Church Plant Spotlight: Valley Church Update
We embrace being BOLDLY FORWARD, NEVER ALONE as Fellowship Pacific, and one of the key ways we live this out is through church planting and we are excited to share more stories from our church plants this year! This month we bring you an update from Valley Church in Duncan, BC!
Here at Valley Church we are reaching families of children and teens through focusing on the Cowichan Valley (and the city of Duncan) being a better place to live. We believe that being a visible presence of Jesus in the Cowichan Valley will radically transform our community. Our church culture is warm and inclusive, with many coming through our doors who are new to the community, new to church, or new back to church.
Prior to our one year anniversary, we lost our meeting location and was provided for by Camp Qwanoes, who allowed us to meet there for the month of January 2024. At our one year anniversary (January 7, 2024), we planned a baptism and potluck at Camp Qwanoes, but also saw someone make a decision to follow Jesus. It was so exciting to see all these elements happen in one day and how Jesus is working in and through us, despite not having a permanent location. On June 9, 2024, we saw the lady who prayed to follow Jesus at our one year anniversary enter the waters of baptism, which was so exciting to see the transformation from her attending regularly as a non-believer, now baptized, and obediently following Jesus.
We are now a year and a half into our church plant, and what we’ve seen over and over is that our plans are not God’s plans. We can be advised to create core teams and to create spreadsheets and timelines, but they are only guesses. Planting all over again, I would tell myself or others to hold these things more loosely and don’t bank on hitting goals and timelines you plan to achieve. It’s more important to stay in prayer and to follow the Spirit’s leading once the course is prayerfully set. When Jesus calls you to plant a church, it’s all on His timeline and in His plan. The church is His first, not ours, which will be not what we can expect and totally mind-blowing. I wouldn’t change a thing about how this church has been built; it’s definitely far better than how we could have planned it on our own.
We have witnessed someone prayed for and healed from cancer, and we always seem to have a place to meet when we need it. We have seen 4 people decide to make Jesus their Lord, one of whom was a teenager from the 2SLGBTQ+ community who is soon to be baptized! With this recent teenager coming to Christ, we are about to have our 17th baptism in 18 months since our launch.
These experiences also keep us going and build momentum in our church community.
We currently face two big challenges, first being that we need a permanent location for our church. This has been draining and frustrating for us as we’ve had to continue to move our main gatherings on Sundays every few months. Second, is that because our kids ministry (Grade 6 and under) typically makes up 1/3 of our average attendance, it is very difficult to find people to teach with comparatively so few capable and qualified adults in the congregation. It helps to have Camp Qwanoes employees (and Kaleo students) but there is a huge hole that happens each summer when they switch to their camp responsibilities.
Would you join us in praying along with Valley Church?
PRAYER #1: Pray for our unhoused population in Duncan that has grown from 223 to 423 in the past 12 months; 17 of them are teens ages 15-18.
PRAYER #2: For a new permanent home for our church. The options for rentals at our church size are very limited. We need a new place to be by September 15th, 2024.
PRAYER #3: For more kids ministry volunteers for Sunday gatherings, due to our growing number of families.
