We Are Venture: Antidote for Isolation

We'll get right to it here. Welcome this morning. If I haven't met

you, I am Die part of the team here at our central campus.

Welcoming those joining online as well. We are working our way through a series,

a short series called We Are Venture and we try and do this kind

of a series every year where we remind ourselves who are we and what are

we about? So last week we launched that off. Brandon launched that off

by talking about mission Now. These core values are literally the pillars that hold

up the roof of this building. Like actually in the lobby are three pillars

holding up the roof and they say our three core values on them. Today

we're going to talk about a topic, a core value that means a lot

to me personally and I hope means a lot to you two. And that

is the core value of community. This is such an important thing to Brandon

and I partly because we were the people who were new. We moved to

a city, we didn't know anybody, and we needed friends. And so

when we planted Venture here and returned to Washington to plant we really wanted to

build a culture that was all about the importance of relationships. This is so

important too, he and I we actually had twenty people over for dinner on

Friday night that we don't really know very well, that we just wanted to

spend time with and get to know. So this is important, and I'm

going to start off by illustrating it with something that you all have with you

right now, your phone, This device that you carry with you everywhere you

go. If you carry to the bathroom. I don't want to know that,

but you probably do because you carry this everywhere just like I do,

except I don't take mine to the bathroom. But this device is meant to

keep us connected at any moment to anybody or any piece of information in the

entire world. And I got to thinking about how this keeps us connected or

maybe doesn't very well, which we'll get to in a second. But I

was having flashbacks, and so a couple of pictures will go behind me as

we walk down memory lane. Or remember the phone. Maybe you didn't have

one this old, but if you're old enough, don't advent it. Remember

when you had to like put your finger in a hole and spin a dial

to use a phone, or actually push real buttons, not a screen,

or go home and check your answering machine, and like if you had an

answer machine and the light was flashing, you had a message, you felt

so special. Now maybe you think I wish my phone would stop buzzing at

me all the time, But back then it was super exciting, this device

that connects us with the world. And so I ended up down this rabbit

hole. Then I'll spare you most of but I did do a little bit

of research on the history of the phone, and I'll just give you a

couple of interesting tidbits. We could probably all name the inventor of the phone,

which is Alexander Graham Beau. But what you may not know is why

he was even dabbling in this technology in the late eighteen hundreds. First of

all, if you wanted to communicate with somebody that didn't live near you in

the late eighteen hundreds, you wrote a letter. Do you remember those You

wrote a letter and someone on horseback delivered it for you. We're not laughing

at that, We're just we've come a long way in just over one hundred

years. Well, Alexander Graham Bell was working in a deaf community at deaf

school, and he was studying the effects of social isolation amongst those who couldn't

communicate, and so he was trying to play around with technology that would help

deaf people be more connected. And what resulted in eighteen seventy six was the

telephone, the old version that we now have the modern version of, and

the first call, which goes down in history, called his assistant Watson and

said, Watson, come here. That is what changed history forever, and

it changed what it meant for people to be quote unquote connected. Now over

the next century plus, things changed rapidly, especially since the turn of the

century into the early two thousands. You and I probably remember the invention of

the BlackBerry, where you could now take this new technology called email and carry

around email in your hand. Then, of course text messaging came raging onto

the scene, which most people, if they're honest, would probably say they

like texting better than phone calling. But text messaging came blazing onto the scene.

Did you know that we send about twenty three billion text messages per day,

that's how much technology has taken over from there. Of course, social

networking came raging onto the scene. In two thousand and four, Facebook completely

squashed my Space Rest in Peace, and then following that came Reddit and Twitter,

Instagram, Pinterest, WhatsApp, I mean, you name it. It's

there's more ways to be connected than you and I could even name. And

then in twenty tw with our forced isolation, this technology already existed, but

the ability to have meetings and see people and talk to them digitally via Zoom,

which sort of squashed Skype, came raging onto the scene as well.

