Valley Presbyterian Church

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 Baptist Theological Seminary. Danny is the Campaign Manager for the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, an immigrant rights group in Oakland. He is passionate about community work and had advocated with the Human Rights Watch in passing Assembly Bill 1308 Youth Offender Parole Hearing Up to the age of 25. As a child of refugees from Laos, Danny loves to celebrate the richness of his culture and roots by cooking traditional Lao/Thai food. He loves the outdoors, drawing, and teaching origami folding.

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!

We began this first Sunday of Lent by exploring our theme to approach the story of Scripture through the eyes of children. Jesus tells us that unless we approach God as a child, we will not enter into God's realm. How do we reclaim our innocence and sense of wonder in our faith? Join us to kick off this season!

This Sunday, we welcomed Brian Heredia to preach on one of the first stories in the Bible, the story of Cain and Abel. Brian explored what it means to trust God and the hidden reasons we often struggle to trust.

This Sunday, as we continue our journey through the Bible, I explore the story of a woman who was forgotten and invisible to everyone but God. God sees us in our hidden places too. With God's eyes, we are invited to see those who are invisible.

This Sunday, we'll explore an obscure and rather dark biblical story from the time of King David. The story of the protest of a heartbroken mother named Rizpah changes the heart of a king and brings honor to her disgraced family. Her story brings to light the way our grief has power to make change in ourselves and in the world around us.

The practice of our faith is not judged by right opinions or beliefs but by the wideness of our welcome. The book of James invites us to examine the quality and limits of our embrace of those who are the "other." In the way of Jesus, there are no favorites and no exclusive access. Join us on Sunday as Pastor Jenny speaks from this passage and has a conversation with our Community Curator, Jaron Cheung, about his work exploring what it means to be an accessible community from the inside out.

This is a time to take a moment to reset our values and priorities as we enter into a new season. Pastor Jenny will invite us to consider Deuteronomy 10 when the Israelites were invited to a reset.

We live in communities fraught with othering, be it for race, gender, faith, class or political ideology. The question, for believers, is how do we navigate this terrain while being faithful to Jesus' call for us as disciples? Faithful practice means we must widen our circle of concern for those it is easiest to love and particularly for those with whom it's most difficult. Embracing the invitation from the Holy Spirit to be made anew means we embrace getting closer to those we see as enemies, seeing deeper into ourselves to recognize our shortcomings, and taking risks to join God in widening God's circle of concern for God's creation! This message is a call to surrender to God for the hard work of enemy-love. Join us to hear Ben McBride preach!

Our staff member Aisea Taimani preaches!

What does it mean to live with transparency? This week we'll explore the Ephesians' call to live in the light of God's love and let that light shine to others.

We're excited to welcome Naomi Kinsman back to preach this morning. Her message will highlight that each individual is God’s poem, and collectively, our gifts work in harmony. One gift God gives us all is the ability to notice and celebrate gifts in each other. As we reflect on the roles we each play in our circles of community, how might we name the gifts we see in one another? How might we listen to God’s voice naming for us who we truly are, as God’s beloved children, and catch sight of how we might collectively create spaces of belonging?

We all have a part to play in this world. Our actions matter. Each of us has our own gifts to give. Ephesians 4 gives us a picture of how good it can be when we all do our part. We'll be worshipping in our Redwood Grove this Sunday. Join us under the trees to sing, pray and listen together!

This Sunday Alicia Garcia from the amazing organization, WeHope will join us to share her message about how we need each other to bring out the essence of God in our lives and to be a thriving church who shines light into the darkness. WeHope serves the unhoused population all over the Bay Area, bringing dignity and hope through their shelters, Dignity on Wheels and job training programs. Alicia is the powerhouse behind the vision of WeHope and you'll enjoy her positive and encouraging preaching.

These verses in Ephesians 3:14-21 are what you pray when you don't know what to pray. They express the inner architecture of faith and the guiding words for our journeys in Christ. As we read and consider them, we'll seek hearts enlarged with God's love and strength beyond our own to live the lives God is calling us to.

We are excited to welcome Kafunyi Mwamba as our preacher this week. Kafunyi is a chaplain at Stanford Hospital and part of the pastoral staff at our partner church, St Mark AME Zion in East Palo Alto. A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kafunyi truly represents the title of his sermon, "Joy." In his own words: "The topic today is joy. And the chief question is: How can we be happy in difficult times, in dark times? How can we be happy when we are sick, and we are in pain?" Join us in exploring JOY on Sunday!

On this fourth of July weekend, we'll consider our allegiances. This beautiful passage in Ephesians 2:11-22 invites us to place our allegiance to Jesus beyond any other group, identity or nation. When we do that, we find peace and community.