Venture Unfiltered Episode #6: Rest

Hey, everyone, welcome to Venture Unfiltered Lent. Name is Tony with me

as pastor Brandon. Well doing doing well? How are you? Why are

you wearing a Tom Brady? You look like a bald Palestinian version of Tom

Brady. He is a great looking guy and he's a great golfer. Thank

you so much. Hey did you ever watch that movie Eightier for Brady with

all the old women in it? First off, I'm embarrassed to say yes

to that. I fell asleep and I walked out about what the last twenty

minutes left. It was so terrible. I only think someone like my mom

would enjoy that movie. But my mom probably doesn't even know what football is.

Last week really good podcast where we chatted about women in ministry, But

our intro got a lot of feedback on your favorite movie picks. Those weren't

my favorite. They're just movies that I like that the random person would be

surprised about. I think they're your favorites. But anyways, that is concerning.

So that was movies. People want to know what are you watching?

What are some of the shows that you watch that most people might be like,

huh, kind of head scratchers, like as in TV. Yeah,

TV, Um hmm, I didn't know you're gonna ask me that. I

had a different answer to different questions. The shows. Um, I love

Seinfeld Seinfeld believe it or not, dian I. Every night, once we

lay down to go to sleep, my wife puts on the Seinfeld and we

fall asleep every night to Seinfeld Seinfeld. Love that. And I have a

supernatural ability to do a Simpson's illustration for every single thing that happens in the

world. So I love Simpsons. I haven't watched the last few seasons,

but my favorite TV show probably ever is Survivor. Uh huh, no,

that's still going somehow, It's survived. I'm kind of partial to like if

you're looking for something to do during the summer at night, it's on three

times a week. Big Brothers kind of. But my absolute favorite TV shows

Unsellable Homes. I wish people could have just seen your face saying that unsellable

Holmes Houses. I had just some random facts that I was going to share.

Oh yeah, let's do that a couple of seconds. Random shows.

Let's hear random facts about you. Here's some random facts about me again.

Got saved In high school. I was a little headbanger. I loved eighties

heavy metal. I've said for years that music peaked with eighties heavy metal.

By the way, I believe that today, like it is, the new

version of country music is pretty good, But eighties heavy metal is where music

peaked. But in the middle of being a little headbanger, I loved the

band Duran Durand did any of your friends know about this? Have you ever

heard of Duran Duran? Yeah, Duran Duran was recently doing a reunion concert

in Seattle. It was a Wednesday night. I was all pumped to go,

but I could not, for the life of me, find one other

person that wanted to go. In fact, as I started asking people and

inviting people, they were shocked. Number one, the only person that I

found that likes Duran Duran was Heather Taylor. So, out of all the

things Heather and I don't have in common, we both like Duran Duran,

Duran Duran. Another random fact about me is I love when I'm bored in

it's wintertime and the weather is oppressive in Seattle, I love putting together legos.

If you're listening right now, next time you see Pastor Brandon, ask

him about his lego collection above his office. Do you remember when your former

admin had to shrink wrap all your legos and when we were moving offices.

Yeah, she soon quit afterwards too. I do like that. If you're

ever thinking, what do I get Pastor Brandon? It's October, it's Pastor's

Appreciation month. I want the Titanic lego set. Oh too soon, man,

too soon. The Titanic lego set would be huge. We got to

talk about that at some point too. Another cup. Another random fact is

I love going to movies alone. Yeah you remember? Do you remember Movie

Pass? Oh? Yeah? Movie pass not awesome. It was really cool

for about the three months. Yeah, it worked. Did you see that?

They are that somebody bought the company was trying to resurrect it, and

it's basically a worse version of AMC stubs. I'm like, is that what

you have now? Oh yeah, it's a lot of people. Three movies

a week cost thirty bucks a month. That's really affordable. Yeah yeah movie

ticket now, I was like, what like seventeen bucks? Movie passes is

terrible. Another random fact I have already this year. Yeah, I've read

thirty four books this year. What are we six months into the year thirty

or book? Do you count audio books as reading too? Those count?

