A 1951 Congregation on Lilac Drive
Valley Community Presbyterian Church has stood on Lilac Drive North in Golden Valley since the early 1950s, growing alongside the western Minneapolis suburbs it was organized to serve. The congregation was officially formed on May 20, 1951, and the original chapel (now called the Cornerstone Room) was completed the following year. Fellowship Hall followed in 1957, the current sanctuary was added in 1965, and the education wing arrived in 1988. The sanctuary was designed with space for a pipe organ that finally arrived forty years later, an instrument that has become a centerpiece of Valley's musical life. Today the church describes itself as a Christian place of belonging for all, a Presbyterian congregation celebrating the word of God and reflecting God's love through joyful worship.
Valley belongs to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of six agencies of the national denomination, and sits within the Synod of Lakes and Prairies and the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. Its motto, Open hearts. Open minds. Opening lives to God, frames a six-part purpose: growing with vision and vitality, remembering the spirit of the congregation's heritage, serving the community with concern for the world, supporting just and peaceful living, encouraging faith exploration, and enjoying laughter, music, and one another.
Sunday Mornings at 9:30
Sunday worship is the heartbeat of Valley. Each Sunday at 9:30 AM, the congregation gathers in the sanctuary, a wheelchair-accessible space, to proclaim God's all-embracing love and the call to justice through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Worship is described as rich in word, music, message, and service. Communion Sundays are observed on a regular rotation, and communion is also offered during Homecoming Sunday, a fall kickoff event that draws people back into the rhythm of programming after summer.
Pastor and Head of Staff Rev. Kyle Sandison, a Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary graduate who has served congregations in New Jersey, Louisiana, and Minnesota, preaches most Sundays. He is supported by a deep bench of parish associates - Rev. Dr. Jim Cook, Rev. Bill Davnie, Rev. Rebecca Tollefson, Rev. Kate O'Brien Soltau, Rev. Dr. Nancy Phillips, and Rev. David Phillips - and by Pastor Sheila Sheldon, a Commissioned Ruling Elder who also serves as director of educational ministries. Sheila Sheldon joined the staff in 2018 and was commissioned in 2024 after completing training through the Synod of Lakes and Prairies's Academy program. Services are livestreamed on YouTube, and past services are archived there as well.
Music as a Form of Welcome
Music at Valley is woven into nearly every gathering. Music Coordinator Rachel Williams, who teaches cello and piano and performs with the Saint Paul Civic Symphony and the Bernstein chamber ensemble, organizes the program. Choral and Hand Bell Director Janet Carlson, who has been ringing and directing hand bells for most of her adult life, leads the bell program that bears the Coffin Family Bell Choir Fund. Organist Jane Nienaber comes out of retirement on the last Sunday of each month to play for worship and assists with funerals and other special services; her more than forty years of church music experience is, in the congregation's own words, priceless. The Valley choir rehearses every Wednesday at 7:00 PM and again at 8:30 AM on Sundays it sings in worship; new voices are welcome at any experience level.
Music also reaches beyond the church walls. Fridays in the Valley, the church's chamber music series, brings regional folk, classical, and acoustic artists into the sanctuary on selected Friday evenings. Concerts are offered with a free-will offering, and a portion of the proceeds is often directed to mission partners such as Missions Inc. Programs and the Home Free Shelter. The pipe organ brochure, available from the church, walks visitors through the instrument's long journey into the sanctuary.
Kids, Youth, and the TEAMS Program
Valley holds intentional space during worship for children and hosts special events to foster strong relationships among families. Children three and under can wiggle and play in the Sanctuary, the Narthex, or the Sunshine Room. Children ages three through third grade attend two ten-week semesters of Sunday School each fall and spring in the Sunshine Room, where they build relationships through fellowship, creative play, and story time. The Sunshine Room is staffed during the 9:30 worship service and during the 11:00 adult education hour.
Older children and youth meet on Sunday afternoons from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. TEAMS, for kids in grades four and five, explores Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, and Science through hands-on projects that grow out of scripture and that build cooperation and team-building skills. Youth Group, for middle and high schoolers in grades six through twelve, explores faith, identity, and justice through shared time at the church, local mission opportunities, and summer mission trips. Fundraisers organized by the youth help support those trips, and the Pete Peterson Youth Mission Fund and Allyson Graphenteen Youth Scholarship Fund keep participation accessible.
Adult Education at 11
Faith formation is treated as a lifelong practice. Each Sunday morning at 11:00 AM during the fall and spring, Adult Education gathers in the Cornerstone Room for forty-minute classes on topics ranging from scripture and theology to social justice and earth care. Recent classes have featured the Rev. Anna Kendig Flores on the PC(USA) General Assembly, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Jewish Community Action on understanding white nationalism, immigration in Minnesota, and Tent of Nations with Rev. Bill Davnie. Select classes are recorded and posted to the church's YouTube channel by 2 PM each Sunday. The Sunshine Room remains staffed during the adult education hour so families can attend together.
