our mission? bring life
At Moon Valley, we strive to bring the life of Jesus to our world. We Bring Life in four different ways, all centered around the person and work of Jesus Christ.
1. reflect his character
Without this, everything else we might try to do wouldn’t amount to much. We want to be just like Jesus in what we say and do. We want to be loving and kind and gentle and gracious and patient and peaceable and joyful and truthful. LIKE JESUS. You are going to hear us say that we want to be relationally safe and biblically sound (see "What Makes Us Different”). We want to be that way because Jesus was and is that way.
2. share his message
At the core of his message is the good news that, by his death and resurrection for our sins, Jesus Christ alone offers eternal life to all who will simply believe him for it. This is the free grace message that has changed our lives. And we want to share it to the ends of the earth with sensitivity, respect, and humility.
3. do his work
In one way or another, this always involves the enrichment of people. That certainly includes discipleship in which we are mentored, equipped, and empowered to live out our faith and, in turn, do the same for others. And it includes caring for those in our midst who are hurting. But we also want to enrich our community, both locally and globally, even for the good of those who may never share our faith. We want to be an asset to the community.
4. enjoy his abundance
The abundance of the life Jesus offers isn’t defined by castles, cars, cash, and comfort. Instead, the abundance consists of greater things we want to experience and exude as we follow him:
- a growing faith;
- a learned contentment;
- an underlying joy;
- an overriding sense of purpose;
- a settled conviction that we are a big part of something bigger;
- an abiding closeness with our Lord in which we get to experience being fully known
and fully loved;
- a hope-filled expectation that we will be richly rewarded in heaven for faithfully following Jesus on earth;
- and a full assurance that, in following the Lord, no suffering will be wasted, no sacrifice will go unnoticed, and no truly good thing will be withheld.
Such abundance elicits our worship and praise for the one who provides it.
The four ways we Bring Life inspires us, and gives us purpose, because by the grace and power of God within us, we can bring life to any situation at any moment by some combination of reflecting his character, sharing his message, doing his work, and enjoying his abundance. That’s why we’re here.
How We Got here
Moon Valley Bible Church began in 1997 in the cafeteria of Mountain Sky Junior High School with a handful of people who had few resources and no denominational backing...
JUST A DREAM.
A dream to be a church for people who have given up on church. By God's grace, we eventually outgrew the school and began to look for our own facility. In 2001, we merged with a smaller, older church nearby that had quite a bit of land, some old buildings, and a small debt that we paid off. In residential terms, it was a fixer-upper with a really big yard, but we were so grateful.
In 2016 we decided to leverage and sell the entire campus to find a better church home with a smaller yard. A homebuilder offered more than we hoped for, so we jumped into the great unknown, just like we did in the very beginning. We purchased a property in the Moon Valley area in October 2017 and completed the renovations on our new space in late 2019.
Same founding pastor. Same dream. New home.
Teaching
When we teach at Moon Valley, it's a blend of biblical scholarship and practical application. Through our sermons we want you to see that God's unfolding story is so captivating, so compelling, and so constructive that you'll want to become a part of it.
music
Music at Moon Valley is designed to be high energy, reflective and engaging, and we strive to be different in our selections. Our music each week is a vital form of worship in service, and we lead you in worship with songs of praise to direct our focus and lift our eyes to Jesus Christ, who is worthy of our praise!
connections
Connecting with others in the church is vital and we encourage this through our ministries to women, men, students, and children, as well as Life Groups.
what makes us different?
What makes Moon Valley unique is not so much what we’re trying to accomplish, but rather how we go about it and who we want to be as people. A blend of two ingredients creates a Moon Valley culture that is distinctive: we try to be relationally safe and biblically sound. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and. And that makes all the difference. We’re both safe and sound.
relationally safe
We want to create an extraordinary environment of grace, humility, warmth, attentiveness, and personal acceptance in which everyone feels welcome among us, everyone is treated as an equal, everyone matters, and everyone can safely consider the next step toward Christ with us, regardless of background or orientation or beliefs or baggage.
Being relationally safe means there’s a freedom to disagree, to be on the fence, to have doubts, to be skeptical, to not have everything figured out. And the vibe is not "judgy" or homophobic or political or anti-science. There’s a freedom to be who you are, to be authentic, to be vulnerable, to be broken and loved anyway, without pretense or platitudes.
Being relationally safe also means that it’s not going to be embarrassing or awkward or weird to invite your unchurched friends to Moon Valley. Or to be a guest. No ambushes are lurking. We’re not big on manipulation or arm-twisting or closing some deal. We don’t even pass a plate because we don’t want anybody to feel pressured to give.
To us, being relationally safe also includes being community-minded as opposed to self-serving. We’re not just interested in putting more conversion notches on our belts, or getting more people and money so we can feather our own nest; we genuinely want to enrich our community, both locally and globally, even for the good of those who may never share our faith. If some neighbor were to say of us, “I’m not buying their religion, but they’re sure good for our community,” that would be a win.
biblically sound
We’re convinced that the writings collected within the Bible are inspired by God, that they are without error in the original writings, and that they collectively constitute our final authority under God for what to believe and how to live. Through the Bible, we find our true story. And within our story, we find meaning and hope and guidance from the one who created us. Within our story, we find that we are a big part of something bigger, and that inspires us.
It’s not surprising, then, that we view everything we do through the lens of the Scriptures. Our sermons are not fluffy pep talks tied loosely to some biblical prooftexts we think might support our own ideas. We dig deeply into the Bible to understand God’s message for us in its proper context. And we reflect deeply on how to apply the Bible to our lives.
We’re so committed to trying to understand and apply the Bible that sometimes our own sacred cows get grilled. Sometimes we find that what we’ve always been taught, or what we’ve always heard, or what we’ve always thought doesn’t exactly square with the Scriptures.
And when we’re faced with parts of the Bible that are challenging or confusing, we don’t summarily relegate them to the fine print. We struggle to understand and apply, recognizing that we may end up saying, “I just don’t get it,” or “I get it, but I’m not sure I like it.” Moon Valley is a safe place to struggle.
Even if you’re not yet convinced of the reliability of the Bible, that’s okay; we still think you’ll find it so true-to-life and so timeless and so helpful that you’ll benefit from its teachings.
That’s what we mean by relationally safe and biblically sound. That’s what makes Moon Valley different. We’re not trying to be all things to all people. But we might be just the thing for you.