And in just over one hundred years, communication by phone went from a device

a phone hanging in a post office to this thing that you and I carry

around in our pocket or on our wrist or both twenty four seven every day

of our lives. And yet we all know this doesn't actually mean we are

connected. Recently a statistic was put out and a friend just sent it to

me yesterday. He was actually at a seminar and the speaker was talking about

the difficulty of being connected and loneliness, and she said, the new statistic

is that fifty eight percent of Americans feel alone in a world where we can

be connected to someone at any second of the day. In fact, it's

probably likely that most of us feel more isolated than we've maybe ever felt before.

And I truly believe that the church has a responsibility here. I think

it is the responsibility of the church to be the best version of community that

the world could know, both for you and I, but also as an

example to the world around us that have maybe lost a little bit of the

ability to live in community. In fact, if I quote my good friend

John who was playing on the keys, he said this to me yesterday,

he said, we're meant to be a beacon of hope, a community where

people can find both connection and belonging. The church is where you and I

were meant to find our people. Before we look at scripture, would you

just join me as I pray God, right now, we are going to

be super honest and admit that we need people, And maybe it's going to

start with me admitting it first, but I pray that you would stir something

in the hearts of the people in this room and watching online, this need

that we have that you built us with for human connection, deep connection.

God, would you stir something inside of us if we're in need to be

willing to step outside of our need and start to seek human connection. God,

would you stir inside of us this desire to include others? God,

I pray for incredibly fruitful relationships in venture in your name, would pray amen.

Community by definition, which community is kind of it's kind of become a

buzzword, I almost would say. But community by definition is an intentional gathering

of people, and that intentional gathering of people is usually focused on shared beliefs,

or shared priorities, or shared goals, or even at its strongest,

like shared worldview and shared values. So if we put it at its most

basic, you might find community in your neighborhood, maybe live in a suburb

or a neighborhood, and that community shares common goals like let's keep our neighborhood

clean, and let's keep it safe, and let's have a once a year

block party, or whatever the common goals are. But at its strongest and

where community is really intended to thrive is especially in the church, where we

center our community around the shared values and beliefs in God, in our creation

and our intention to be in relationship with God, in our shared biblical worldview,

in our view of the value of humans and their worth, and on

and on, and that is where community is meant to thrive in that depth

of shared value. So finding our people is meant as community that's like the

tagline that we'll just put with it. Community finding your people is meant so

that you and I don't have to do life alone. Now I can give

a bunch of disclaimers, and right now I'm just going to give one.

If you're married, great, I'm glad you have relationship with somebody. But

we're talking like maybe outside of your actual family. Community and your family good

important. We're talking community here, Okay, So let's continue to unpack this.

First of all, community is good and healthy. Also, community is

vital. Also, community is all over the Bible. And you'll thank me

that I'm not going to do an entire survey of the Bible. Let me

just give you a few examples. First of all, in the first pages,

God creates Adam, the first human, and then he says, this

will be familiar to you. It's not good for you to be alone,

so he creates Eve as someone to share life with. As you continue to

read through the pages of the Bible, the banner over those first few books

of the Bible is God's people, how they are to live in community,

and how they are to treat each other. As they learn to live in

community, and God gives them guidelines. When Jesus comes on the scene in

the New Testament, we see that his followers live in community with each other.

They share their lives, they share their possessions, they care for each

other, and they serve each other. And it continues on into the writings

of the apostle Paul and the other writers of the New Testament as they give

definition to what it means to be a believer in the Body of Christ,

which is another way of saying, in the community of Christ, and how

we take care of, encourage, serve each other, and build each other

up. And Biblically speaking, community is also assumed. Okay, so it's

not just all through the Bible. It's assumed. When you read about community

in the Bible. You don't find the word if in front of it.

If you're in community, you should treat each other this way. It's just

assumed that as a follower Jesus, we will be in community with each other.