Faith in Action: Mission Partners and the Matthew 25 Call
Valley describes itself as a community of care, a Matthew 25 congregation called to be part of Christ's presence in the neighborhood. The Mission Possible Peace and Justice team works with a long roster of partner organizations whose work clusters around hunger, housing, education, and children.
Locally, the church partners with PRISM, which provides dignity-centered food, housing, and basic-needs resources in the northwest Twin Cities suburbs; Liberty Community Church, the first African-American-led Presbyterian congregation in Minnesota; Clare Housing, which provides supportive housing for people living with HIV/AIDS; Every Meal, which supplies supplemental food to children in District 281 schools; Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, where Valley organizes a Martin Luther King Jr. Day build each January; Bridging, which furnishes homes for people transitioning out of homelessness; and the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery. The congregation also delivers meals for the Community Emergency Assistance Program's Meals on Wheels program on the third and fourth weeks of each month. Nationally and beyond, Valley supports the PC(USA) Mission Agency, the Father Project, Clearwater Forest camp and retreat center, and Beacon Interfaith Housing, the lattermost of which helped seed Emerson Village, a forty-home affordable housing development in North Minneapolis.
Volunteers are essential to the work. The Martens' Noble Vision Fund supports students, classrooms, and staff at Noble Elementary School in the district through tutoring and supplies. Mission trips have taken Valley youth across the country since the 1960s, with buses and trains breaking down in the summer heat and lives transformed along the way.
Honoring Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ and the Dakota Land
Valley Community Presbyterian Church sits on the ancestral and contemporary land of the Dakota people. The Land Acknowledgement statement commits the congregation to interrupt the legacy of injustice against the Dakota and to educate itself about Indigenous history. A Land Acknowledgement Task Force, with funding from the church's Endowment, has built an unusually deep body of work around Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ, the Dakota name for Bassett Creek, which flows near the church.
In 2021, Valley received a grant to conduct oral history interviews with American Indians connected to the creek's watershed. The interviews were developed with cultural advisors, the Hennepin History Museum, and University of Wisconsin-Madison scholar Dr. Kasey Keeler. Hennepin History Museum later turned fifteen of the interviews into a podcast series that has included conversations with Dakota author Diane Wilson, former Golden Valley resident and Minnesota Environmental Quality Board member Benjamin Yawakie, and Bradley Blackhawk, who grew up in Crystal and canoed the creek in the 1970s. A pronunciation video featuring Dakota speakers Šišóka Duta, Jim Rock, and students from Bdote Learning Center was produced by Tiana LaPointe with project management by Crystal Boyd, with support from the City of Golden Valley's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission. The Land Acknowledgement logo itself was designed by Sisseton Wahpeton Dakhóta artist Wóokiye wiŋ. The church continues to mark Indigenous Peoples' Day with an annual Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ Water Blessing each fall.
An Earth Care Congregation and a Community Garden
Valley is a certified Earth Care Congregation, a designation within the PC(USA) that recognizes congregations practicing stewardship of creation through worship, education, facilities, and outreach. Members are encouraged to care for the garden in Genesis and to live in a manner consistent with God's call to defend and restore creation.
That commitment is visible in the church's community garden, established in 2010 by a group of church members as a non-profit mission. Plots are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis with gardeners of all faiths and backgrounds. The Zorada Hoge Landscaping Fund supports beautification of the grounds, and the church has hosted Blue Thumb native plant sales in the parking lot to bring pollinator-friendly landscaping into the wider community.
An Endowment Built by Many Hands
Valley's endowment is one of the quiet engines of the congregation's mission. Funds established by members and friends since 1984 support music, evangelism, education, pastoral care, children's ministry, military families, landscaping, the pipe organ, and more. Recent funds include the Martens' Noble Vision Fund and the Martens' Addison TEAMS Fund, both established in 2023, and the Liberty Future Scholars Fund, established in 2024 through an anonymous estate gift. The Do Justice Fund, established in 2020, invests in solutions connected to the environment, affordable housing, health care, anti-racism, immigration reform, gun reform, and equity in education. Members who want to start a memorial fund or leave a planned gift can contact the endowment committee.
Visiting Valley
The church office is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM and welcomes calls at 763-588-0831 or email at office@valleychurch.net. Sunday worship begins at 9:30 AM in the sanctuary at 3100 Lilac Drive North in Golden Valley. Adult Education follows at 11:00 AM in the Cornerstone Room during the fall and spring, and TEAMS and Youth Group meet from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. The sanctuary is wheelchair accessible. Online giving is available through the church's Breeze platform, and visitors can stream services live or watch past services on the church's YouTube channel.
Annual traditions include Homecoming Sunday in September, the Friday Lunch Festival, and the Summer Evening Festival, all of which bring the wider Golden Valley and Twin Cities community onto the church grounds. The story of Valley Community Presbyterian Church is, in its own telling, a story of a community that does not believe it does enough and asks, simply, What's next?