Okay, good good, I'm just all right. Well it's because I'm trying

to walk a certain number of miles every single day. Oh yeah, and

so I grabbed my dog, walk my dog, put on my headphones and

listened to a book. You turned through those things? Do you ever read?

Do you ever read fiction books? I never read fiction books. My

daughter in a bunch of the twenty something women in our church have a book

club. In fact, I think your wife is Yeah, she's in it.

So my daughter one day was talking about this fiction book they were reading,

and I was actually intrigued. It was dinner time, tell me about

it, and so I actually bought it and was looked. So all the

books they've read in their book club, I'm embarrassed to it what I have

also read the vast majority of them. You've watched The devilwors Prada. I

know the intern. I am so concerned about you. This is why,

this is why Rachel has always been like a daddy's girl, because her and

I like the exact same things. We like the same TV shows, same

movie is apparently the same books. Now, my favorite books are historical fiction,

which like books that deal with companies like I love the Steve Jobs book

is amazing, Shoe Night, Oh, Shoe Dogs, credible books. What

the movie Air was based on it. It's really great leadership. So I

read the book on Netflix. Um, I think it's it's called something like

this will Never Work, and it's a story in the leadership journey of Netflix.

In fact, I love that book so much that at our last staff

training where we broke up into the different groups and people had to creative come

up with an executable idea, that entire idea for that staff training came from

that book. I've read the Amazon one this year. It was excellent and

different things like that. Man, that's awesome. Yeah, that was a

good day. A lot of great ideas came out of that meeting that we've

implemented today. Yeah, this fall will be a big We're launching our entire

Wednesday night programming this fall. So if you're from Venture and you're listening,

this fall is going to be epic. We're gonna have things for your kids

every Wednesday night. There will be classes for adults. We're excited. We're

going to roll it out. The advertising starting in August. But it all

was birthed out of a need that we saw in our church and a creative

idea that came out of that staff planning, And it started from an idea

that they did at the beginning of Netflix. I still think it's funny that

Blockbuster used to crap on Netflix all the time and then Netflix said all right,

we'll see how that goes, and they won. I know, yeah,

I'm gonna just curious if you know this. Do you know who owned

Blockbuster? Wayne Heyzinga, who is to be the owner of the Miami Dolphins.

Oh? He started a Blockbuster, blew up, owned a bunch of

them, franchise them, made lots of money, and bought the Miami Dolphins.

If you're listening, do you remember peb Do you remember going to Blockbuster

on a Friday night? You walk in, you could smell it, Grab

a VHS, grab some candy, grab a video game. Did you ever

do that? Oh? My, we're totally dating ourselves. Everybody that's filming

this podcast doesn't even know what it means. I have AHS tape. They're

like upset about download speed. My VR headset won't turn on. Um,

Well it is July. A lot of people are traveling, a lot of

people are on vacation. I am about to head out on sabbatical. Yes,

I can't believe it. Not just you, Pastor Scott at our police

campus, Morgan and Nicole, like a third of the staff is taken off

for a month in thirty days, unplugged, not working nothing. Let's talk

about that for a sec A lot of people have been asking me why are

you going sabbatical? How did you get a sabbatical? Does everyone get a

sabbatical? Which is a great question. Sabbaticals are not just church our church

related doctors, lawyers, teachers, they all get sabbaticals. Can you unpack

why we do them? Here at Venture and yeah, who gets them and

whatnot? Yeah? There. I read something recently online that I think breaks

down the reasons that sabbaticals are important. But basically a sabbatical adventure is given

every seven years someone's on staff. So Dian I get a three month sabbatical

every seven years, and this was voted on by the board years and years

ago. And my associates, daff gets a month sabbatical every seven years.

In fact, next year, Die and I will take our three months sabbatical.

