This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersprings, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owlinson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 20 in a series on the Gospel of John. This message is taken from John, chapter 9, verses 13-41, and is titled Dealing with Jesus. Two approaches to a larger than life figure. Now here's Pete with today's message. Well it's August. August 10th toward the end of the summer. And by the way, if you have your Bibles, take them in turn to John 9 because even though it's toward the end of the summer, we're still studying in the book of John. Have been for months, will be until Jesus Christ comes back again to assume his proper visible leadership honor. This is a great book, and so we're still studying in that book. But you know August, next week's school starts. Everybody's happy about that. The kids, the students are especially happy about that. The teachers are camp weight looking forward to that. And well, August always reminds me of summer camp because I spent all summer at summer camp in the mountains, Boy Scout camp, and this email that my friend, Clemer, sent me reminds me about people who like to camp, but also people who are a little bit outside the box. And I'm going to read you this story of a letter from a Scout to his mother, but I want first of all to ask you this. How do you deal with people who are outside your box who are not as normal as you are? How do you deal with those kinds of people? We'll get back to that. But listen to this letter from summer camp. Dear Mom, Scout Master Webb told us to write our parents in case you heard about the flood. And got worried. We're all okay. Only one of our tents and two of our sleeping bags got washed away. Nobody drowned because we were all on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Oh yeah, please call Chad's mother until he's okay. He can't write her because of the cast on his arm. I got to write in one of the search and rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't had been for all the lightning. Scout Master Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire. So he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up. It was so cool. The wet wood still wouldn't burn, but one of the tents did and some of our clothes. Johnny is going to look weird until his hair grows back. We'll be home Saturday of Scout Master Webb gets the car fixed. Wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked when we left, but he said with a car that old, you have to expect something to break down. That's probably why you can't get insurance. We think it's a really neat car though. He didn't care if we get it dirty. If it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with 15 people in the car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and yelled at him. This morning all of the guys were diving off of the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scout Master Webb wouldn't let me because I can't swim. Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast. So he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You could still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scout Master Webb isn't crabby like other Scout Masters. He didn't even get mad about us leaving the life jackets behind. He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we're trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We passed our first aid merit badges. When Dave dove into the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw up. Scout Master Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. He said they got sick like that with the food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our Scout Master. He said he figured out how to do things better while he was doing time. I have to go now. We're just going to go into town to mail this and buy some bullets and more gasoline. Don't worry about anything. We're doing just fine. Doing just fine. The mothers are horrified. The dads are saying, yeah, that's the way it was when I was young and that's cool. And the boys are going, what's wrong with that? That was great. But this Scout Master was definitely outside the box. I mean even of the Scout Masters, I knew growing up and I knew a Scout Master Webb. What do you do with that question? What do you do with people who are outside your box who don't relate the way you relate? Aren't you glad you are normal? Because there's so many people that are not normal out there. Aren't you glad you are? By the way, I learned a long time ago, and this sent me free in life, that there is no such thing as true normalcy. You come to church, you look around and you say, I wish my life was normal like they are normal. They're not normal. I found that out. I found out there's no such thing as normalcy, that the people you think are normal once you really get to know them, you go, now that's not exactly what I call normal, mostly normal, but not totally normal. That's a real abnormal. Right? That will set you free when you understand that there's no true one exact perfect way to be human. And there's a lot of weird people in here, and I love you, and God loves you. But normalcy, how do you deal with the non-normal people? We're going to look at a text today that really shows how people related to Jesus, because Jesus was not normal. He was not normal according to first-century culture. He was outside the box completely when it