| Location |
| 27173 County Road 98 |
| (On the edge of campus property) |
| Hours |
| Worship: Sundays, 10:00AM |
| Phone |
| (530)756-5255 |
| Website |
| http://www.gracevalley.org |
Grace Valley Christian Center is one of several West Davis churches.
Mission Statement
Originally from India, Reverend P. G. Mathew first came to Davis in 1973 to teach Greek and theology at then St Justin's Theological Seminary. In May 1974 the church was formed as Davis Evangelical Church and met in Rev. Mathew's Cranbrook Court apartment. In July services were moved to 345 L Street. From November 1976 to May 1987 services were held at Lutheran Church of the Incarnation at 1701 Russell Boulevard. In May 1987 the church moved to its present location at 27173 County Road 98 and the name changed to Grace Valley Christian Center. For a full account see "A History of Grace Valley Christian Center."
Leadership
Senior Minister Reverend P. G. Mathew Senior Associate Minister Gerrit Buddingh Elder Daniel Washabaugh
Over the years a number of other prominent local citizens have been involved in leadership including Doctors Peter Droubay and Steven Smith and UC Davis Professor RichardSpencer.
Activities
- Sermons on Podcast Senior Minister Reverend P. G. Mathew makes his sermons available in his "Grace and Glory" podcast and puts his transcripts on the web site.
- Grace Alive Campus Ministry. Many activities are directed by University Minister Greg Perry.
- Grace Valley Christian Academy, a private Christian school serving grades kindergarten through 9th grade
- Grace Valley Choir: "Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted" (Easter 2008), "Sing Choirs of New Jerusalem" (Easter 2008), "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent" and "For Unto Us a Child is Born" (Dec '07), and "Glad Tidings" (Dec '07)
- Global Grace, the international ministry of Grace Valley Christian Center. In addition to offering ESL classes to visiting students and scholars, efforts are also made to reach out to seasonal migrant workers.
- Team Donate Life Grace Valley June 2007 eight cyclists and ten support team members from Grace Valley participated in the Team Donate Life Race Across America effort. Their mission: to educate the public regarding the life-saving benefits of organ donation while raising funds toward continued transplant research. Over six days team members rode 24 hours a day to cover the 3,000 miles from Oceanside, California to Atlantic City, New Jersey. In the process they raised over 53,000 dollars. Part of the inspiration for their journey was Joan Roby's donation of a kidney to Simeon Trotter, both members of Grace Valley. Joan was a crew member for the 2007 team. Read more about their adventures on their Team Donate Life Grace Valley Blog.
- "Faith and Reason Series" Lectures In recent years, Grace Valley Christian Center has been holding lectures under what they call the "Faith and Reason Series". Some transcripts and audio files of these lectures are available on the GVCC website. The lectures question the theory of evolution and present the Gospel. Invited speakers include William Dembski (2004), Michael Behe (2005), or Phillip E. Johnson (2006) (interview), who then give two lectures on Intelligent Design, one on campus and one at the church. The student club affiliate of GVCC, Grace Alive, hosts the first lecture on a Friday night, usually in 194 Chemistry. The Friday night speech is generally devoid of overt religious content (although the lectures begin with prayer). Then on the following Saturday morning they give the second lecture at the church, which includes religious content. The lectures are about an hour or so long, and are followed by a period for questions lasting about ten minutes. For more information on Intelligent Design, please visit the Wikipedia page.
Experiences and Controversy
GVCC is surrounded by controversy and a wide range of experiences. It is a close-knit community, but there are some allegations of emotional and spiritual abuse. Go to the Experiences page for more information. For a detailed description of the alleged aberrations at Grace Valley Christian Center, see Allegations and Recovering From Spiritual Abuse.
On October 1st, 2021, the Davis Vanguard published an article that accused GVCC of being a cult, citing more than a dozen anonymous former members who shared their experiences of the church. A follow up article was published on October 29, 2021.
2012 Lawsuit
GVCC has been named as a defendant in a child molestation lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the accused "was introduced to, gained access to, and was able to sexually molest and abuse each plaintiff because of and arising out of the relationship of the parties at and fellow membership in the Grace Valley Christian Center," and that "Grace Valley Christian Center was further negligent in failing to warn plaintiffs, their families, and each of them, of the propensity of [the accused] to commit sexual abuse upon minor boys, a propensity of which Grace Valley Christian Center had actual and constructive notice."
See this Davis Enterprise article for more details. At the time the article was written (which was before GVCC had been served with the lawsuit), GVCC's only response was, "We’re still dumbfounded that we're named in any lawsuit since none of the alleged incidents involved church leaders, took place on church property, or during church activities."
This lawsuit has since been dropped by the plaintiff.
For discussion about the content of this page, please see the talk page.
2005-12-01 23:41:53 Is the pastor of Grace Valley Christian Center the ASUCD student coordinator for blood drives? —MichaelGiardina
2007-03-01 23:08:33 I painted the day care center in Grace Valley. It was a good job. —StevenDaubert
2007-10-24 15:47:46 On the surface Grace Valley is a wonderful place: close-knit community, good teaching, many wonderful activities for families and singles. Unfortunately, all is not as it seems. Beneath the surface lies a pattern of public humiliation of individuals by the leadership as well as the leadership's adherence to an abusive form of control which ultimately robs individuals of their liberty in Christ. Take heed! —RichLindvall
2010-11-30 20:20:12 I recently removed my name from the list of "prominent local citizens" who have been involved in leadership. I no longer attend Grace Valley Christian Center. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. —MikeMoroski
2011-01-13 06:04:18 This place is really scary, I strongly advise not getting involved here. It's all kinds of shady. —KBathory
2011-04-18 21:35:40 While considering a return to church rather than private faith I viewed many potential houses. GVCC was one such house and, upon reading all the details surrounding this "church" I find myself appalled. It has never been my experience to find an organization surrounded by such controversy. For such a "bible based" house, they seem to pick and choose which portions of the text to adhere to, tossing out the rest to suit their own purposes, ridicule and admonish publicly any who come to them in privacy or any who speak out against them and they truly seem to live against the beliefs they claim to "teach". I feel sorry for the elders of this facility and wish that they might find the true path to the Lord. —Wes-P
2011-04-18 22:41:09 I am going to check this place out. With everything that has happened with churches in Davis, I dont think things could get any worse. So I might as well. I will try to go in with an open mind and report back what I see. —Dozer
You're not a bulldozer?
2011-05-13 17:36:07 I try to go once a month because i live in stockton. Overall, the church is Great and Pastor and the leaders are filled with spirit. This church is growing very fast and satan will bring more enemies to bring division. so i pray for those people who dislikes this Church. —enrique
2015-08-14 18:20:04 GREENEST GRASS IN TOWN!!! I've been watching over the past several weeks and the grass has been getting greener and greener. A freshly mowed deep green lawn was being heavily watered at 3:30 this afternoon. When the landscape is a beautiful summer gold, this lawn of bright green sticks out as a sore thumb and is truly a role model for our community. We are in a multi year drought, please let your lawn to gold and brown and focus on keeping your trees surviving for future generations. The water you waste by watering your lawn which with sprinklers at the peak of the day, would be much more efficiently used in other ways. —gator65
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