But here's the why. Like people here that ministers are gone, or

you see somebody post on Facebook. It seems like ministers are always gone on

a sabbatical. And I always hear from people I don't get to do things

like this. Why do you guys get to do this? Yeah, I

have to work. Why why don't you? And I want you to understand

our jobs. So if you're listening, understand the demands on a pastor are

uniquely different than just about any other profession. I don't want to diminish how

hard everyone else works, the pressures that they have. But there was this

article that came out that explains why churches should give their pastor sabbatical on It

sums it up this way. It said, number one, a pastor has

highs and lows more than any other vacation or any other vocation in one day.

So we can be at work and in one day we find out someone

has died. We have somebody that's coming in a meeting with us that's mad

about something that happened. We have couples come in they're getting divorced. You

find somebody had a miscarriage. There's multiple highs and lows, and you have

all the good things that happened and all of that. It is a massive

impact. Another thought that they had is number two, a pastor, we're

on call twenty four hours a day. I always tell our staff that people

don't have a crisis between nine to five Monday through Friday. Never'll have a

crisis at about three am on a Friday night when all we want to do

asleep, or they have a crisis during the day on Saturday, when all

we want to do is be at our kids' soccer game. And we're on

call twenty four hours a day. And again, what we do, it's

a calling. We feel anointed and gifted by Jesus to do this, and

so we embrace the calling. But with that we our schedules are out of

our control because we don't know what is going to happen. The third reason

this article gives is pastors need time of uninterrupted opportunity to study and pray,

and the benefit of a sabbatical is you're not going to hear from us for

a month. Morgan and Nicole. I will probably reach out to Nicole because

the church can't function without her, but we'll leave Morgan alone I won't don't

even know what Scott is going to do, probably camping, but this will

be your opportunity to just disconnect and kind of reconnect with your kids and reconnect

with your wife and hobbies, and you just get arrest and seek Jesus and

not have to worry about what is going on at the church and things like

that. Number four sabbaticals have proven to lead to longer ten years for pastors

at churches. Pastors stay longer because the church understands the importance for them to

have rest, relaxation. I was just reading online today that the average senior

pastor lead pastor is staying at a church for five years. So that's the

average tenure of a lead pastor. So I've been leading Venture for eighteen years,

so I'll round down and say fifteen years. This if I was following

the national average, this would be my third church. And one of the

reasons why with joy Die and I have continued to lead Venture is the church

understands our self help and I you know what I love PB is like it's

just a non You know a lot of people go, wow, Pastor Brandon's

traveling today, or why do your pastors going sabbatical. Why are staff members

going sabbatical? It's kind of You guys have created a culture where it's just

allowed and it's not an issue to people who attend venture. It's never No

one complains when you guys are gone. Sometimes just be honest. Last last

two Sundays or middle of June, you guys were gone for two weeks.

This place ran great. I was gone on a church related trip. It

was church relate trip. And most of your trips people don't even realize.

Our ministry related trips, things run smooth and our people have just they've kind

of realized. This is when pastors come back from vacation from sabbaticals, from

ministry trips. They're healthier, they're well rested, they've got vision, they're

ready to go. I love that it's become part of our culture here,

that it's just cool. The last reason that this article gave And tell me

if this is not true. The church giving you a sabbatical is the ultimate

affirmation that the church believes in you, loves you, and appreciates a job

well done, and they want to bless you with a sabbatical. And there's

nothing that says Brandon die we love you more than when the church says we

just want you to go, just rest, go have fun. I think

when you talk about ministers travel, and just about every minister travels, we

know this. It's part of our job. We're going to conferences, we're

going to missions trips, and sometimes our travel comes across to people as I

wish I could do that I wish, And a lot of that has to

do with the average person. The average business person probably travels as much as

we do. We just live our lives out loud. And what most people

don't realize, I actually have the same amount of probably vacation time most people

have at Amazon or any other company that go to our church. I don't

have necessarily more vacation time than anyone else. Yeah, but you're right,

we live out loud a little more and there's more opportunity for us. But

I wouldn't say it's much more different than like a someone in sales or so

like you and I went to the church planning conference Houston. Yeah, so

we're we're in conferences, we're in services, and this is typically what we're

doing when we travel. We don't post pictures of being in church services that

those are those are not something that you're posting on your Tony Matar Instagram page.

