valley church
launched:
jan 8, 2023
location:
duncan, bc
JESUS FOCUSED: Everything we do is through relationship with Jesus Christ.
PRAYER FIRST: We will pray first as we gather, also be quick to pray with and for others.
EMERGING LEADERS: We will build the stage for emerging leaders to stand on.’
SHARING STORIES OF LIFE TRANSFORMATION: We will regularly share stories of how Jesus is working in our lives and give Him the credit for the transformation.
FEARLESS FAITH: We will not waver to step out in faith as the Lord leads us.
BIBLE CENTRED: We will be a people who learn how to follow Jesus through the teachings of the Bible.
HOSPITABLE FELLOWSHIP: We will regularly open our arms and doors to every person.
GENEROUSLY GIVING: We will give our time, our resources, and our efforts to make Christ known in our community.
SERVANT HEARTS: We will act justly, love mercy and walk humbly (Micah 6:8)
SPIRIT LED: We wait upon the Spirit of God to lead us, not going ahead of where God is taking us.
MAKING DISCIPLES: We focus on making disciples who make disciples.
COMMUNITY ORIENTED: We are a people of the Cowichan Valley and will seek to make it a better place by serving people in the community and sharing our faith in Jesus.
To be a visible presence of Jesus in the Cowichan Valley.
mission:
values & promises:
WHO IS VALLEY CHURCH?
We are a new church with a mission to be a visible presence of Jesus in the Cowichan Valley. One of our key focus is to reach families for Jesus.
We are known as being a ‘warm’ church where people feel like they belong, even with the church being so new. Most of the people who have started attending have either moved recently to the area or are returning to church since stopping before the pandemic (some people are returning after 9 years of being away from church). 50% of our regular attenders are under the age of 25.
WHY “VALLEY CHURCH”?
When we heard from people in the Cowichan area that there needed to be a new church there that would contend for the valley, the word ”valley” was repeated many times. This got us thinking that maybe the name “Valley” would be a good idea.
From there, an analogy started to surface. The analogy that came to mind was how often we as people are always looking for a mountaintop experience in our faith journey. Though the mountaintop experience is desirable, it is in the valley where we wrestle through the hard stuff. It’s in the valley where the land is fertile and full of growth, and it is in the valley of life where we find ourselves most often. It is in the valley when often we have lost hope and can’t see what’s outside of ourselves… but Jesus meets us there! Jesus meets us and brings us hope and promises to never leave us. It became pretty clear that we want to be a people that exemplify this metaphor.
about duncan:
The city of Duncan is situated in the beautiful Cowichan Valley on the south-eastern part of Vancouver Island, halfway between Victoria and Nanimo.
Duncan/North Cowichan has a population of 48,000 people, with an estimate of less than 2,000 people having faith in Jesus.
Duncan is a growing community on the shoulders of two of the fastest growing cities in Canada (Langford and Nanaimo) with the Duncan/North Cowichan area projected to reach 62,000 people in the coming years.
The Cowichan Tribes (First Nations People) are the largest visible minority (5,000) and are the largest First Nations group in Western Canada. Duncan is called the city of Totems, with First Nations art and culture seen all through the city.
how to pray
Duncan/North Cowichan is a very unchristian city, with new age beliefs, superstition, astrology, First Nations spirituality, and liberal lifestyles. Please be praying for the unbelievers in our gatherings who are exploring a life with Jesus and having to give up these things to follow Him.
Please pray for more volunteers in our church to think like missionaries, specifically that Jesus would call people to help in our children’s ministry on Sundays and teach kids how to know Jesus personally.
Please pray as we enter discussions with First Nations people. We will be volunteering in the community for the Reconciliation Walk on September 30th, which saw 10,000 people in attendance last year.
meet the linde family
Wes & Christy, Jayson, Emily, Benjamin, Elijah
The Lindes were living in Langley where Wes served as an Associate Pastor at SouthRidge Fellowship for 10 years prior to church planting with his wife Christy.
Christy is the catalyst to its beginning, when the Spirit woke her in the middle of the night to tell her that they needed to church plant in Duncan, which is where both Christy and Wes graduated from high school. Through a lot of prayer and wondering if this truly was God moving them, over and over again there was confirmation that Christ wanted a new church in Duncan and their family was called to start one.
The biggest challenge for them personally was the big move with older kids. Their kids were rooted with friends, church, schools, and a great youth ministry at SouthRidge. The biggest ministry challenge has been not expecting things to be slow or small, as the solidifying of this church happened so quickly.
What keeps them going is that it is clear that Jesus is building His church and they are seeing story after story of people transformed by Jesus. Some of these stories include 5 people already scheduled to be baptized in June, as well as many unbelievers in their midst and accepting the gift of free Bibles!