Meet Our Team
Valley Christian Fellowship cannot function without the diligent effort and commitment of our Staff and Elders. Each member of our team brings a unique background and skillset that has allowed us to keep our doors open to the Santa Ynez Valley for over 30 years.
Please contact our office if you would like to get in touch with any of our elders or staff.
Our Staff
Senior Pastor
I grew up in rural Iowa. Jesus became my Lord and Savior when I was 5 years old and I've continued to grow in my knowledge and love for God throughout my life. In 2004 I moved to Southern California to attend Eternity Bible College where I gained a heart for full-time ministry and met my wife, Natalie. After I graduated we got married and moved to Iowa. For 10 years we directed a Bible Camp and used our creative gifts of art and music to tell the story of the gospel. We started Jr. High and High School youth groups, an after school program for elementary kids, planted a church and led worship together at the church. I spent many of those years designing and building a few of the buildings on the camp, including the church building and dining hall. We moved to Solvang in January 2019 and since then have given our whole hearts to serving the people of the Santa Ynez Valley through discipleship, evangelism, prayer, worship and hospitality, and good food!
Pastor of Worship & Discipleship
I'm originally from Nuevo, CA, a small town in Riverside County, but my wife Chloe and I have lived all over the country! After attending Azusa Pacific University, I moved up to Santa Barbara, married Chloe, and we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky so that I could attend Asbury Theological Seminary. Around the time I graduated, we moved to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and then came back to Santa Barbara at the end of 2020! Whew!
I grew up attending a small, tight-knit youth group, but it wasn't until I was 20 that I surrendered my life to Jesus. It was a few years later that I heard the call to become a pastor and started seminary. I have always loved student ministry: I spent several summers working at Forest Home and chose many youth placements during my seminary experience. I have been on VCF staff now for almost 4 years and have loved being able to connect with the students of the Valley through laughter, fun adventures, and studying scripture together. Chloe and I hope to share the love of Jesus with these students and provide a safe place for them to explore their faith.
Director of Special Projects
My whole life God has put on my heart the need to help others. I was blessed to help those affected by disaster for 35 years by working for the American Red Cross where I was able to help those who had lost everything. Upon leaving Red Cross, God brought me to work for VCF as the Director of Special Projects. I married my incredible husband in 1990 and love him more every day.
My passion is to help those who are struggling in life and come alongside them and support, pray and encourage them. I have been blessed to do missions in several countries through different churches and to help those who have less than we do.
Media/Admin Coordinator
I have lived in the Santa Ynez Valley my entire life and have spent most of it in this wonderful community. I did not grow up in a believing home, but I came to know Jesus as my Savior after being invited to a church service at VCF just before my first year of high school. God used the incredible community at this church to help me connect with both Paradigm (our high school youth group) and one of our Life Groups.
After spending months learning about the Christian faith and discovering who God is, my eyes were opened to an incredible reality: our faith is not limited to knowledge about God. Rather, God invites us into a personal relationship with Him.
I am excited to follow Jesus and use the gifts He has given me to bless and encourage our church family through my role in media and administration.
Our Elders
I grew up in rural Iowa. Jesus became my Lord and Savior when I was 5 years old and I've continued to grow in my knowledge and love for God throughout my life. In 2004 I moved to Southern California to attend Eternity Bible College where I gained a heart for full-time ministry and met my wife, Natalie. After I graduated we got married and moved to Iowa. For 10 years we directed a Bible Camp and used our creative gifts of art and music to tell the story of the gospel. We started Jr. High and High School youth groups, an after school program for elementary kids, planted a church and led worship together at the church. I spent many of those years designing and building a few of the buildings on the camp, including the church building and dining hall. We moved to Solvang in January 2019 and since then have given our whole hearts to serving the people of the Santa Ynez Valley through discipleship, evangelism, prayer, worship and hospitality and good food!
I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mother was faithful to go to church every Sunday and my siblings and I went with her. It was important to her that we attend church. During my younger years I developed a lot of “head” knowledge about God, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I was challenged to give my life to Christ.
God had plans for me over the years as he provided me with a wonderful wife, Pam, and two precious daughters, Sara and Rebekah. We have had great opportunities over the years to live all over the United States and have attended several Bible-believing churches where we were active. Pam and I have been involved in several ministries including youth, college/career, young parents, music, missions, and small group Bible studies.
God brought us to SYVCF in 2018 and we immediately fell in love with the Bible-teaching church, where there was so much energy and Christ was proclaimed! Both of us are now retired and God continues to guide us and open doors where we can minister.
I grew up in Goleta, CA, back when it was a quiet, sleepy bedroom community. After graduating from high school, I attended Santa Barbara City College and later transferred to UCSB. It was during college that I met my wife, Nicole. In May 2023, we celebrated 30 years of marriage. We have two adult children, Tanner and Sydney, both of whom are now married.
Our family joined Valley Christian Fellowship in 2012 when we moved to the Santa Ynez Valley. The church has been a tremendous blessing — rejoicing with us in times of celebration and standing firmly beside us through trials. I deeply value its solid, Bible-based teaching, strong emphasis on youth ministry, and unwavering commitment to supporting missions around the world.
