Valley Presbyterian Church

This Sunday launches my fall preaching theme of "Abide: Lessons from the Vineyard." On my sabbatical, I spent a lot of time in vineyards and with winemakers, and I'm excited to share some of what I learned as we explore Jesus' words to his disciples in John 15, "I am the vine, my Father is the vineyard keeper." This week we'll explore this image of God as a farmer and the tender care with which Go...

I am very excited to welcome back our beloved pastor, Jenny Warner! During service, Jenny and I will have a conversation about her sabbatical and how her experience was this summer. We will discuss some of her highlights, learnings, and hopefully, we will be able to hear about some of the adventures she went on.

Nate Milheim will be the guest preacher this Sunday and his sermon is titled, "This is the Day" and the scripture of focus is Psalm 118:21-29. In the words of the Psalmist: "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let's rejoice and be glad in it." In the words of Mary Oliver "You have a life - just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another." What if each day is tr...

The sermon for this Sunday is titled, "The Word Became Flesh—Life as a New Creation" and the scriptures of focus are John 1:1-5; 9-14, 1 Corinthians 15:45-49, and 2 Corinthians 5:17. The story of God, humanity, and creation does not end with Genesis. It continues into the Second Testament and we witness this story unfold with spectacular splendor in the Gospel of John. "In the beginning was the Wo...

This Sunday, we are fortunate to have Naomi Kinsman as our guest preacher. Naomi will be preaching a sermon titled, "Seeing in Stories", and the scripture reading will be on Mark 6:30-44. When Jesus feeds the crowd of five thousand, the miracle goes beyond provision. This is a story that invites us to see differently. Instead of snapping his fingers and solving the problem, Jesus turns to his disc...

Reverend Deborah Lewis-Virges, pastor of Saint Mark AME Zion Church, will be our guest preacher and she will be delivering a sermon titled "A Message of Hope". Regardless of the current state of our country, we must always look at the big picture, what God is doing, and our own destiny in Christ. We must never lose the wonder of God’s grace and offering for a future of hope.

This Sunday will be the fifth sermon of our summer sermon series and it is titled "Creation and Labor—The Sacred Rhythm of Sabbath and Rest". Sabbath is a sacred rhythm essential to the Jewish and Christian spiritual life. In a world where our value is determined by what we do and contribute, the architecture of the Sabbath is intended for humanity to rest in the healing and transformative love of...

The sermon titled, "Creation and Care of the Earth", will explore the origins of humanity's fraught relationship with creation and find that our role as 'rulers of creation' is better captured in our role as caretakers of the earth.

The sermon for this Sunday is titled "Creaturely Life and the Fall". In this sermon, we will uncover the meaning of what it means to be a creature and what our relationship to brokenness and sin is. By looking at Genesis 3, we will find that though humanity was made for relationship, we have experienced fracture and disconnection in our relationship with God, one another, ourselves, and creation....

What does it mean to become like a child in the eyes of God? In Matthew 18, Jesus places a child before his disciples and says, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” This Sunday, Cindy Liu invites us into a deep reflection on what it means to encounter our inner child and return to a childlike posture—one of vulnerability, authenticity, an...

“The passage from Ephesians tells us we, all of us, as a people, and indeed the entire cosmos, have redemption in Jesus Christ. Despite everything we have done, we have been given a gift. How we respond to that gift is up to us. So let us consider this passage, holding in tension all the things that are true: that our political system is more precarious than we may have thought, the birds are stil...

Psalm 5 invites us to rejoice, to sing for joy, even in the midst of evil, wickedness, lies, and destruction. Mary Oliver's poem, "Don't Hesitate", invites us to not be afraid when we unexpectedly encounter joy, but to jump in. Let us hold onto joy in the middle of all the chaos and evil in this world. It can be difficult for all of us to live into the idea that "the joy of the Lord is our strengt...

In the sermon, "The Human Creature in Relationship", we will explore what it means to be a human creature. As a creation of God, we are made in God's image and made for relationship. Yet, in an increasingly divided world, we are unaware of or have forgotten our origins, what we were made for, and that we belong to one another. In order to continue our journey along the right path, we must go backw...

Last Sunday we successfully began our summer sermon series, "Origins: The Story of God, Humanity, and Creation", and located ourselves as modern readers of Genesis, a pre-scientific, ancient Far East creation narrative. This summer, as Jenny is on sabbatical, we have invited guest preachers to preach on topics outside of the summer sermon series. This upcoming Sunday, Naomi Kinsman will be preachi...

Our summer series, Origins: The Story of God, Humanity, and Creation, will be focused on the book of Genesis, the remarkable story of God and creation, and humanity's role in the creation narrative. We will begin the summer series with a sermon, "The Story of Us: Reading Genesis in Context". The sermon will be about locating ourselves as readers of the Genesis text and how to begin reading it appr...

Pentecost is a high day in the story of the church – not just because of the original moment of the Holy Spirit's arrival, but because every year we need to remember that our power and hope comes from God. The church's mission has never been dependent on smart, savvy, sophisticated people. It has always been about God working through the most unlikely people in the most unlikely circumstances.

6.1.25 - Message: I Want You to Be by Valley Presbyterian Church

Real community asks us to put aside our preferences in order to build a community that truly reflects the love of Christ. In the early church, Peter was given a vision that asked him to break tradition and religious restrictions in order to welcome those outside his circle. What are we called to let go of?

VPC is committed to being a place of welcome for everyone. We are always seeking new ways to spread our arms wider to the world. Over the years, our welcome of LGBTQIA+ folks has grown organically as we have listened to the stories in our congregation and come to understand how important it is to have a clear commitment to full inclusion. We are so proud to be a partner with kin•dom community, an...

There’s Always Room for One More, Revelation 7:9-17 The writer of Revelation imagines a community of people from all nations and ages gathering together in the love of God. We will explore this vision together on Sunday and remember the mothers and grandmothers who taught us there was always room for one more.

Join us for a special guest sermon with Danny Thongsy! Danny is a community advocate, who has worked on a statewide effort for immigrant rights and to end mass incarceration. He mentors and supports directly impacted community members through advocacy and their reintegration. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Sociology degree and had studied biblical/religious studies through the Golden Gate Ba...

Join us for a special Sunday service as we learn about welcoming!

Join us for Easter Sunday!

The life and teachings of Jesus have a way of sorting and exposing our lives. But they are not meant to cause shame, they're meant to point us toward life. In these days, as we live in a swirl of escalating bad news, where do we put our focus? What does faithfulness look like?

As we head toward Easter, we are turning to the New Testament and the life of Jesus. On Sunday, I will explore a way to understand who Jesus is and how we relate to him as the center point of our faith. Get ready for a theological deep dive!