1st service video

Untitled from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Venture's 1st preview service

The Venture Community gathered on Sunday for her first worship experience. We had spent a good chunk of Saturday transforming our middle school into a place of worship for the first time, but we had a strong team that worked hard to get it done. Sunday morning seemed to be the culmination of a lot of work, because most of the work that I’ve (and others) put in to this church plant over the last year sixteen months hasn’t produced a great deal of tangible or visible results. All of these preparations started to pay off when new people not just showed up but wanted to get involved. We didn’t do any advertising or marketing other than word of mouth, so we were exciting to see a solid turnout. While this might have seemed like the culmination in some ways, we know this is really just the beginning. Our goal has never been just to get people to show up for a gathering. Our goal is to help people be formed into the image of Jesus. Just showing up on a Sunday morning doesn’t do this, but it can be a good place to start. I am pleased with our auspicious start, and anxiously await to see what’s next.

God is...

Here's the sermon series for our preview service.

God is... from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Venture's Story

Venture's Story from venturecommunity on Vimeo.

Our first service is coming up this Sunday. Please keep us in your prayers.

Luckiest Man....

From Lou Gehrig's July 4th 1939 speech- less than two years before his death.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans...When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

imperfect information

Last Wednesday on my trip out to Midland to preach at GCR (one of Venture’s two main supporting churches) I read Andy Stanley’s Next Generation Leaders. The one thought that has stuck with me from the book is a quote from the WWII submarine movie U-571.

(on being a captain) “Now that’s the job. It’s not a science. You have to be able to make hard decisions based on imperfect information, asking men to carry out orders that may result in their deaths. And if you’re wrong, you suffer the consequences. If you are not prepared to make those decision, without pause, without reflection, then you got no business being a submarine captain.”

A leader makes hard decisions based off of imperfect information. Stanley says that a leader is never going to be more than 80% certain of his/her decision, and if you wait for more certainty you will most likely miss an opportunity. At Venture we have issues of which we are certain- we follow Jesus, God’s grace is enough, love, forgiveness…. But issues of style, preferences and forms aren’t always reaching 80%, In these times I am learning as a leader to trust in God and secondly to focus on clarity instead of certainty.

Venture Small Group

We started weekly small groups last week and had our second meeting last night. We had a great group thats starting to act like a church. It's truly exciting to be apart of this church plant.

On the second picture you can see at the table three of the Avery's, including my Avery in the yellow, who are apart of Venture. I guess great parents think alike when naming their kids.