came to how the Pharisees had constructed first-century Jewish culture. And by the way, some of us like to criticize the Pharisees, and I do, it's one of my favorite things, as Steve Brown has often said, I'm quite self-righteous when it comes to the Pharisees. I love to poke fun at self-righteous people. And yet you need to understand this. The Pharisees were the prevailing popular spiritual leaders in the first century in Israel. They were the cool guys. It was the Sadducees who were the cultural elite, the Hati Tati. It was the Pharisees who were the popular pastors. They set the culture, and they did like Jesus very much, because Jesus was way outside their box. So what we're going to do this morning is we're going to look in John chapter 9 at how people related, how the Pharisees related to Jesus, and in so doing, what we're also going to see is how we relate to people. There's two major ways that you can relate to people. And so we're going to learn a little bit about our style of relating, as we see how they related to Jesus. Hopefully we'll be set free to grow more and more in our relationships, and even in how we understand Jesus by the time we're done today. John 9, 13 through 41, is our text. Now you may remember that last week we looked at John 9, 1 through 12, where we saw that there was a man who was healed. Do you remember how he was healed? He was the man born blind. He was the man born blind, and Jesus healed this guy from being born blind, and so he had total sight. Now this encounter, it comes right after that. This is God's holy word. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. I love that past tense. The man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He put mud on my eyes, the man replied, and I watched, and now I see. Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others asked, how can a sinner do such miraculous signs? So they were divided about Jesus. Finally they turned again to the blind man. What do you have to say about him? It was your eyes. He opened the man replied. He's a prophet. The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. Is this your son? They asked him, is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that he now can see? Oh, we know he's our son, the parents answered. We know he was born blind, but how he can see now or who opened his eyes? We don't know. Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue that is excommunicated. Can you imagine? If somebody said to you, you are no longer an American citizen. You no longer have any part or right in voting or in America, you are excluded from American culture. You are persona non grata. You are not an American anymore. Now if we said that here in the church, you can't be a member of this church anymore. You just go find out a church. To say to these people, they were going to excommunicate them from Israel was to cut them off from God. Their culture. To cut them off from everything that they had known. Now this was quite a threat and that's why his parents said, ask him. He is of age. Ask him. We are not making these decisions in his life anymore. A lot of parents are glad when that happens and kids get off the family payroll and move out and start making their own decisions. Well, a second time they summoned the man who had been blind. Give glory to God. They said, we know this man is a sinner. He replied, whether it's a sinner or not, I don't know one thing I do know. I was blind but now I see. Then they asked him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered, I told you already. And you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too? Oh man, this guy is bold. Then they hurled insults at him and said, you are this fellow's disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from. The man answered. Now this is remarkable. This is remarkable. Picture this. The first semester seminary student is now talking to the seminary PhDs. And he says, this is remarkable. You don't know where he comes from yet he opens my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to a godly man who does as well. Nobody has ever heard of opening eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. He's a prophet. I rest my case. To this they replied, they were not very happy. To this they replied, you are steeped in sin at birth. How dare you lecture us and they threw him out. They excommunicated him. These were really, really wise and nice people. Now Jesus, I know how Jesus sums up. Jesus heard that they had thrown him out and he found him. Jesus went looking for this guy because he was kind of torn up. He was excommunicated. He says, he said, do you believe in the Son of Man? When it comes to Jesus now, this man who had been blind is all ears. He looks at Jesus and he says, who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him. Jesus said, you have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you and the man said, Lord, I believe. I believe and he worshiped him. Jesus said, for judgment, I have come into this world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and ask, what are we blind to? Jesus said, if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin but now that you claim you can see your guilt remains. Those last two verses are very difficult. I didn't understand that before I studied this this week. I'll explain that later to you. But this shows how they related to Jesus. How did most people relate to Jesus in