Governance
West Valley has congregational type structure. The congregation makes the major decisions regarding budget, election of officers, capitol expenditures, hiring the pastor and overall strategic direction. An elected board of directors and ministry leaders make the day to day business and ministry decisions.
Attachments & Distinctives
West Valley Community Church was planted as a daughter church to the 1st Advent Christian Church of Seattle. We are still associated with the Advent Christian General Conference of America (ACGC.us). It is a support organization helping us fulfill the great commission of Mathew 28:19 “go and make disciples of all nations…..”. Advent means looking forward with expectations and in our case looking forward to the “Blessed Hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” maybe today (Titus 2:13). Therefore we are a positive, hopeful, joy filled, nurturing, accepting congregation.
Advent Christians are biblical based believers. Our study of the bible leads us to believe that some traditional views of Scripture are slightly off center and overly influenced by early Greek philosophy. None of these issues or “distinctive” as we call them affect core Christian beliefs, values, or salvation. They are only presented here as interesting, informative, and even inspirational thoughts. Accepting these views is not a requirement or a condition to worship or fellowship with us or even to join our church family. We do encourage you to study scripture in light of these distinctives.
1. Life only in Christ or conditional immortality.
Mankind is not created immortal (Genesis 3:22, 6:23) nor do they inherit it (1 Timothy 6:15). It is a gift from God through Jesus Christ (John 3:16, 17:3, 11:25, Romans 6:23). One of the ramifications of this is that you can spend eternity with Jesus but not with Satan. There is no eternal suffering in Hell, at some point you will perish or cease to exist( John 3:16, John 5:24, Mat 10:28, 1 Cor 4:3, 2 Peter 3:7, Rev 21:8).
2. At death you enter a period of unconsciousness or sleep until resurrection (1 Thes 4:13-17, Pslm 6:5, Eccl 9:4-6, John 11:11). Mankind was created with two parts; the physical body and life or the breath or spirit of God (Gen. 2:7). You need both to be alive.
This means a person does not go to heaven as a conscious disembodied spirit at death (John 3:13) but rests or sleeps until the resurrection and then receives a new body for eternal life or is sent for destruction (Hebrews 10:27, Rev 21:8) . Of course for the deceased person it is only an instant in time. For those of us that suffer the loss we know that our loved one is not in pain, (Rev 7:17) watching over us, or suffering through events on earth. Maybe this is where the sayings RIP comes from
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3. Christ has gone to prepare a place for us. At the resurrection we will go to a new heaven and earth (Isaiah 66:22, 2 Peter 3:13, Rev 21:1) where all things will be made new and Christ will reign (Rev 21:3, 21:22 ). We don't go to heaven (John 3:13) but God brings heaven to us, a new creation, a new paradise like the original Eden. How cool is that!
May God bless you in your studies and research!