WHOA it's assumed, no, if it is, this is how you

will treat each other, This is how you will support each other, this

is how you will encourage each other. Community is part of the DNA of

a body, and it is part of the DNA of venture and it is

important, so that's why we're focusing on it today. But do you know

what the opposite of community is? Throw it out. Isolation. I mean

that is probably like cut to the chase. You could say words like loneliness

or separation or a loneness, but truly, when we get down to it,

the opposite of community is isolation, which is separation or detachment from other

people. Now, we all experienced forced isolation in twenty twenty in the last

service. I asked who enjoyed that? And like three people actually raise their

hands, So I'm not gonna ask we weren't supposed to enjoy it. Maybe

you're an introvert and you're like, well, I kind of liked being home

alone. That's being forced to be an isolation, whether it's because of a

mandate or a safety thing, or maybe you're facing a health crisis or whatever

the case may be. We're going to set that aside for right now and

we're going to talk instead for our purposes here about the kind of isolation that

comes as a result. And I know you're here today, you're here,

there's lots of you. It's the kind of isolation that comes as a result

of your choices. It started with a choice that led to another choice that

led to another choice that has brought you to a place where you are completely

alone, without friends, like real friends, not acquaintances, without someone to

lean on or share life with. Before the first service, a man in

the lobby was telling me how difficult circumstances are right now and he and he

was crying, and he said, I'm so grateful to have people to put

their shoulder under the load with me. And if you don't have someone to

put the shoulder under the load with you, you're missing your people. I

mean, some people have said it this way. Who are you going to

call in the middle of the night in a crisis? Those are your people.

And if you can't name somebody, you're doing life alone. And that's

not how we were meant to do life. We were not meant to be

alone. And all of that is in spite of the fact that we're all

carrying this. And if you have social media, and we open up your

social media and it says you have eight hundred friends or two thousand friends or

nine thousand friends or whatever, that doesn't mean that you have people to call

in the middle of the night in a crisis. That's what we're supposed to

find here. So why are we isolated? Then? Well, the Bible

has something to say about this. If you were wondering if I was ever

going to actually open the Bible, yes, here we go. If you

have your Bible. I'm going to read two verses from Proverbs eighteen. I'll

breeze through a few others later on. But this is really where I kind

of hung my hat or my heart Proverbs eighteen, verse one. This is

the CSB translation. It says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.

He rebels against all sound judgment. I thought about reading this in multiple translations

because this is actually a really interesting verse. But I'll just also give you

the new Living translation, which says unfriendly people. Notice the word correlation there,

isolated people. This translation says unfriendly people care only about themselves. They

lash out at common sense. Back to that CSB version, it says,

whoever isolates himself seeks his own desires. Let's just grab a few things from

this. What does it mean to seek your own desires? What does King

Solomon the author mean here? Well, if you dig into commentaries, it's

going to tell you. This is when we're focused on our own needs,

our own desires, our own ease, our own priorities, our own way

of doing things, our own autonomy, our own comfort, our own opinions,

we become utterly and totally completely self centered if we are avoiding community,

the community that we need. By the way it is often embedded in this

verse is the message. It is often because we want to pursue what we

want when we want, without anyone telling us we shouldn't, making us feel

guilty, holding us accountable, confronting us, or needing us and taking up

any of our time. And yet it is a human condition. We all

experience being self centered. We are we struggle being selfish, and the root

of this, according to King Solomon, is pride. Look at the very

next verse in the CSB, verse two says a fool does not delight in

understanding, but only wants to show off his opinions. Pride says embedded in

here, Pride says, I don't need to hear what other people have to

say. I haven't figured out. I don't need to hear what I'm supposed

to do in life. I don't need to hear that I'm making the wrong

choice. I don't need to hear that I'm walking into temptation. I don't

need to hear this. I've got to figured out. Or pride says I

don't need help because I've got it figured out. Maybe you've said that many

times in your life. And I think some of us are more wired to

be independent. I think my knee jerk tends to be No, I don't

need any help. I got it figured out, and yet God made us

me included to need other people. So something I have to learn to fight

in my own makeup to not just do everything myself. And you need to

work on that too. If you are not currently a part of active community

of some sort. I'm not saying you have to be friends with ninety two

people Adventure Church, but if you can't name one person that you're in community

with, could it be that your pride is making excuses. Could your pride

be telling you you're too busy, you don't have anything to offer, you're

too broken, you've made too many wrong decisions, you shouldn't rely on other

people. Or the last time you trusted somebody who got hurt, So don't

make that mistake. Again, Pride says you don't need community, and the

Bible calls that person a fool. In fact, the Bible also says,

pride goes before your destruction. Pride is the step before or the fall.