I was raised in the church as a child, with a firm foundation in Christ. However, for many years, I chose to walk away from my faith, following the ways of the world rather than the ways of Christ. Those were difficult times. Like the Prodigal Son, I eventually found my way back to the Lord, and He received me with open arms.
At the age of 31, I made a conscious decision to lay my sins at the foot of the cross. It was a life-altering moment — one that set me free to become the man God designed me to be. Today, I am called to minister to those on the fringes of society. Since 2017, Nicole and I have led Set Free, a recovery ministry. I am also actively involved in Kairos, a prison ministry serving inmates at the Federal Correctional Complex in Lompoc, CA.
Whether you are a lifelong believer or just beginning your journey with Christ, it would be my honor to welcome you to Valley Christian Fellowship, where together, we are living the great adventure as a unified body.
Byranie and I were married in Colorado in Jan 2000 and have been on an adventure ever since. Part of that adventure has been ushering our 3 children into young adulthood. We believe God is real, we believe He wants to relate to us, we believe he did this through using something we all know and value: language, and we believe he used our senses - what we can see and feel - by coming in the form of the man Jesus Christ to be an example for us.
At university and prior to meeting Byranie, a desire for purpose and meaning led to an exploration of who God might be, and ultimately to the discovery that the resurrection of Christ was real. This, some might say, ruined my life. Suddenly the calling of God on my thought life and actions — a calling largely articulated by Christ's sermon on the mount and John 15-17 — became evident and everything changed.
It's amazing to look back and see how much we've learned, and yet part of the discovery is how much we have yet to learn. Our journey brought us to Santa Ynez Valley in 2013 and God has enriched us through the fellowship of other people trying to simply understand what it means to live a life Jesus would live if Jesus were us. One thing has not changed: God is real, He is not silent, and he pursues us.
I grew up in Pullman, WA, and met my wife, Debbie, at UCLA, where I was a member of the tennis team. Debbie and I have been married for 45 years and have two adult children, Matt and Adam, as well as one granddaughter, Kaia. They all live in Orange County.
Throughout my life, I have been part of various churches, but my faith took deeper root a couple of decades ago at Mariners Church in Irvine. During that time, God placed 1 Corinthians 9:25 on my heart: "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." This verse led me to join a home group, then lead one for over a decade, serve as an Elder at Mariners Church, and participate in numerous outreach efforts both locally and globally.
Currently, I serve as an area host for The National Bible Bee for children. I also wrote a Christian curriculum for a program that Debbie and I developed, helping children understand horses and build trust with them. We have since expanded this program to orphanages in Guatemala and Brazil. Looking ahead, I am excited to partner with a friend, a pastor in Orange County, to build churches in India.
Pastor Casey, along with all of the Elders, has a deep love for the Word of God. We pray that VCF will be a church where you continue to grow in your apprenticeship to Christ.
I grew up in Palos Verdes California in the 80s and 90s. I became a believer as a teenager and I moved to Santa Barbara in 1997 to attend UCSB. Throughout my college career I was heavily involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, so much so that my first job after college was as a part time Campus Minister with that organization. I later continued my education at Musician’s Institute in Hollywood CA. After graduation I married my wife Katie and we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this year in May of 2026. We have two teenagers who are currently in high school.
Our family joined Valley Christian fellowship in 2015 after moving from Goleta to the Santa Ynez Valley. We continue to be blessed by this community that genuinely follows Christ. We see God moving in this church each week through sound expository bible teaching and through sincere and meaningful fellowship in our homegroup bible study.
I have been involved with the worship music ministry at VCF since we first started attending here. Praising the Lord joyfully and genuinely has always been a core passion of mine and I’m excited to continue to serve in this aspect of our church’s ministry as an Elder.
My faith has been able to flourish because of several people who gave their time to disciple me over the years in the way that I should go. I am immensely grateful for how the Lord used that and for the fact that discipleship is a core part of the ministry at VCF. I’m excited to see what God will do in there years to come!
I grew up in Orange County and first moved to the Central Coast to attend Santa Barbara City College before transferring to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where I graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree in 2001. I moved back to Santa Barbara to start my engineering career, which is also where I met my wife, Shiva. After we were married in 2007, we welcomed our son and moved to the Valley. Following the birth of our daughter our family began attending Valley Christian Fellowship in late 2011.
I was raised in a Christian home and went to church every week, but I didn't develop a personal relationship with God until later in life. After trying to live life on my own in and after college, I realized I couldn’t do it! I fully submitted my life to Christ in 2006 and was baptized alongside Shiva in the ocean at Goleta Beach.
Home group Bible studies have been an anchor for my walk with Christ. It started with an incredible young marrieds home group in Santa Barbara that fundamentally shaped me as a Christian man and developed friendships that have stuck by me through all of life's ups and downs. That same theme has carried through to our time at VCF, where I've had the privilege of sharing life and growing alongside so many amazing people in different home groups.
Currently, I serve on the VCF Missions Committee, lead a home group, and help teach Sunday School for our middle schoolers. I love jumping in wherever my skills can meet a need in the church.
My hope is that VCF continues to be a place of community and service. I pray that each person who walks through our doors discovers the incredible joy of using their unique, God-given gifts to love and serve the person sitting next to them.
