Every church is different. Each church not only has some type of belief system but certain emphases within that system. Also, in terms of practice, the values and personality of each church can be seen in their decisions.
Likewise, our church has priorities that affect what we do. Since some of our emphases may not be quickly seen, it is helpful to describe them for those who are considering attending our church and for those who wonder why we do certain things.
We do not list these to say that we are the model church. Most of these things are simply our preferred way of doing things. Our church has not always functioned in these ways and these distinctives did not come about because we set a goal. Instead, they are the fruit, over many years, of our values as we sought to apply the Word of God to our lives and ministry.
Also, this is not a list of the most important things about our church. Like many churches, we are committed to God's Word and its application, to prayer, evangelism, etc. which are the most vital elements our church and are also common among most true evangelical churches. Yet our distinctives are things that we believe has served our fellowship well in living out our commitment to God's Word.
Here is a categorized list of things that make our church what it is.
Our elders work together to oversee the church. While each elder is involved personally in certain ministries, they as a group are responsible to guide the entire church. In this they work together in unanimity. The church does not move forward over the objection of one of our elders. This brings great unity to our elders and the cooperative spirit has been a blessing to our church.
Not only is no one elder above other elders, no elder individually carries the authority for the church. It is only as the elders as a group lead the church that the authority rests for the church leadership. This protects the church from the domination of one person in leadership.
There are no terms of service for our elders or our deacons. Each one is appointed to serve for as long as they remain willing and qualified. We believe this helps the stability of our church and its leadership. Experienced leaders, working as a team, bring much needed depth to a local church. The average church leader has been a part of our church for over fifteen years.
Our deacons do not function in simple capacities. They each oversee at least one official ministry area of our church and, importantly, are given a large degree of freedom to lead the ministry in the way that they see best. The reason for this is they have been tested for many years and found to be full of wisdom and yielded to the Holy Spirit. We have great confidence in our deacons and their leadership ability.
Also, our deacons serve in an advisory capacity to the elders. The elders seek the counsel and support of the deacons in church issues. Our monthly leadership meetings are specifically designed to gain this assistance from our deacons and bring about a united church leadership.
Dale Whitehead has served Valley Bible Church since 1973. Gerry Andersen came to our church in 1981 and has served in a full-time pastoral capacity since 1990. David Johnston has overseen our youth ministry in a full-time capacity since 1990. Even as we add church staff, we have added people with many years of leadership involvement with our church. One thing about Valley Bible Church is there are few surprises. Staff turnover is not a part of our church, which brings additional depth, experience and consistency to our ministries.
The longevity of the church staff is not accidental. It comes from an attitude of commitment to the local church. None are viewing Valley Bible Church as a stepping stone toward a better ministry opportunity but are content to be a part of God's work through Valley Bible. Perhaps John 10:12-13 captures this approach, for our staff do not see themselves as hired hands carrying out the work for a paycheck.
Our conviction is that hiring people from outside our church limits the opportunity to develop leaders from within our church. God has blessed our church with quality people who when given the opportunity have developed into deeply committed ministers of God's work at Valley Bible.
Also, by hiring staff from outside our church we can elevate the pastoral staff to an unfortunate professional class status. We feel pastors best serve the church as one of the people, not above the people. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5) should cause us to not want to further a professional clergy class. At Valley we seek to free people from outside employment in order to help them do even more of the ministry they have begun to do.
Finally, there is a significant risk the church incurs when hiring people from outside the church. The church is dependent upon the words of others who may be motivated to resist sharing certain important negative comments. Also, what we value in ministry may not be what others value and thus we would make a different evaluation.
In the early 1980's our church became concerned with applying 2 Corinthians 9:7 and to seek for those who give to our church to do so cheerfully and not under compulsion. Since there is no biblical mandate to pass an offering plate, we decided to choose to eliminate the passing of the offering plate so that no one might feel tempted to give just because an offering plate was before them. We have boxes attached to the walls in the rear of the auditorium for the purposes of giving to our church. This method has served us plentifully over the past twenty years.