You know, we're posting a picture of you and I in front of

what a burger, and so it gives this impression that we're we're yeah,

we did do my first ever dog in concert. Uh. You know,

you you give off those impressions, but the vast majority of the travel that

you do is is work related. I had a great teaching to help people

understand you want pastors that are healthy yep. And one of the ways that

as a pastor we end up being healthy is I call it, you got

to get out of Dodge. When we passed our Venture Ventures a large church,

really influential church in our region. And if you're on staff, people

have seen us on live streams, they've seen us preach and were relatively recognizable

places And the only way that you can really relax is you have to get

away. And I learned this when I did a sabbatical a few years ago

that it was probably two weeks of being on that sabbatical before I was finally

able to disconnect from work. And you never completely, especially when you're in

my role, you never totally disconnect. I remember I was dying. I

went on this month long road trip and that last sabbatical we didn't. We

drove around the country and while I was driving, I am securing the financing

for the church's building that we build. I remember that. I remember thinking,

I just can't get away from this place. I got to do it.

In fact, I think I was pulling into a hotel in Maine when

I realized that I'm not going to have an option. I'm gonna have to

call all these loan companies while I'm driving. It's just it's just part of

it. But here's what I was gonna say. I heard of teaching about

how does a pastor stay emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy? And this the

teaching was an encouragement that we needed a diversion. Yeah, and there needed

to be a diversion yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily.

Okay, can you repeat that again because that was really good. Yearly,

so you need to have a like think of a yearly diversion, Like what

keeps you going is you know, in this month at this time, I'm

taking my kids, were going to Disneyland. So you've got this diversion once

a year then you have a diversion quarterly, so you know that hey,

this quarter, I'm gonna go take a quick quick trip or going to Vegas

and you get to get away for a few days. But you get a

diversion quarterly. You need a diversion monthly. Something that you do. Maybe

you go on a weekend get away or just a two night camping trip.

I don't camp, but maybe you do fuck or you need it. And

then you need a diversion weekly. So you like to golf, so you

probably look forward to that. Well for you, it's like five times a

week, but a normal human being would golf by some once a week.

But you look forward to that once a week that you get to go away

and kind of have a diversion and golf. And then you also need a

diversion daily. You need to have something that you do. And could that

be like you go home and hey you just watch a show for a half

hour, or do a puzzle, play a game, do something like that.

I just always say that, Like, my favorite diversion is I've lifted

weight since I was based basically twelve, and I love lifting weights. That's

my diversion. I look forward to it hours before I live weights. I

know what makes me really weird. But I'm able to just relieve all my

stress, spend I pray, spend time with Jesus. But you need a

healthy diversion. But I am a firm believer for a minister that we sin

when we don't honor the Sabbath. You have to have your day off.

You should shame on you if you do not utilize all your vacation. You

should and you should get away. You should do something fun. You should

get away from where you minister and do something great. Why don't you fill

us in? What are you doing? Ohnet? Get a month off?

We're doing so much just kidding you know what we are? People keep asking

me, are you just gonna golf every day? No, I'm not.

First things first, I'm off all really all electronics, so I blocked all

social media. There's no work emails, there's no slack. If people want

to get a hold of you, they need to send you a letter in

the mind of carrier pigeon and figure out where I live. Yep, No,

I keep telling people. If you want to call me to grab lunch,

call me. If you want to call me to talk ministry, call

me in August. My wife and I are really doing a few things.