the first century with a confrontational approach? And that's how they dealt with Jesus and that's how Jesus got into all this trouble because they were relating to him on a confrontational level. And sometimes we relate to people with a confrontational approach. In other words, we have learned and honed the fine art of dealing with people in a confrontational mode. What's that like? There's three elements to confrontation. Some of you are masters at it and you know how it works. You know the book, winning by intimidation, you like that book and you've learned how to relate on a confrontational level. Well, there's three elements to it. The first element of relating confrontationally is that you have an assumption that the person you're talking to is a fraud based on a tipping point issue that they bring up. In other words, you relate to somebody and there's something that you hear in their life. You see in their speech or whatever it is. And immediately you discern that they have crossed the line. There's a tipping point issue that frustrates you so much. You look at these people as somebody to be antagonistic with. Now, the tipping point issue for the Pharisees was the Sabbath. Jesus healed on the Sabbath on the Lord's day, on the most holy day of the Jewish week. And they said that that was working and therefore Sabbath violation. Therefore you have to be a sinner. You are a champion. By the way, I checked. I read the Old Testament. There is no passage that says you cannot give sight to the blind on the Sabbath. In fact, can we talk? Don't you think that was a pretty good thing? Even my non-Christian friends, if they would allow that a miracle took place, would say, that's a pretty cool thing that Jesus did no matter when He did it. Jesus did not violate any Old Testament law whatsoever, but they said He did. And here's the work. The work was not spitting because I suppose you could spit on the Sabbath, but it was spitting into the mud, mixing it. Now, mixing, that's work. And then applying the mud to the eye and then actually doing the healing process, at least those three steps. Mixing, applying, and healing. By the way, I just got to be honest with you. This violates every one of my health standards that I could ever imagine. Jesus spitting in the mud, taking that and applying it to the eyes. Come on, are you kidding? Listen, if you're mad at me, come tell me, tell me you're mad, send me an email. Don't spit on me. That just grosses me out to the max. That's what Jesus did. Why do I write to his eyes? Outside the box. And therefore, there was an assumption that tipped them over. He worked. He must be a sinner. Notice that the Pharisees didn't sit down and say, Jesus, can we talk about your view of the Sabbath because we think you were working, you say you weren't, can we sit down and talk about this? Can you show us? Let's look down over Holy Torah. Unroll the scrolls and take a look at it. Where is written that you think you can, they didn't do that because they weren't interested in that was a tipping point issue. And you know what, there's an interesting thing here about our style of relating to with people is that oftentimes when we relate to people, they do something that just ticks us off. And if we'll stop and think about it, there's something in a tipping point there that makes us look at them as negative, we think they're frauds, we think they're sinners, we think they're really bad people. And as you notice, they didn't even care about this guy who was born blind and now you can see. Never once did one of the Pharisees say this is absolutely amazing. Tom Siders gave me a story about a little boy who was born blind sitting on a street corner with a sign that said, I'm blind, please help me. And there was a hat there and there was a few coins in the hat and the man came by, took his coins out of his pocket, put it in the hat, took the sign and scribbled something on it and gave it back to the little boy. And people started coming by and throughout the whole day, they were putting their coins and filling up this hat in the end of the day, there was all kinds of money in it. And the little boy at the end of the day heard these steps, it sounded familiar, just like the guy that came early in the morning. And he said, are you the one that took my sign and wrote on it? He said, yes, I am. And he said, well, what did you write on my sign? I've got all this money here and he said, well, I've only written the truth. But I phrased it in a different way. He said, what the man had written was, today is a beautiful day and I can't see it. And people were moved and gave to this blind little boy, compassion. You are compassionate people. Never ceases to amaze me how compassionate you are. Get the Pharisees could have cared less about that blind man, no compassion at all. And sometimes in our relationships, we get into confrontational approaches because somebody just ticks us off. And we relate to them without, well, with confrontation, which leads to the second element of the confrontational approach. And the second element of the confrontational approach is simply an unwillingness to give weight to the evidence of what people are saying or what people are doing. The Pharisees didn't even look at this blind man and say, you know, this guy is, they tried, they were looking at the evidence, but they were trying to manipulate the evidence. They weren't trying to understand it. They