More than twenty-five years ago a group of people gathered with a desire to help more people know and grow with God. That group included Pastor Clark Pfaff and his family and dozens of families from the Granby and the greater Farmington Valley area. After months of meeting and praying, they felt led to start a church called Valley Brook Community Church. The grand opening was held at Kelly Lane School on Sept. 10, 2000.
For the first 15 years Valley Brook rented space in Granby school buildings, every Sunday setting up and taking down a space for worship, classes for children as well as a space to gather to connect with one another. In 2013, the Reynolds family blessed Valley Brook with a God-sized gift of 85 acres and all the buildings of the Woodhaven estate at 160 Granville Road in North Granby. The church set about converting the standing equestrian center into a church. On June 28, 2015 weekly Sunday services began.
Over the past 25 years the people of Valley Brook have made serving God and serving people a priority. The Valley Brook vision statement is “Love God, Love People, Change the World.” Pfaff says: “In these 25 years we have seen God do so many things. We’ve seen hundreds of people make faith commitments to God and we’ve had the privilege to baptize many of those people in the Salmon Brook that runs through our campus.
We continually look for ways to serve the community near and far. Many people probably have heard of the Live Nativity and the Egg Hunt that we give to the community, but Valley Brook serves near and far. Serving others is so important that we give over 10 percent of our offerings to missions locally and around the world, we’ve helped start a dozen churches and we’ve sent out several dozen mission teams as well as individuals on short-term mission trips and a few that began full-time missionaries. By loving God and loving people we know we’re fulfilling our vision to change the world even if it’s one person at a time.”
In September, Valley Brook will be celebrating God’s faithfulness during the last 25 years in many ways. Becca Smith, a native of Granby and the communications and creative director of Valley Brook, shared, “We’re planning special ways to celebrate this anniversary. There will be a series of messages with worship and testimonies, a visual display of God’s faithfulness over the years, a special meal and more! And we want everyone to know that they are welcomed and invited to join us for this celebration or anytime.”
In the past year Valley Brook has also begun to offer a Sunday service for those who speak Spanish. That service takes place at the same time as the English service. And the pastor shared that Valley Brook’s staff is actively working on learning Spanish to better serve the Spanish community in the area.