Brett and Corinne Parks came to Valley Church in early 2010. Brett served in the role of Associate Pastor until 2015 when he was called to serve as Lead Pastor. He has been in that role ever since.
Early in his time at Valley, under the direction of then Lead Pastor Mark Tobey, a new vision for missions was launched. In this new vision, Valley Church wanted to know and have deep partnerships with our missions partners. One of the first steps in this new vision was to visit missions partners on the field, right where they were serving. So in November of 2011, the first trip from our church to Berlin, Germany to visit our missions partners Fritz and Lynette Good occurred.
On that trip, the Lord opened the door to future opportunities. Brett led a team of young adults back to Berlin to help Crossway International Baptist Church with a couple of big outreaches in September of 2012. At no time, did he get the sense from God that his time in Germany or his relationship with Crossway church was "over". More opportunities came, and there has now been 7 visits to Berlin, all to Crossway, all to help the faithful remnant of believers there to accomplish the mission God has given them,
Over recent years, God kept nudging the Parks' that a full time calling to Berlin might be in their future. However, the full clear call had not come, so they stayed at work in the ministry at Valley Church.
While all this was going on, some really neat things were happening at Valley. God made it abundantly clear that we were to become a sending, going, multiplying church. As we restructured our ministry to be obedient to that call, there were two main goals God laid before us: 1) To plant a church, and 2) to be a sending church for people at Valley who God called into a foreign field.
As Valley Church pursued these two goals, God began moving. Seth Wiram was hired in October of 2023 to be our Pastor of Multiplication, and he will serve as the Campus Pastor of our first church plant. In late summer of 2024, God gave Brett and Corinne the clear calling to go to Germany full-time, and the elders of Valley Church agreed to be their sending church!
In Berlin, Crossway Church has been a beacon of light for the gospel for 22 years. This faithful remnant of believers follow Christ in a spiritually dark and heavy city. However, God has used them to change lives, and Crossway planted their first church in the neighboring city of Potsdam. The Parks' are going to serve both churches, encouraging this faithful remnant and working to ignite a movement of multiplication. Brett and Corinne also hope to start a discipleship program to international college students who come to Berlin from all over the world.
For now, Brett continues in his role as Lead Pastor of Valley, but the Parks Family are taking the steps necessary to pursue this calling in obedience. They are filing for passports, joining an agency, and starting the support raising process. Please be in prayer for them as these important but major steps are taken to get them to the field!
