Ryan Vallee

Pas­tor of Com­munity Development 

Ryan Vallee

Ryan grew up in the Pacific North­w­est and is a duel cit­izen of both the United States and Canada. Although always hav­ing been act­ive in the church, at the age of 17 he began to feel God’s lead­ing into voca­tional min­istry as he began to ser­i­ously engage with the Bible. As a pas­sion for Christ developed he began to feel a deep sense com­pas­sion for the world. Desir­ing to be an able ser­vant, he has stud­ied both psy­cho­logy (BA: WWU), theo­logy (MSC: Regent Col­lege) and began pas­toral min­istry in 2003. Since that time he has led hun­dreds of people into Mex­ico to work with the poor, and has helped develop many pro­grams to be “in the com­munity for the com­munity” in his home town of Bur­l­ing­ton, Wash­ing­ton. This has ranged from addic­tion sup­port groups to devel­op­ing a giant fam­ily play cen­ter inside the church build­ing. Thou­sands out­side the church com­munity gathered each week to play, rela­tion­ships with church staff mem­bers developed and many came to know Jesus as a result. 

While at Regent Col­lege, Ryan became close friends with Dave and Nikki Ben­son. Even though Ryan and Dave didn’t know how it might hap­pen, they both felt that one day they would be work­ing together. While vis­it­ing Dave here in Bris­bane in Octo­ber of 2009, the oppor­tun­ity provid­en­tially arrived in the pos­i­tion of pas­tor of com­munity devel­op­ment. In April of 2010 Ryan arrived from Van­couver B.C. to offi­cially join the KBC com­munity and senior lead­er­ship team.

Ryan believes that the goal of our Chris­tian com­munity is to become a part of the people of God, and in our life together reflect God’s char­ac­ter to the world we live in. In the com­munity at large this means seek­ing answers to the ques­tion of what the king­dom might look like in our neigh­bor­hoods, work­places, and every­day encoun­ters. Work­ing together as the gathered people of God, Ryan believes the “good news” of Jesus will be more effect­ively heard and more clearly under­stood as the good news it is. Ryan enjoys hik­ing, drum­ming, run­ning, lattes, travel, ham­mocks, read­ing, and motorcycling.