Pride is the step before. I need the people and I don't have them

in my life, and pride will be our downfall because we weren't made to

be alone. But pride isn't the only reason that we are isolated. The

communication revolution should this should eradicate isolation, shouldn't it. I mean, it's

easier to be connected to people than ever before, and yet we all know

it isn't true. In fact, we know that maybe this ability to connect

has mutated into something that's maybe even more dangerous. And that's the illusion of

connection. That's the illusion of friendship. It's the illusion of depth of relationship.

Or maybe it's not an illusion. Maybe you already just flat out no,

these people aren't really my friends on social media. We all know it

happens because we do it too. We put our best face forward. We

are the ones that put the best picture, maybe we've even edited on top

of it. We are the ones that make the day sound great. I

mean, I just went backpacking with a friend last weekend and we posted the

most amazing pictures and we pretty much hated every step about it was so hard,

And yet the picture is us smiling like we're having a great time,

like we all do this. The danger is the illusion of connection. We're

lonely, but here's where the other piece comes in. That leads to isolation.

But we're afraid. We're fearful often of intimacy. We are fearful.

Our digital connections offer this illusion of connectivity, companionship, friendship, relationship,

but without the demands. Way less risk, no risk of getting hurt.

We're just friends on Facebook. No risk of getting hurt if I just put

a thumbs up on the pictures, no risk of getting hurt if I just

say yeah, good job, love Yeah. We become fearful of intimacy.

We can hide from each other, we can appear to be someone else,

we can look like everything is great, even as silently we're screaming for someone

to see. We'd rather talk or text than talk. We would rather engage

when it's convenient and avoid when it's not. And we hold this phone everywhere

we go. That promises the connection and the closeness and all it gives us

is assimilation. And I get it. If you live far away from family

or close friends and it's what you've got, you'll take advantage of it.

But there's no comparison to actual connection, and we all know it, and

it can happen in churches. I mean right now, if you're here in

person, you're sitting in a room full of people, and it can happen.

We can all be sitting in this room and we can be what one

author calls alone together coexisting. It's just a bunch of people in a room

and we don't actually know each other's stories. It's a big gathering and you

can't name a friend. And again I'm not saying you have to be friends

with everybody in this room, but knowing one person and having one person know

you is what our souls are crying out for now. Some of you might

be thinking a little jealously of remembering and wishing for a time when your phone

didn't beat at you twenty four seven, where people need you. And I'm

not proposing that we lay ourselves down and have no life, but I am

saying, if we're entirely honest, all of us would say we need other

people. Every therapist would say we need other people. Every pastor would say

we need other people. Every parent in this room would say, Man,

I really wish my kids had more friends. They just are utterly alone and

sad. And yet we stop at ourselves and go, yeah, but I

got it, but we need people to the opposite of soul wrecking, loneliness

is a life deeply rooted in the hearts and companionship of good, real friends.

Are you with me? But it's one of the scariest steps to make,

because what if you put yourself out there and you get rejected. What

if you develop a relationship with somebody and they hurt you. Some of you

in this room are sitting here in real pain because you've been in a relationship

where you've had pain or hurt done to you. And that's a real risk.

Some of you sitting here in that pain need to hear me say you

have to try again. You have to try again. If past hurt is

the reason that you have not engaged in community or reached out or attempted to

develop a friendship of some sort, if it's the reason that you're withdrawn and

isolated, it might just be time for you to forgive and move on and

try again. Here's my this is what I said in the first service.

