Vision & values

One church family becoming three, becoming many, is a prophetic word for us as a church. Currently we gather and explore the outworking of our faith as three separate sites – Airedale, Shipley and Bradford. Each site will be an expression of their demographics and specific local vision. However, we believe we can do more together than we can apart, so you will see us work together as one family too e.g. praying together for our nation, sharing resources etc.

Each site is led by a leadership team, with a site team leader who oversees the organisational responsibilities. As a family, we believe everyone is of equal value, contributing to the outworking of the overall vision through our unique God given personalities and gifting. We encourage this exploration and particularly the outworking within our work, communities and home lives (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). With our vision to reach and multiply into our local communities, discipleship and leadership development is essential to the outworking of the vision.

City Valley Church is registered as a limited charity (Registration No. 1155619), with our legal responsibilities overseen by a team of trustees. Our eldership team provides spiritual guardianship and encouragement across all the sites (team leader: Stewart Morris). We employ, on a part-time level, an Operations Manager (Naomi Prior), Finance team leader (Matt Small) and Team Leader (Gaynor Morris) who all work across all three sites. There are also a whole host of volunteers who give their time to support the work of City Valley across all sites.

There is a lot going on at City Valley outside of our times together on a Sunday. Our what’s on section has details of all our planned church events. We also send out a regular ‘Family news’ email which also gives information on upcoming meetings, events, news, and testimonies from across the church. We also use an app called ‘ChurchSuite’ which helps us stay connected together.

We understand biblically, one of the most effective ways to grow and support each other as disciples is to be committed to a smaller household group. In these smaller groups we are able to get to know each other on a deeper level and can spur each other on in our response to Jesus’s word (Hebrews 10:24). It is within these smaller groups, we all learn to give and receive support, both practically and through prayer, particularly when life gets hard. The leadership of each site can also signpost to professional support services where appropriate.

We are members of the Evangelical Alliance (No. 233493) and share their basis of faith. We believe in the authority of God’s word – the Bible – for our discipleship. His kingdom values of grace, worship, prayer, discipleship, family, Word & Spirit, hope, mission, and generosity are worked out within our communities. We see Acts 2:42-47 from the early church as a blueprint for the outworking of our church life today, e.g. we regularly break bread together, as Jesus encourages us (Luke 22:19).

Jesus is clear in His teaching that water baptism is an important step for those who have chosen to commit themselves to following Jesus. It is an outward display of an inner heart decision, as we receive his grace & forgiveness and choose to follow Him (Act 2:38). We therefore teach and encourage believers to be baptised. When children are born or adopted to parents/guardians within our site, we love to join them and their wider families in their choice to dedicate their children to God.

Whilst City Valley Church is autonomous, we choose in friendship to be part of an international family of churches called ChristCentral which is part of a wider movement of churches called Newfrontiers. Chris Frost (Gateway church, Leeds) oversees the UK team of ChristCentral, with Stew and Gaynor Morris (City Valley, Bradford) overseeing the region of Yorkshire.

It is through these relational connections, our teams and church family gain support and input, share resources and ministries, and theological training, whilst linking us with church families in other countries like Tanzania and Malawi, Mexico and Ukraine. ChristCentral Churches and Newfrontiers are an apostolic & prophetic movement of churches joined by shared values and mission. You may find this talk given by Christ Frost at CityValley Airedale in October 2022 helpful.

Each site is also building relationships and working alongside other churches and organisations in their local area. Feel free to ask a site leader for examples of these partnerships.

God’s word teaches his followers to give financially to support the church locally and we value this commitment within City Valley Church. Our costs are mainly centred around our staff team, venue hire, and support to ministries and training, as well as giving money and resources away to bless local communities and international projects. The finance team is overseen by Matt Small, reporting annually to the charity commission and to the church family. We believe and teach the New Testament principles of giving freely, regularly, proportionally, and sacrificially, encouraging each other to grow in the grace of giving (2 Corinthians 8: 7,13-15). Visit our giving page to find out how to support City Valley financially.

Our Data Protection policy can be found here

Our children and youth safeguarding policy can be found here.

Our vulnerable adult safeguarding policy can be found here.