The reason that all ministries are supported through our general fund is because we do not want our ministries to compete against each other for funding. Also, it fosters unity within the church to have giving to be united and not segmented. We do not believe it is healthy for giving to be only to selected ministries.
We see no biblical precedent for the fee-for-service enterprise underlying much of organized Christianity today. We cannot imagine Peter charging people to hear him speak or Paul expecting to be paid for consulting with church leaders. We do not charge for baptisms, weddings, funerals, music, counseling, sermons, etc. We may pass along costs that we incur (for example, housing and food for a youth camp), but do not charge for our ministry. Indeed, charging money for ministry has certain negative effects on the quality of the ministry. For example, paying for counseling gives the impression that the counselor, like a mechanic, will solve the problems of the one in need. Paying for music equates it with the entertainment industry. We should not be like many, peddling the Word of God (2 Corinthians 2:17).
This attitude is not only reflected in our web site but has caused our web site to expand as a means of distributing good resources freely to the Christian community.
Our church budget is set according to the projected costs of ministry we have committed ourselves to. However, our budget functions under spending limits which govern the distribution of funds. Our budget is funded according to church income to the general fund over the previous four quarters. This protects us from spending more money than we are given and this also provides a spending plan for the general fund giving.
In addition to only spending what we are given, we have no debt. Our buildings and property are free of liabilities and this provides us with greater flexibility in using the money God has entrusted to our church for ministry purposes.
Furthermore, the salaries are limited. The pastoral staff salaries are based upon the average salary of a local teacher, with the equivalent experience and education. All pastoral staff function off the same pay system and none will be paid more than a teacher's salary. In fact, due to spending limits our staff have never been paid the full amount due them according to the pay scale, but none are discontent with the system. They believe this is a better system than having to choose between allocating money to salaries versus other ministry needs.
We do not have a two-tier group attending our church. We consider all who attend our church to be members. There are no tests to take or forms to sign. The reason for this is that our elders feel a responsibility for all who involve themselves with Valley Bible. Since our church is elder ruled, the congregation does not vote and therefore the stability of the church is not threatened by this approach.
We believe that God has given us His Word, the Bible, to produce spiritual maturity in the lives of Christians through the power of the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible describes itself as true (John 17:17) and sufficient for this work (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:3), we believe it is sufficient to solve the spiritual problems of man. Here is more information about our view of counseling.
As people accept the good news of Jesus Christ and follow Him through His Word, they will find the power to overcome any sin issue that has weighed upon them. Therefore, we see no need to look to other sources for finding victory over the non-physical problems of mankind.
We believe that much of the church has sought to bring about change in our society through political means that will never deliver on its hopes. Our society will change as the people within the society change. The people in the society will change as their hearts and minds are changed, rather than laws become imposed onto them. While political muscle may alter laws within the society, unless people embrace the laws the advancement will be short-lived. Prohibition is one example of a failed attempt to impose a level of morality that was not accepted by the society at large. Currently, the political efforts to bring about change in our abortion laws are losing because we have not changed the thinking of the people of the United States.
Far worse, we see this effort by churches to bring political change as eroding the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Too often, Bible believing Christians are seen as tied to a political party and using methods that are not appreciated, hindering our ability to speak God's Word to those who have been turned off by our politics.
More recently, churches have sacrificed the teaching of God's Word in order to unite politically with movements such as Mormonism, Prosperity teachers, the Faith Movement, Catholicism and Judaism. By diminishing the differences in doctrine, Christians have given tacit approval to erroneous belief systems...all for the sake of short-sighted political advancement. While Christians who chose political involvement have not sinned, we believe our church's best strategy for obedience to our Lord's commission in Matthew 28:19-20 is avoidance of the political arena. Here is more information about the church and politics.
We do not dictate or encourage any particular attire be worn to church. The reason for this is the Bible does not encourage any particular attire, other than modesty (1 Timothy 2:9). As a result of this and as a reflection of the surrounding culture of the Antelope Valley, we find most attend church in attire very similar to what we would wear around town. Most in our church do not dress up to attend our services.