were trying to control the situation, not understand it. And so looking for ammunition, they turned to the formerly blind guy and said, what do you have to say about Jesus? And he looks at him and he says the only thing that he could say, he's a prophet. That was his highest category. He must be from God. Gotta be a prophet. That's the only thing I could say. And that was not what they wanted to hear. And it says verse 18, look at this, the Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight. They asked him, they had heard the news, so then they call his parents. And his parents come in. This is the parents. One day, some of you are thinking, my kids are little examples of eternity. They will be with me forever. No, they won't. They are grown up. And one day, they will be off the family payroll. One day, they will be making all decisions for themselves. One day, you won't have to make decisions for them. And this is, here's the Bible for that. It's right here. Because when they ask the Pharisee that these parents, and they say, who is this? Well, we know this is our son. We know he was born blind. How he could see now? We don't know. Ask him. He's of age. He'll speak for himself. That's so cool one day. You don't have to speak for your kids anymore. And his parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. Narotic religion. Narotic religion. Always setting up rules. These parents were afraid. They were going to be cut off and excommunicated. And so the second time they summoned the man and said to him, give glory to God. In other words, stop giving glory to Jesus. Would you stop talking about Jesus? Give glory to God. How can you see? And then they asked him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? Guys, there's so many things that I even can read medical journals on and I can understand, how do you heal somebody's eyes? He's asking this first century guy, okay, how did he do it? He says, I already told you the mechanics. In the most unhealthy way possible, he spit in the mud, mixed in mud. There were probably parasites and stuff wrapped up in that. I put it up in my eye and I still could see. The Jews didn't want to hear the evidence. That's how people related to Jesus. And you know what? Sometimes that's how we relate to one another. Because somebody has so offended us that they've gone over the line, we relate to it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. I know I've said that with my kids sometimes. I don't hear it. It's that. And we don't want the evidence. Why did you do that? There's no rationality. It's a very irrational. We don't want the evidence. We don't want to listen. And you know, we cannot hide our prejudices. We cannot hide our prejudices. The Pharisees couldn't hide there. We can't hide our own. They come out. It's kind of like when we don't clog the issues with the facts. You want to have a confrontational approach to people. You're not open to listening to what they actually had to say. Even the unchurch. The third element of the confrontational approach is the ad hominin argument. It's the attack the man argument that's so often seen in philosophy. Okay, so you can't. You don't care about the evidences. You're just mad at the person. So what do you do? You attack the person. You add hominin argument. You attack the man. Then they hurled insults at him. And he said, you are this fellow disciples. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't know where he's from. And then this lecture. I love this lecture. Now, that is remarkable, he says. The the Phariseical style relating to Jesus was so confrontational because it started out with a tipping point. It ticked off. Secondly, because they disagreed with them on an issue that they hadn't thought through it didn't talk with him about. Secondly, they were no longer interested in looking at the facts. And then thirdly, the relationship devolved toward merely attacking that person. You are the most selfish person I've ever met. You are so pigheaded. You never asked my opinion, you know, stuff like that really endears us by the way to people when we relate that way. But sometimes that's the way we come off. And it is destructive. It will keep us from the truth. It will destroy and destroy our life. The other way of relating is very simple. I call it the evidential approach. The evidential approach in the way of relating to people is where you are literally open to evidences. They say one thing and you listen. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by what you said in that way? What do you mean by that word? Why did you believe this? Why do you believe this? How did you get to that point? What is it that's going on in your life? The evidential approach says, my goodness, there do seem to be some evidences that Jesus actually healed this guy. The evidential approach says, you know, maybe I need to change my thinking about a situation or about a person or about some outcomes based on the evidences. Maybe I need to change. It's a much more humble approach. One, I always employ 100% of the time. And if you believe that, I'm rebuked by this passage too. But I love how Jesus relates to this guy. I love this. Jesus heard that they had thrown the formerly blind man out of the synagogue, excommunicated him, cutting him off from all of the blessings of Israel. And then he finds this guy. He tracks him down. He says, friend, do you believe in the son of man? And this