened to me recently,

I had to learn how to set up a boundary because I don't do

boundaries really well. I want everyone to be my friend, but I had

to learn the away. There was a person who was a friend of mine

who every time he called, my heart would race, and I go,

oh gosh, here we go. Like I thought, what I call those

the people that text you or call you and you're initial responses anxiety? Anxiety.

I didn't realize I had anxiety till this person would text me. And

Ariel said, you know what, either you address them on it, or

you set up a boundary because there's something off here, like you shouldn't have

a friend that's stirring up this much anxiety in you. So luckily him and

I have a deep bond. So I address him. I said, dude,

every time you call me, bro, my heart races, and here's

why. And I give him examples. And I allowed him to also speak

into me if there's anything I've done to him. And so how did Morgan

respond to that conversation? I was just gonna ask every call or Morgan text

I get from Morgan is where are we going for lunch? What are we

doing today? Bro? No, this friend we reconciled on the phone and

it was really healthy and thank God for it. And I'm not saying every

moment goes like that. Sometimes it doesn't go as easy, but communication part

beat. We communicated, Hey, I have this inkling. After this podcast,

we're gonna have a lot of people to say, bring back Die,

and we're gonna have to do a lot of episodes, especially I think conflict

resolution would be huge. I think we need to do that one in the

nearby future. Well, our next episode again, Diana are on vacation next

week, so it's gonna be you Aerial Oh interviewed by Nicole. Is it

really Nicole? Yes? Who did you ask her? I asked her to

do it and she looked at me stunned. Well, venture, We love

you guys. We're about to wrap up. We gotta get going. Judah

hit this song to early. Judah's got more meetings. Love this over were

altered. Next week, my beautiful bomb wife is gonna be here. We're

gonna talk about something really big together. But it's not just about us.

It's about the church, about the mission of Jesus. We love you guys

so much. Like subscribe, please share, share the reels. We'll see

you guys next week. H