One of the odd things about our church, particularly for people not from California, is that we baptize people in spas. When our church auditorium was constructed, it did not have a baptistery. Therefore people have been baptized outside of the church buildings, usually at homes or sometimes on church trips. We do what was done in the Bible, we make use of nearby bodies of water. We have used rivers, lakes and the Pacific Ocean but the most common method has been spas and pools. The reason is that many people have pools or spas, which can be warmed, in their backyard. This has brought an appreciation for special occasions for baptisms where small groups can gather and family and friends can be invited. These great times of fellowship have added meaning to the baptisms that we fear we would lose by putting a baptistery in our new auditorium. For those who think this is odd, just remember how baptism was done in the New Testament. Also, we do not require that a pastor do the baptizing since the Scripture does not make this limitation. Here is more information about baptism.
One distinctive of our church is what does not exist. We seek to strictly adhere to what the Bible specifically calls sin or that which necessarily violates biblical principles. This means there are no written or unwritten rules outside of the Bible that governs appropriate conduct.
Indeed, we consider such additions to the Scripture to lead toward legalism and become destructive to developing mature believers. Like the Pharisees in the New Testament, legalists develop a form of religion that emphasizes the external life. Jesus warned us to beware of this (Matthew 16:11-12).
It is important for the church to be healthy by giving freedom to people where the Scripture gives freedom. How each Christian chooses to live their lives in seeking to apply God's wisdom is important to the process of maturity.
One thing that many find remarkable about our church is that we can field our own softball league. For the last ten years we have around fifteen teams from our church in our league. This is not just that many people like softball but they see it as a ministry outreach and an outflow of our high school ministry and growth groups.
Our Growth Groups are the core of our church ministry. Much of the essential personal ministry occurs in this context and the leaders of these groups are in a position to minister to a broad range of pastoral issues. They will have to teach the word, defend the faith, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak and be patient with all.
Because of our view of Growth Groups, we expect our leaders to be able to handle the basic duties of pastoral ministry, including teaching. Each group decides for themselves what topics they will cover and how the study will be conducted. There is no scripted teaching that our groups move through together. This is only possible when the group leaders have a high degree of spiritual maturity and leadership ability.
It is not a requirement that all elders, staff and deacons are part of our small group ministry, it just is a matter of fact. These thirty people all see the value of our small group ministry and are a big reason why our groups are as successful as they are.
We believe in the local church and thus have come to emphasize a partnership with local churches in our missionary philosophy. This is more possible now than ever before due to mass communication and the reduction in travel time and expenses.
Our approach began in 1990 with Hamadera Bible Church of Osaka, Japan. Over the years, well over 200 people have visited our church from Hamadera and many from our church have visited HBC. Three of our elders and six others of our staff and deacons have been to Hamadera Bible Church. All of their pastoral staff have visited our church and a few of their other church leaders have visited also. Among our current involvement is the support of Daisuke Okada in pastoral ministry and hosting hamaderabible.org on our web server. We believe this is an important opportunity since HBC is a sizeable church with strong biblical conviction seeking to reach the lost in a country where less than .25% of the population are followers of Christ.
More recently we have teamed with Eternal Life Baptist Church in Tijuana, Mexico to serve the people of Mexico. Along with the annual summer trip of over two dozen from our church, we have served Eternal Life in building projects and in ministry training throughout the year.
In addition to our support of Eternal Life Baptist Church in Tijuana, Mexico, we support Francisco Aceves as a full-time Deaf pastor to reach the Deaf of the Antelope Valley. View information on our Deaf Ministry here.
There was a time when Valley Bible Church supported many missionaries at minimal amounts. We came to feel that we had a very loose connection with these missionaries and found a much greater involvement in missions with our congregation has come from a more personal involvement with a few missionary efforts.
Our Japanese Ministry has existed since 1987 and our partnership with Hamadera Bible Church in Osaka, Japan began in 1990. One of our deacons, Randy Thompson along with his wife, Rebecca, served four and one-half years at Hamadera Bible Church. In 2001, another deacon, Daisuke Okada with his wife Marcia, was sent by our church to serve with Hamadera in a pastoral capacity.