guy is all eyes on Jesus. You know, when you've been healed by Jesus. And Jesus speaks your eyes are there. Your ears are open. You're listening to everything he said. But who is he, sir? Kurios, Lord, who is the son of man, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him. Jesus said, you have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you. The man said, Lord, I believe he worshiped. Jesus said, for judgment, I've come into this world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. As far as we know, this man who was healed was a very good Orthodox Jew. His parents loved Israel. They did everything right. And he wanted to be a good Orthodox Jew too. And then Jesus came in and turned his world upside down. Jesus did something so radically transformative in his life that he could do nothing but believe. And so, well, this man related to Jesus on the basis of evidences. And Jesus related to him on the basis of evidences. And he was willing to have a relationship because he saw the truth. I see people all the time that come to faith in Christ like this. They've been building their own life and messing it up. And then somehow Jesus comes in and interrupts their life. They were blind and Jesus comes in and says, let me show you a different way to live. Different way to relate. Their marriage blows up. Their kids go crazy. You know, whatever the situation is and somehow God gets into their life and they see the changes in their life. They're able to forgive. They're able to get over an addiction. They're able to move ahead in a particular way. They come to accept Jesus Christ as Savior. They've been blind. But now they can see. And based on that, there is real relationship with the living God of the universe and real change in their life. It's great. They see the evidences. And this is how I see people relating to people who violently differ with them and say, tell me how you got to that point. How could you be so mature and ask it that way? I want to say something like, you're a fruitcake. You're weird. There's a different way of relating. But the final part of this encounter is so good because the Pharisees overheard Jesus talking about blind inside. The Pharisees were blind who were with him heard him say this and they said, what are we blind to? These are Jesus very clear words. If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now that you claim you can see your guilt remains. Very clear, very understandable, right? Here's what it means. If you think you see all the truth, you have very little love it. But if you recognize you don't have the truth, you're on your way to getting more of it. You think you've met a know it all? A know it all knows it all. Therefore, when you find a know it all, you know that he doesn't know it all. You can't relate. How do we apply this? There's four applications real quick. I want to give you four real quick. For those of us as Christians right now, this is one way to relate to evaluate the way we relate to other people. How do we relate to other people with a confrontational approach or with a more evidential approach? Do we relate with a confrontational approach all of the time? Most of the time or some of the time, some of us do, some of the time relate simply in a confrontational way. That's the way it is. We're sinners, we've got to confess that. But this helps us. Maybe to see why some of our relationships aren't working out the way we want them to work out, because we're in a confrontational approach, we use words that are horrible toward each other. We attack each other. It's terrible. We don't listen to each other. We don't care. We have no compassion toward one another. You cannot build a marriage, you cannot build, you cannot parent kids. Kids, you cannot keep your relationship with your parents if you have a confrontational approach. With those three elements, it doesn't work. So it gives us the opportunity to understand that mature Christians, saved by grace, have the opportunity to move into freedom and away from a confrontational approach. So the question, how do you typically relate confrontationally or evidentially? The second application is this. For those of us who also are committed Christians, it's to realize that even though we are called to evangelism, not everybody is really willing to listen to you. You're trying to share the gospels. You know, we know we've got to give people the truth. And there are some people that just don't want to hear. You give them the truth over, you give them the gospel over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and you answer all their questions because you go to this church and you are very well taught, and you are very mature. And you answer all their questions, and they still won't believe I was talking to a friend the other day who was telling me that he had one of these kinds of situations going on, and his friend was just coming back at him about Jesus and asking all the questions, and he was answering them in a very good and mature way. And finally his friend got exasperated, and he said, listen, Tom, if I answer all your questions, will you become a Christian? He said, no, there's some people who don't want to hear. This is, what do you do? This is what Jesus did. He said, do not cast your pearls before the swine. Now, I caution you not to use that terminology in relation to those people. Say, you're a pig. No, I probably is not the best way to do