We are. First off, I'm going to just spend a few days resting,

just turning off our brains. My wife, she's so aerial, owns

her own company. She will be working all of July, which is kind

of unique. I'm not working, so we will be resting a lot of

prayer, lots of prayer, lots of me just going to read my Bible

for a couple hours at a coffee shop, a lot of study. I'm

going to be reading a lot of books. I'm not reading anything self help

or leadership. I'm gonna be reading more books about my spirit, prayer,

spiritual disciplines. I'm going to be doing that. I can recommend some young

adult fictional novels. No one wants to read Twilight again, pebe, So

there's that. What else am I doing. We're going on a couple vacations,

which is awesome. Um. We are going to be praying through I

mean, just be unfiltered. We're praying through what's the next chapter of our

ministry. It's the next chapter for our family, which we kind of talked

about on episode one, which will be really exciting. I'm golfing. You're

also gonna be joining me at a speaking engagement that I'm doing. Yeah,

I'm gonna be joining you there. I'm gonna see you one time. We'll

hang out and um, I don't know. I'm just gonna take it day

by day. I'm not sending these epic expectations. I'm just turning off the

world and just letting Jesus. I don't want to sound weird. I just

want to fall in love with Jesus more during my sabbatical. We just all

want you to go away, get rested, and come back and be ready

to work like a dog. I can't wait August. I'm gonna pound the

pavement. Is there a button for that? Probably? Not darting? Oh

no, the other one, number one, it's not there. We go

we apologizing that we're gonna have this nailed. Doubt. I totally blamed.

It's these issues are David Diaz. This is David Diaz. Now he's gonna

call you and I are you guys serious? I'm so sorry his department?

Can we meet? Can we schedule a meeting for it? Yeah? No,

And honestly, PBO, I just want to thank you, and I

know a handful of our elders listen. But honestly, it's really thank you

for trusting trusting me, allowing me to go do this, saying hey,

thank you for all your hard work giving me the rest. I just honestly

too, I can't wait to hang all my kids for a month. I

love my kids. I'm excited to just tea parties, chicky cheese, all

that good stuff. One of the things that I appreciate about our board is

it is really a joy for our board that you guys embrace your sabbatical.

Yeah, that you do it like it is a blessing to them, that

you are receiving this blessing and that you are willing to do it. I

had a conversation on that Europe trip that I was with with Convoy of Hope,

and it was a pastor. He'd been at his same church for thirty

years, established church a couple thousand people, and he didn't know dian I

really well, and he just kind of asked about our journey, and you

know, we talked about how we started the church, and then we talked

about moving eight you know, moving the building eight times, and then we

talked about the big building campaign and building the building and then navigating through COVID.

And obviously we're the staff of venture, and we know that our church

is in the greatest position that it's ever been in in the history of the

church. It's larger, more momentum, best team we've ever had. I

mean, life's good around here. But here's what he kept saying. He

said, I just have never heard this story before. I'm like, church

planning story. What are you talking about? And he said, usually those

guys quit chandical. I can't believe you stayed. Yeah, so you now

only navigated through the church plant stage, then you went through the building stage.

He said, I just have never heard this story. He actually encouraged

me, like crazy to consider writing a book. You've heard me say,

I don't want to write a book because nobody wants to read a book that

I write anyways, So I'm not going to write a book. But he

kept talking about how rare it was, and then he said, tell me

the why why have you not transition? Have you not been another statistic?

Most pastors transition right after building a building. Well, they transition in those

key like I would call them physically exhausting times, like go through something and

it's so tiring. You expend so much energy, you just have nothing left.

You're running in leading on empty and most of the guys or gals transition

then. And every single time we've been through a season like that, the

reason that I have joyfully continued to lead venture is because my board appreciates and

understands. Go get some recipals, Go relax, Go spend some time at

your place in Las Vegas, go on vacation, go to Hawaii, go

spend some time with your wife, take some time off. And they tell

me this over and over and over again, and don't make me just like

you, won't feel guilty for embracing these opportunities. Yeah, that's so why

advice for you is don't feel guilty at all. But if I do happen

to call ye answer, I will You did agree to drive me back to

the airport airport because so I appreciate it, And I think your teaching that

you said that is applicable to anyone and everyone listening to this podcast to retreat

yearly, quarterly, was it monthly? And daily? Weekly, dailyekly and

daily? Anyone can do that. How about last question? We spitballing here?

I hear a lot of people who come to me and say, past

join, I'm burnt out, burnt out, tired, I'm tired. And

I one time heard this teaching on that burnout is no one's fault but yours.

