The Valley Chapel Podcast

Elijah just had the best day of his career — fire fell from heaven, his prayers were answered, his enemies were defeated. Twenty-four hours later, he was hiding in the wilderness, asking God to let him die. Sound familiar? This week in our Tired series, we're looking at what happens after the win doesn't fix what we thought it would — and discovering that God doesn't meet us with a lecture, but wi...

We all know what it feels like to be tired — and most of us feel a little guilty about it, too, like a stronger Christian or a more disciplined person wouldn't be this exhausted. This week we open a new series, Tired, by looking at Jesus asleep in a boat in the middle of a storm (Mark 4:35-41). His disciples panicked and accused him of not caring. But Jesus wasn't negligent — he was fully human, t...

Ever found a group so good you didn't want to share it? We wrap up our Invisible series this week with a hard question: what happens when the group that finally sees us stops needing anyone else? From the playground to the living room, we all know the instinct to take our ball and go play somewhere more comfortable — but Scripture paints a different picture of what a healthy body actually looks li...

Ever caught yourself softening what you actually believe just to keep the peace — or bracing for a fight the moment someone disagrees with you? This Sunday, we're looking at what happens when our real, differing convictions come out into the open, and why staying in the room together matters more than winning the argument. Join us live at 10:00 AM as we continue our Invisible series, walking throu...

We were never meant to grow in faith alone. This week in our Invisible series, we look at Hebrews 10:19–25 and the practice John Wesley called "social holiness" — the conviction that Christian faith takes shape in honest, ongoing relationship, not in private isolation. Through the image of a quilt stitched from small fabric scraps, we'll see how God forms us not by perfecting us one at a time, but...

You've been coming to church for years. You know where to sit, you know people by name, and you show up almost every Sunday. But if the person next to you had to describe your actual life — your doubts, your struggles, what's really going on underneath — could they? This week, we're kicking off Invisible, a new series about the difference between showing up and actually being known. In week one, w...

Most of us think of holiness as something private — a quiet time, a personal relationship with Jesus, me and God working things out. That's not wrong, but it's not the whole picture. In this closing week of Let Him, we look at how Paul and Peter both describe the church the same way: a single living building, stones joined together and load-bearing, built into one temple where God himself actually...

This sermon explores the practical ways we personally work out our salvation through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Using 2 Peter 1:3-9, we will look at how we respond to God's grace through faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. Rather than earning our salvation, we learn how to intentionally participate in God's work in us, recog...

"I was saved" can feel like the end of the story. But what if it's just the beginning? This week in Let Him, we sit with a man who waited by a pool for thirty-eight years — and the strange question Jesus asked him before healing him: "Do you want to get well?" Some of us are more attached to our excuses than we realize. Drawing from Philippians 2's call to "work out your salvation with fear and tr...

What if the most misunderstood command Jesus ever gave is also his most hopeful invitation? When Jesus tells us to "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," most of us hear an impossible standard — and quietly give up before we start. But the word Jesus used doesn't mean flawless. It means complete. Fully grown. Fully what you were made to be. This week we're launching a new series called L...

Most of us have felt it — that Sunday morning when getting out of bed was a fight, and worship felt like one more thing to do. If that's you this week, this message is for you. From Psalm 100, we'll look honestly at what's behind that exhaustion — and discover that the cure isn't more rest, more margin, or more willpower. It's worship itself. Not worship when you feel like it. Worship that shapes...

Psalm 27 reminds us that worship isn't something we do after we've gotten our lives together. David wrote these words while he was surrounded by fear, uncertainty, and hardship, yet in the middle of it all, God simply said, "Seek My face." Through David's story and my own journey of healing, we'll see that God never asks us to pretend. He invites us to come just as we are with our fears, questions...

We're free in America to say what we want, live how we want, and answer to no one — but what if real freedom looks nothing like that? This week we dig into Romans 6:13-23, where Paul makes a bold claim: being free in Christ means becoming slaves to righteousness. Join us as we explore what it means to belong wholly to God, why that calls us into deeper accountability with each other, and how a lif...

What if global missions were never supposed to be about what we do for people — but what God does with us, together? In May 2026, three pastors from a small town in Western New York traveled to Ecuador — not to build or fix anything, but to meet their family. What they found was a church that is faithful, alive, and doing the work of the Kingdom in their own communities. And what they brought home...

Pastor Ryan can't stop talking about Ecuador — and in this video, he explains why. Sharing reflections from a recent trip with two fellow pastors from Valley Chapel's Free Methodist network, he opens with the story of a building painted by ten different mission teams, each certain they were the ones bringing help — a picture of everything he's come to question about how we think about missions. Wh...

Someone in your life is on a journey toward Jesus — and whether you know it or not, you may be part of God's plan to help them get there. This Sunday at Valley Chapel, we're finishing our series in Acts 8 where Philip — an ordinary follower of Jesus, not a trained missionary — becomes exactly what one searching stranger needed on the road. Drawing from Acts 8, Pastor Ryan will show us what it actu...

Most of us freeze when it comes to sharing our faith — not because we don't care, but because we don't feel prepared. This Sunday at Valley Chapel, Pastor Ryan walks through the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch to show us that sharing the gospel isn't about having the perfect words or winning an argument. It's about knowing three things: what the gospel actually is, what cultural assumptio...

Most of us either stay quiet about our faith — or we share it in a way that never quite gets to Jesus. Both are ways the gospel stops with us. In this message, Pastor Ryan opens with his own testimony to show what it looks like when a personal story doesn't end with the person telling it. Drawing from John 1:35–51, we see that the first disciples all pointed to Jesus through their own experience —...

Most of us don't refuse to help others follow Jesus — we just tell ourselves we're not ready. We say we don't know enough, haven't been discipled ourselves, or might mess someone up. And some of that might even be true. But in this message, Pastor Ryan explores the difference between confessing our inadequacy to Christ and using it as an excuse to stay passive. Drawing from Jeremiah 1 and 2 Corint...

In this opening message of It Can’t Stop With You, we celebrate Moving Up Sunday by remembering that faith does not get passed on by accident. Looking at Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1–7, we see that the gospel reached us because someone else refused to let it stop with them—and now we are invited to faithfully entrust it to others. Passing on the gospel requires costly obedience, discip...

This week is about stewarding the resources God has entrusted to us. In Genesis 41, Joseph stands before Pharaoh with everything on the line—and instead of claiming credit or chasing opportunity, he points everything back to God and faithfully stewards what’s placed in his hands. Faced with years of abundance and coming famine, Joseph uses God-given wisdom to manage resources in a way that ultimat...

This week’s message explores what it means to steward our relationships as something entrusted to us by God. Using the story of Jonah, we see a man who resisted God not out of disbelief, but because he did not want to engage with people he found difficult or undeserving. The sermon challenges the assumption that we get to decide who we care about, confronts the ways we either “steal” relationships...

This week is about stewarding the TALENT God has entrusted to us. When God calls us to do something, He does not always stay inside the boundaries of what already feels natural to us. In this message from Exodus 4:10–14, we look at Moses’ resistance to God’s call and the way God responds—not by denying Moses’ weakness, but by refusing to let it be the final word. This sermon challenges the common...

This week is about stewarding the TIME God has entrusted to us. What if your life isn’t actually yours to own—but something God has entrusted to you? In this message from Haggai 1:1–15, we explore how it’s possible to live a full life that’s still misaligned with what matters most. The people of Israel weren’t doing nothing—they were doing everything except what God had called them to prioritize....