Rev. Dave Valentine

Pastor Dave Valentine has over forty years of pastoral experience, focused mostly on teaching, preaching, and adult education.  Most of that experience has been as a bi-vocational pastor. That means his (paying) vocation was a professor of computer science while his (serving) vocation was pastoring in the local church. He is a part-time associate pastor at The Lake of the Woods Church, with an emphasis on Home Groups and preaching/teaching. 

Dave holds degrees from Clarkson University (computer engineering) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MDiv). His PhD is from the University of Buffalo where his dissertation was a study of the cross-cultural effectiveness of a computer-assisted instruction program he built to help teach the first semester of Koine Greek.  He reports the dissertation study was “the most fun he’s ever had in the classroom!”  

Dave brings an enthusiastic, humorous style to the pulpit- born of “keeping 18-year-olds awake in their 8am class.” The students and faculty of Slippery Rock University awarded him their “Teacher of the Year” for 2016-17. 

He has been married to Donna for half a century, and they have three grown kids, and two beautiful grandchildren.  Dave is an avid cabinet-maker and woodworker, and you will often find him in his happy place (the woodshop) “making sawdust”.