This is my quote. And when it becomes like going down in history,

I want credit for saying the most profound statement. Are you ready? That's

sarcasm. Here's my profound statement of truth. You can do it alone,

but to do it alone, you have to be alone, Thank you very

much. You can't cut out all the potential for pain. I mean you

can, but it is not the way forward for you, and it is

not the way towards health for you. We were made for people. So

what's the antidote for this isolation? What do we do? If you're sitting

here today and you're like, I don't know how I got to this position,

but here I am. What do I do now? Maybe your heart

is sitting there screaming me see me, I'm alone and I'm dying. I

wish somebody would notice me. What's the antidote for that? Well, it's

going to start with you having to put yourself out there. That's a that's

a take a swallow. That's a tough one for some. Have you ever

met the person who laments or maybe more appropriately, I'll say the word wines

and says. Nobody ever invites me, Nobody ever invites me. Nobody ever

invites me to lunch. Nobody ever invites me over to so and so's house.

Nobody ever includes me, nobody invites me to coffee. Nobody ever,

nobody ever. And now I have to ask, except, are you that

person waiting for someone to reach out to you, always waiting to be invited,

never willing to invite, always waiting for someone to bridge the distance between

the aisles or between the chairs, never willing to bridge the distance yourself.

Because if that's you, now I get to I always gonna say encourage you.

I'm just gonna flat out and say, dare you. I'm gonna dare

you. That's what always gets me. Don't dare me. I've made a

lot of bad decisions from dairs. This is a good decision, though,

I dare you to put yourself out there. Part of the reason that we

gather in community, Yes, we gather in community because we want to lift

up worship to Jesus, Like we want to make the name of Jesus famous.

We want to make Jesus look good. We want to get filled up

and equipped here by the message and by what happens in this room, and

for our kids and the kids spaces, and we want to go out there

and be a representative of Jesus to the world. But also part of the

reason that we gather in community is to know each other, and to really

actually know and love and serve each other. It's so that we can actually

develop relationships. It's so we can encourage each other. It's so we can

break bread. The New Testament calls it together, not to coexist as just

a bunch of people with a familiar face in a room who sit near each

other and don't know anything about anybody. Acts two talks about the early church.

Acts Chapter two says, and all the believers met together in one place.

They shared everything they had, They worshiped together, they shared meals with

great joy and generosity, and all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill

of all the people. And Hebrews ten twenty four tells us that we should

think of ways to motivate each other to acts of love and good works,

and not neglect meeting together as some people do, but encourage each other.

Did you catch that don't give up meeting together. It doesn't say don't give

up meeting together, keep meeting together. It says, don't give up meeting

together. Instead, encourage each other. That's just supposed to when we meet

together there, it is to encourage each other. It's to bridge the gap,

it's to do life. Here's the thing. Isolation dies in church families

that know they need and want to gather together to know each other, to

do life together, to serve each other, to encourage each other. Isolation

also dies in churches that have that don't aren't full of people that have decided

I already have all the friends I need. I don't need anybody else.

And isolation dies in churches where people have determined that they need other people and

they're willing to put themselves out there to develop relationships. Even if you're going

through something, you might be sitting here thinking, yeah, but and my

marriage is struggling, How do I reach out to someone else? Who who

knows who you're reaching out to. You might be reaching out to someone that

needs to hear exactly what you're struggling with because they're struggling to Maybe you're like,

man, but raising kids is taking all of my time you're guaranteed you're

going to meet somebody who's also either going to say I lived through that or

I'm right there too. Let's encourage each other. That's what it's about.

How do we encourage each other through the situations of life? And every single

one of us has a responsibility here to build community. This is not the

responsibility of the pastoral staff and the people that were the greeter Landyard's only on

the week that they're greeting. This is the responsibility of every person here,

every Just think if every one of us in this room right now, just

in this room, not even counting online, if every one of us initiated

some sort of a relationship with one other person, think how dramatically different this

