About Us

The idea for a sacred music imprint came to the mind of Ashton Harat in mid-2020, during the midst of the Coronavirus shut-down (or Q). With plenty of time on his hands, he had more time to devote to music, and he began planning many projects and ideas that eventually became Valleybrook.

Originally, the name was “A Brook in the Valley Music,” but since that name is horrendously difficult to say in almost every possible scenario, it was shortened to “Valleybrook.” The name comes from a specific passage of scripture.

2 Chronicles 20:16
To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel.

Ashton’s church—Jeruel Baptist—is named from this verse. The word “Jeruel” means “founded of God,” and brings to mind the truth that God will fight for me. The surrounding events are the context of King Jehoshaphat going out to fight the enemies of Jerusalem, and what does he find in the valley of Jeruel? His enemies are fighting each other. The event is a wonderful miracle, and the surrounding terrain—a valley or wilderness, at the end of a brook—was the inspiration for the name.

The practical beginnings of Valleybrook were in the final months of 2020. Ashton’s first hymn, “O Lord, Hear My Cry,” was written in early October, and many more hymns soon followed. 2021 was exceptionally productive hymn-wise, and in the later part of 2021, Ashton began to write piano arrangements and orchestrations. Choral writing followed in 2022. With a great deal of product and free content prepared and with lots of helpful ideas and encouragement from Josh Swieringa, Ashton launched the website in the spring of 2023.

Our plans for the future include choral octavos, a piano solo collection, and monthly church music resources to help the local church thrive in the area of music. Stay tuned for updates on these and other exciting projects in 2023!

Here at Valleybrook we have two main objectives: (1) to encourage creativity and beauty in sacred music, and (2) to equip the local church with the resources needed for an effective music ministry. In everything we create, we try to be artistic, doctrinal, and accessible.

Artistic.

Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy!
(Psalm 33:3 BSB)

God has made us in His image—the imago Dei—and as such, we have the capacity to be creative. And when we create music which is orderly and beautiful, we are glorifying God in an incredible way. We desire to praise our Creator with music that is excellent.

Doctrinal.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
(Colossians 3:16)

We have seen in the last few decades a decline in music with solid Christian substance, lofty majestic beauty and deep biblical truth. But over the last few years, this has started to change, with many songwriters emerging on the scene with a desire to sing songs that are truly worshipful. This can only be achieved when our emotions towards God are influenced and governed by the knowledge of who God is and what He has done. As such, we desire our music to be rich in the solid, deep truth of scripture.

Accessible.

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.
(I Corinthians 12:11)

In past decades, the ubiquity of musical education and slower pace of living made it easy for churches to devote large amounts of time to music, and to performing and ministering using music which could be considered quite complex. Today, the number of people willing or able to serve in music ministry—with negligible exception—has decreased drastically, often forcing all but the largest churches to either settle for mediocre music, or worse—do little or nothing in this area. We are dedicated to providing solutions to this problem. Our passion for equipping the local church is the impetus to produce music and resources which are both artistic and accessible.

For His Glory!

In all this, our greatest desire is to glorify God. We believe that if we as Christians start out with this as our objective, most everything else will fall into place naturally. Soli Deo Gloria!

Here at Valleybrook, our passion is to create music and resources to benefit the local church. As we move forward into the future, we’re excited to see what the Lord will do through our efforts.

One of the huge things we see as a problem in today’s church is the lack of solid, new hymns for worship. With the rise of contemporary music styles in the church has come the loss of doctrinal truth and deep, majestic beauty in our music. While there are many other organizations helping to fill this gap, our songs more often tend towards testimony, exhortation, and corporate response—something which in an overall sense doesn’t seem to be common in good hymns today. Many of our hymns were written specifically for our church families. As such, they often have a very personal feeling. We hope our hymns can be used to challenge and edify more people as we strive to be deep and doctrinal in our writing.

The struggles to have a music ministry in the average-sized church have never been greater than now. The number of people willing or able to serve in this area seems to dwindle more and more, and many churches are forced to settle for much less than they would desire to do in the area of music. Our vision is to supply the church with flexible, accessible resources to help them have an effective music ministry, no matter how small.

In the near future, we’re excited to produce periodical releases of new music and resources that will supply the local church with an effective and accessible means for music ministry. This will include new hymns, choral and ensemble arrangements, graphics, thematic ideas, demo recordings, and more. On our YouTube channel—ValleybrookTV—we’ll be adding videos on all different subjects that will help and encourage you as you serve in this area.

Along with this desire to help church leadership as they serve, we also want to be a blessing to others—people who may not be in positions of ministry, but desire resources to help them grow in their daily walk with the Lord. To this end, we’re looking to the future for projects such as songbooks, albums, and even hymn-based devotionals. We want you to stay up to date with all our future releases, so please subscribe so you can stay in the loop!

We’re thrilled to have you along as we begin this journey, and we’re so excited to see what the Lord has in store!

This organization is one of Fundamental Baptist theology. Our first foundation and our final standard is the Bible—inspired, inerrant, complete.

We Believe:

• In God—Elohim, Jehovah—the great I AM, Who is the infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent Creator God, Creator of all things in this world and all worlds; self-existent in eternity past and future, before time, and in the time to be, after time; in His triune character, of existing as One being comprised of three Persons, namely:
• The Father, the head and Creator of all;
• The Son, begotten of—not created by—the Father: the Word and the Light of the World, coequal and coeternal with the Father; and
• The Spirit, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, a true Person, not merely a force of power, and equally worthy of glory as the other members of this Trinity.
• That God—Father, Son, Spirit—spoke the universe into being; merely by the power of His voice, all in the conceivable cosmos was created.
• That He created all the animals and plants after their kind.
• That He created Man, fashioned from dust, in His Image, after His likeness, and from this first man took a rib and made a woman. These were the first humans in history, made in fullness of physical maturity by the hand of God.
• These, the first of the Human Race, rebelled against God’s authority, and thus a curse was placed on mankind.
• That when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, fully Man, wholly God, to be born on the Earth.
• That when He was near 30 years of age, He was crucified, spilling His perfect, sinless, human blood to redeem all of Adam’s race—past, present, and future.
• That three days after, He arose—as was prophesied—defeating death and reversing the curse of sin.
• That 40 days after He ascended into Heaven, leaving His followers to spread the news of His salvation, and is now on the right hand of God, interceding for those who are called by His name.
• That all who call upon the name of the Lord, repent of their condemning sins before God, and accept Christ’s death as the only way of atonement, will receive life—everlasting, eternal, and abundant.

For more on our theology, see this creed.

Solo Dei Gratia!