Yeah. I think oftentimes we burn out because we don't honor the Sabbath,

and people consider it a badge of honor when they say things like I

haven't had a day off in a month. That's sin. Yeah, yeah,

we are. One of the ten commandments is to honor the Sabbath and

keep it holy. We don't honor the Sabbath because it's a method of worship

for Jesus that we do that. We honor the Sabbath because God knows we

will wear down, burnout, break down, and flame out. So that's

why we honor the Sabbath. And then I think the other the other thing

people need to do. If you're feeling worn out, sometimes the most spiritual

thing you can do is just go take a nap. It's amazing what happens

if you get a good night's sleep. You wake up with a whole new

perspective in life. Like I have my son over here at recording and he'll

be on moments Whereason utter meltdown and I'll say it, dude, go to

sleep tonight, get a good night's sleep, and it just seems like you

wake up and it's a new day, and sleep changes everything. It really

did. We as people, we are not created to work seven days a

week, twenty four hours a day. We need sleep, we need rest,

and we need a good diversion. Everyone listening to this, you can

do that. Whether you're working a part time job, you're a full time

student, you're you own your own business. I love that line. It

is sin to not honor the Sabbath. It really is. Man, this

was fun. I'm gonna miss you in July. I know I'll see you,

but I'm gonna miss you. I'm gonna miss the podcast. I'm gonna

miss the staff. Hey, I want to mention that even though Tony is

gone, this podcast moves forward. Oh tell me about that. So I

heard we have a handful of special guests coming on. Oh, I'm super

excited. It's gonna be great. Wait. One of the questions that I

get asked by people all the time, and I forget that the vast majority

of the people, probably eighty percent of our church is new over the last

five years, and I get asked, why is your social media handle fight

Pastor? And then I end up giving him the reader's digest version of the

story. My original partner with Fight Pastor, the great legendary former custodian a

venture Church, Travis Kirwin. Is it gonna be here? Travis and I

next week are gonna talk Fight Pastor and tell everybody those crazy stories and how

this living missional idea of mine turned into something that was larger than life.

Then the next next week it's going to be really fun. My kids are

gonna be and they are going to talk about life as a p K and

Dad is going to interview them and ask him what it was like growing up

good, not just as a pastor's kid, but as a church planner's kid.

Juda off the hook from the interview because he has to do all the

recording, but maybe he'll have the timely buttons set up in time so that

can be Judah's response. And then at the very end of the month,

that'll be an awesome podcast we're looking forward to. That will be me,

Pastor Claire and a special Guestsomer Young Adult Ministry and they are gonna reflect on

all the messages they're going to hear in July, because July we're basically it's

called wanderlust can't wait, And to sum it up, it's basically, how

do you determine what God's will is for your life? How do you navigate

through all of the options to figure out not just what is good, but

what is best for me? And Claire and our special guest are gonna ask

me questions about the message series totally applicable to a group of people in their

twenties. I think you guys are gonna love it. But we'll be back

next week. This week folks with Kermit Kermit? Why did you go by?

Kermit? You have to wait and listen. Oh hey, guys,

great great episode. Thank you so much for liking, subscribing, downloading,

sharing. We really appreciate you helping spread the word of our podcast. Can

I add something? Please? Please give us a five star review on Apple

and Spotify. If you don't want to give us a five star review,

just don't leave one and meet with Tony and complain to him. Yeah,

please don't. Um. Hey, thank you for allowing me to go on

sabbatical. You know I'm really thankful to the church. Will be asking everyone

to pray for us. For us the Butcher's pastor, Scott. Now,

we just come back August, ready to hit the ground running, and I'm

excited. Do you think the church she is going to survive without Nicole for

a month? Do you want my honest answer, since we're unfiltered. Yes,

no, I don't think bathing. I'm fully planning on calling her at

least twice a week, so she'll need to get another sabbatical. Okay,

Hey, we love you guys. We'll see you next week with Kermit.

Unbelievable. All right, see your past, Brandon, see in a month's

good. What do you think