About
Looking For a Place to Belong?
Valley is a community of faith where you can grow through worship, study, and service. But what’s it really like to be a part of Valley? Here’s our best answer.
Valley is…
Practice, not program, based. When you worship at Valley, you’ll develop the spiritual practices you need to grow in faith and become more like Jesus. Your calendar won’t be crowded with an overwhelming amount of activities, but you will find time for meaningful connection and spiritual growth.
Inclusive. All people are created in the image of God. We are all equally loved and valued by Him. Valley is expansive and inclusive in all ways, from our leadership and language to our ministries and missions. You will be warmly welcomed here.
Social Justice-Oriented. Do you see the struggles of others and want to help? Us too. Having been started during the civil rights movement, Valley’s congregants have always felt God’s call to be upstanders, not bystanders.
Intergenerational. You’ll build relationships with people of all ages when you worship at Valley. We don’t separate often based on age or life stage, which provides a beautiful depth to fellowship.
Creative. Find joy in the creativity God has given you through music, visual arts, embodied arts like yoga and centering prayer, and more.
Connected. Picnics and potlucks are more than just a fun tradition here. Through table fellowship, you’ll form new relationships and deepen existing ones. We’ll pray for each other, celebrate joys, and mourn losses together.
If you’re looking for a place to be loved and supported, to grow in faith, ask hard questions, and work alongside others who want to make a difference in the world, you’ve found it. Whoever you are, and wherever you’re from, you are welcome here!
Ready to take the next step? Let us know you’re coming, and we’ll roll out the red carpet for you!
There’s actually always a red carpet, but you get the picture…
History
Valley’s founding pastor, Oliver Clark, was relocated to Huntsville from Birmingham for being too involved with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. In 1967, he arrived at the annual conference and saw it written that he would be moving to New Church Plant in Huntsville, AL. Confused by the name, he asked where New Church Plant was, and laughing, they told him that it was not a church, but that he would be in charge of starting a new one in Huntsville.
He arrived in town with no resources or congregants. A colleague at Trinity United Methodist Church kindly gave him office space and helped him recruit about 50 families and individuals to help start what became known as Valley United Methodist Church. They held their first worship service on December 3, 1967, at the nearby Seventh-day Adventist Church. Five years later, they had grown the congregation, raised funds for a building, and found a family willing to donate the property where Valley is now located.
Unlike many churches built in Huntsville at the time, Valley was designed to look and feel like a traditional English country church. The sanctuary is shaped like an inverted Noah’s ark, grounded on earth, but pointing toward heaven.
The stained glass windows were created by congregants, and feature plenty of quirks and personalizations, including a beloved family cat in one window and the intentional addition of a black sheep in another. They also took care to depict as many women as there are men.
Each window has one small piece of red glass with shards of gold to remind us of what John Wesley called “the spark of the divine” in every human.
Beliefs
God is the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer of all people and all things.
Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World. We cannot fully wrap our minds around this but we believe it to be true.
The Holy Spirit is the presence of God’s grace living and dwelling among us today. It guides us in our spiritual journeys and grants us assurance of the forgiveness of our sins.
The Christian life is one of a personal relationship with Christ through which we grow in grace and demonstrate God’s love in all our relationships.
The Bible is the inspired word of God. It is an anthology of books, letters, scrolls, and texts collected over time that tells us the story of God’s love for creation and the depths to which God goes for reconciliation.
Through reading the Bible, we encounter God’s living word, build a foundation for our faith, and grow in relationship with the Holy Spirit. Bible study is essential to our formation as Christian disciples.
Faith comes from a choice to trust in God and to have confidence in unseen things. Growing in faith is a lifelong journey that we refer to as the process of sanctification.
This process begins even before we have conscious knowledge of God working through the Holy Spirit in our lives. We call this prevenient grace. As our hearts and minds open up to acknowledging God’s presence and work in our lives, we make a conscious choice to believe in God. We call this justifying grace.
As we work to grow in relationship with God through faith in Jesus as savior and Lord of our lives, we become more and more like Jesus in our daily actions. We call this sanctifying grace. The process of sanctification strengthens our faith in God.
Having a church home is essential to every Christian’s spiritual formation. In vital worship, we encounter and honor God in Word and Sacrament.
It is essential to support our church home with our: Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, and Witness.
Every Christian is gifted and called by God to be in ministry.
Serving others and helping those in need is a daily task for faithful Christians. We believe it is essential to the Christian witness and discipleship of others that we give of our time and gifts to both our church home and our mission partners around the community.
We are called to share the love of Jesus Christ with everyone. So, at Valley, we encourage and expect everyone to find a way to plug into service with the community of faith and with those in need.