Seattle Area Church On Mission to Bring Jesus to One of Country’s Least-Churched Cities

Brandon Beals, who never wanted to plant a church, is now pastoring Venture Church, a multisite church plant that is winning souls in Seattle, Washington, by the hundreds.

Beals states that he was “radically saved” in high school in the wake of a charismatic movement sweeping the area, despite a short lineage of family that regularly attended church. From that time on, Beals knew that he was called into full-time ministry.

After graduating from Bible college at Northwest University, he and his wife, Diana, served as youth pastors in the northwest region for 12 years.

While attending the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in pursuit of an M.Div. degree in the early 2000s, Beals knew one thing: “church planting did not seem like a good career move.”

“I had friends who had planted churches, and they hadn’t gone well,” he says. “Most of them not only left their church plant but also left the Church all together.”

For his thesis, Beals chose to write a “totally theoretical” paper on church planting. As he researched and wrote, he began to feel the Lord challenging him to give his 30s to church planting.

“It took me three months to wrestle with God through this,” Beals says, citing that he had three young children and a wife to provide for. Yet compelled to walk in total obedience to the Lord, Beals and his wife decided to plant a church in what is reported to be the least religious city in the United States.

Mill Creek, Washington, considered part of greater Seattle, presents many challenges to church planters. Not only does less than 25% of the population have any religious affiliation, says Beals, but the city has very few unoccupied buildings. Additionally, the environmental issues and the wetlands make building and zoning particularly difficult. These factors, coupled with the fact that the city is now entirely built out, often leave new church planters with more problems than solutions.

But the Beals persevered and officially launched their church plant in 2004.

Within the first ten years, the church had outgrown eight locations, and leadership knew that they needed to build a permanent church home. Yet with the city so limited by available land at that time, Beals knew they needed a miracle.

In 2016, one of the last empty lots in the city, which was supposed to have 60 homes built on it, miraculously became the land on which the first and only “new church building” was built: Venture Church.

While there are several other churches within the greater Seattle region, all other churches have been annexed into city limits or occupy pre-existing buildings. And, as Beals states, now that the city has reached its building capacity, no new church buildings will be built in the future.

After four years of wrestling with the physical building of their new church home, Beals, his staff, and the 2,500 person congregation of Venture Church opened their permanent doors.

“From the moment it opened, it’s like a Holy Spirit tractor beam set ablaze,” Beals says. “But after being in the space for only a month, COVID-19 hit.”

For six months, Beals and his team worked to create the Venture Church experience online. When they were able to hold full services again a year later, Beals reports that the church had been growing and they hadn’t even been aware.

“We knew there were thousands watching online services every week and when we opened, many of them came. They were so excited to come,” he says.

Venture Church has continued to experience steady growth. Beals believes this is a result of God honoring the hard work and prayers of those who persevered through the hardships of the launch and build and of those who continue to live their lives “on mission.” In fact, the church sees an average of 250 guests each month.

With “explosive” growth, the Venture Church team felt led to launch a second area campus in the heart of Seattle. In the spring of 2023, the campus was launched, and within one year, the church witnessed yet another miracle.

“On the one-year anniversary of the plant, I found out that, in one of the most expensive places in the nation, where it’s impossible to find land or buildings, we had been given a building right inside of Seattle for the campus,” Beals says.

Don Ross, the superintendent of the Northwest Ministry Network, states that Venture Church, also planting in surrounding states, is one of the network’s leading church planting churches. He also states that it is clear to the see the Lord’s favor in their citywide outreach strategies.

This intentional missional strategy, says Beals, is how the church plans to continue seeing souls won for Christ.

“The strategy we train people to use is to live like you’re a missionary. We want people involved in culture and in the community but also to show Jesus,” he states.

Venture’s congregation also stays true to this mission by remaining engaged and evangelistic in their approach to the community. Each year, they host the citywide Trunk or Treat, the area egg hunt, which draws nearly 10,000 people, VBS for the kids, and multiple dinner churches at various locations throughout the county. Additionally, they run the largest recovery program in the area, offer childcare through their in-church preschool, and host MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) for mothers of young children.

Beals states that God has done numerous miracles in the congregation, such as healing a couple of infertility, and bringing practicing Mormons to faith in Jesus Christ through divinely appointed moments and relationships at the church.

“God is really moving in the Seattle area,” reports Beals, “and churches are seeing moves of the Holy Spirit, miracles, radical conversions, and things that the city hasn’t seen or experienced before.”

He says that the prayer of Venture Church is to see so many salvations in the next few years that the city of Seattle is no longer found on the list of “least-churched cities in America.”