it. Jesus got away with it. I don't suggest it. However, it illustrates the point that there are some people that we cannot convince. So what do you do? Love them, serve them, be in their life, give up the argumentation, then let the argumentation of your life transform them. That's better way. They realize some people are not open to truth. No matter what, don't badger them. The third application is sometimes we Christians default back into this is very important. Sometimes we Christians default back into a confrontational approach with God. We're living our life and something happens that ticks you off with God. He allows something to happen in your life. You lose your job. You have to sell your cars. You have to move to another city that you don't want to move to. Somebody dies that shouldn't have died in your estimation. Something happens and you begin to look at God and instead of being the father who sent a savior for you, he's the God who's opposed to you. He's always trying to get you. He's angry at you. I know this is because I've done this. You begin to say, God, you stepped over the line. That was it. We fail to see the evidences of God's mercy and his grace and the fact that he loves us every day and he's not mad at us. He poured out all his anger on Jesus on the cross. But we begin to think that God is angry at us and so we even start calling God names. We move into the confrontational approach with God. By the way, God can handle your names. When you call God names and you get angry at him, he can handle that. He's a big boy. He can handle that. As my Southern friends say, God does not get upset when we pitch a fit. When we have a tantrum and we go to God and we say, why did you allow? You ought to do that. You read Joe, you read some of the great biblical authors who followed God. They brought out their issues to God. But what God is concerned about is that what can happen is that if we move into that confrontational approach with God, we can lose the joy of our salvation. And some of you may be there right now. You feel God is your enemy. He's not his your father. And this is a good day to remember that, that you can get free from that confrontational approach with God and begin to enjoy being accepted. Listen, those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will rise up with wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. Yeah, that's true. When you recognize that he's not against you, but that he said his son for you and he's got a plan even for the difficulties of your situation. The last application is simply this. We have to speak to our friends that don't know Christ in a way that matters. But we can challenge them. And if you don't know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and you're here kind of kicking the tires wondering what Christians are like, what we believe. We want to challenge you in a loving friendly way to a challenge your own assumptions, those unexamined things like, for instance, there could be no miracles who says, and what's your evidence? Jesus could not have healed that blind man. Why not? And what evidence is there really that he did? And we encourage you to challenge your assumptions. You know what, we ought to relate to our friends and neighbors that way too. We ought to lovingly challenge their assumptions, not tell them that they're idiots and they're going to hell turn or burn. That's not the way to talk. Hell like to challenge your assumptions on that. What evidence can you marshal that this didn't happen? That the tomb wasn't empty. That Jesus is not who he said he was. You're not able to answer. Just start asking them for answers to the certions that they make that they probably have never examined and let's relate evidentially with each other. And with God and with those who don't know Christ, move from a confrontational approach to an evidential approach, your relationships go deeper, they have stain power and you can find truth from those non-normal people that you're around. And they can add to your life. Who knows? What God has in store for you and for me through those non-normal people around us. Take it to heart. If you have never ever come to the point of seeing that potentially Jesus Christ may be the truth that we'd love to talk to you about that. If you're open to it, if you're open to having your assumptions challenged, I assure you that we are open to having our assumptions challenged too. And we'd like to talk to you. I'd like to. And set up an appointment with somebody you know here in this church or me and let's talk about your view of Jesus and why maybe he is who he said he is. But let me ask you who are believers before you leave right now. If you are in a confrontational mode with God, do you want to stay there? I encourage you right now today you can walk away from that by remembering the cross and that Jesus went there for you, not to destroy your life but to build it and to set you free. You could pray something like this. Lord, I have been fighting you and today I realize you're not against me. So Lord, open my heart to see your goodness and may our relationship go deeper again because I remember your love and your grace for me. Lord, wherever we're at here are prayers. We come to you today to show the evidence of your power through Jesus, through your word and through your spirit, for we pray these things in your holy name. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.