place would be true relationship. And who knows the person that you're kind and

friendly to, the person you invite to coffee, the person you at least

ask their name, the person you invite to sit next to you could end

up being one of your dearest friends. It's happened to me. It's also

happened to two girls that I want to close telling you their story. Behind

me is a picture of Lauren and Marina. Aren't they adorable? Lauren on

the right, Marina on the left. Lauren started coming in December to church,

and Marina started coming in March. I met Lauren, I don't know,

maybe February or or early March, and I just thought, what a

what a cool girl, like what a cool story. And Marina's first Sunday,

and I got their permission. They're here, they're famous now, I

got their permission to share the story. But Marina's first Sunday, she walked

in. I saw her walk in and I knew that she was new because

she was looking around up at the ceiling, which is where people look for

signs. For some reason, She's looking around, and I'm like, oh

hey, and so I am offered to walk her into the service, and

I thought, I'm going to seat her next to somebody friendly. So I

brought her in. I could have just sat her, see, I could

have just let her find her own seat, but instead I sat her next

to Lauren. And it was actually during worship, and Lauren, bless God,

bless this girl. She turned immediately. I didn't even have to introduce

them. Lauren immediately turned and said, how my name is Lauren. So

nice to meet you, and you know, I felt good about the fact

that I had left Marina in a safe place. The next Sunday, they

walk into church together and I'm like, wait, what the did you guys

already know each other? Like, oh, we just thought we'd go do

breakfast or lunch or something together. And I'm like what. And now these

two girls have become good friends. They've actually introduced their moms to each other,

which I thought was extra adorable. And last Wednesday night at our worship

in prayer night, I have the privilege of baptizing Marina's mom in the baptism

think, which is just all because one person said, Hi, my name

is Lauren Gosh. I just you just don't know how important it is.

Stupid Cheers TV show had it right when they said you just want to go

or people know your name, You really do. Just want to go where

somebody knows who you are. And those two girls are such a shining example

now, And there are so many others I could gives. I could,

I could shout out so many people. It takes your time, it does,

It might take your inconvenience, It might take you not sitting in your

very favorite seat in your very favorite row, so that you can go sit

by somebody sitting alone, and it makes all the difference in the world.

I don't know. I want to be about that. I want to be

about doing life with other people. I don't want to get to the point

where I'm like, yeah, I got too many people. I want to

know you want to I want to know what's happening in your life. And

I can't know all of you, but you all can help by knowing each

other. I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads and because here's the challenge.

What I've left you with is how how do we do this? That

It can be as simple as sitting by somebody or inviting someone to sit by

you. This is why we say turn and introduce yourself to someone, because

at least you can get a conversation started. It could be a little more

brave, a conversation after a service. It could be inviting someone to coffee

and just saying I'd love to hear your story and get to know you better.

It could be inviting a couple over for dinner and anything else you can

think of. But it has to start with a willingness. So if you're

in this place, first of all, I'm just going to ask, if

you're in this place and you're lonely, nobody's looking around, can you can

you just raise your hand at me? If you're lonely, you'd say,

I'm I'm lonely. Okay, thank you for your honesty. If you're in

this place and you say, I will take your dare die and I will,

I will be an inviter. That could be. It could just be

a conversation. It could be sitting by someone, It could be more.

It could be joining a group so you can get to know people. Whatever

it is you're willing, would you just raise your hand. We keep your

hands raised with me, because I want to just pray a blessing over you

God. First of all, I want to pray for those who admitted that

they're lonely, and I would assume there are more than we're willing to admit

it. May we not be people who are satisfied just doing life near each

other. May we be people who truly want to do life with each other.

And it's going to take some effort. And I just want to pray

against right now the little bit of self pity that maybe has taken root in

some where they think but nobody invites me, but nobody sees me. Instead.

God, I pray for a little bit of courage and a lot of

determination to be the one that steps out and looks towards someone else. God,

would you give us eyes and easy open doors, easy opportunities, not

manufactured. We don't have to force something, but just an easy way.

And I know because after last service, I had multiple people crying on my

shoulder about how much they needed the challenge. So I extend this challenge here

and God, I pray you would root it in our hearts, even those

online, that we would be determined to be people who include others, that

we would include them in our time and in our lives, and we would

find our people. God, I pray your blessing on that, and I

thank you for it in your name, Amen,