Willow Creek Weekend Podcast

Yes, God’s will for your life is much bigger than you could imagine! God wants to use YOU to help heal, restore, and redeem the world. You can change the world in partnership with God’s work in your life. But how? We finish up the last week in our Divine Dreams series by looking at Joseph in the Bible, in Genesis 50 and Romans 8:28, and learning how he was used by God to reconcile his family and p...

Temptation is all around us, testing our character and will. Temptation also affected Joseph in the Bible. When faced with temptations such as seduction by Potiphar’s wife, a weak work ethic, and revenge on his despicable brothers, Joseph leans into his faith and resists, choosing instead to show kindness and keep his integrity. Pastor Dave explores the story of Joseph in the Bible through Genesis...

How do you hold onto your life’s dreams and persevere through tough times when others threaten to derail them or even actively hurt you? The story of Joseph in the Bible deals with his struggles with a highly dysfunctional family and the ways in which they harm him (Genesis 37–40) when they dislike his big dreams for life. Joseph holds onto hope through his faith, knowing he will ultimately achiev...

Many of us wonder: what is my life’s purpose? We have big dreams, but do they match God’s will for our lives? And what happens when obstacles get in the way of our dreams? Remember when you were a kid, and you wanted to be an actor, a firefighter, or a marine biologist, but life got in the way, reality hit, and your big dreams fell by the wayside? Life has a way of presenting challenges that seem...

It’s a new year; we’re all thinking about what we want to do and achieve in the next 12 months. Do you want to hit the gym, read those books you’ve had on your shelf for ages, or pick up a new hobby?  How about rest? Could resting well be a part of what you want to achieve this year? It’s different, sure! But God Himself takes a rest, and if He can, surely we should too! God tells us to take a sab...

Once you make a decision to follow Jesus, you’re told to go out and evangelize to everyone you know; and all those you don’t know too. Ooof, that sounds scary, right? What does evangelism really mean? We’ve all seen the guy standing on the street corner yelling at everyone to repent. But that’s not what the Bible tells us about evangelism. Is evangelism a value we should be embracing? Yes!  Pastor...

The biblical Christmas story is one of peace and hope, but only if you see Jesus for who He really is.  When Jesus, the King of Kings,  was born, King Herod felt intimidated and tried to eliminate the threat to his kingdom. What’s your response to Jesus? You can ignore Him, feel threatened by Him, or choose to follow and experience the wholeness He has to offer. This Christmas, experience a relati...

If you ever felt like you didn’t fit into church or God wasn’t for you, you aren’t alone. The shepherds in the Bible were the first to hear the news of the birth of Jesus. The “lowly” shepherds, as they’re sometimes referred to, were not important, high-powered people. Had Jesus been born in a castle or fortress, He would only be accessible to a select few. Instead, He was born in a stable, so eve...

In week 2 of our Christmas series, we look at how we can focus on the goodness of God in the busyness of the season or the chaos of our lives.  Jesus’ birth came at a most inconvenient time—or so Mary thought. Right before the birth of Jesus, His parents, Mary and Joseph, had to journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and by the time they arrived, there was no place for them to stay. Instead, a perfec...

  Christmas is an exciting time of year, filled with food, lights, traditions, connection, and gifts. But in the midst of the holiday season, we can forget that Jesus is God’s gift to us, and He offers us many gifts, too: peace, strength, companionship and direction. It’s easy to become fixated on the gifts, forgetting about the Giver.  What happens when we desire Jesus’ gifts more than Jesus Hims...

Here comes the fruit of the spirit some of us really don’t want to talk about: ‘self-control’.  Why is self-control sometimes so hard? And what benefits can we draw from this fruit of the spirit to help our own lives and those of others? The Holy Spirit can help empower us to be masters over our own desires and destructive impulsivity. Pastor Dave concludes our series on the fruit of the spirit!

The Holy Spirit, using the fruit of the spirit called ‘faithfulness’  equips and empowers us to become trustworthy users of our thoughts, time, energy, and resources. By being faithful, we can most effectively use all of those things at our disposal to reflect the love of God in our embattled world.

Gentleness is a fruit of the spirit that we think we get, right? But how exactly can our being gentle, or using gentleness, bring us closer to living our lives like Jesus? And doesn’t that just make us weak? Through the Holy Spirit, we’re empowered to live lives of humility, using our power, strength, and influence to benefit others. Does that sound like gentleness? Pastor Dave explains.

Which fruit of the spirit is probably the hardest to understand or define? Could it be ‘goodness’? We know what it means to be a good kid, or a generally good person, but ‘goodness’ feels a little more intangible. And it’s not just about doing a good deed, or being good natured. As Pastor Shawn explains this week, the Holy Spirit empowers us to live lives of goodness by living lives of integrity.

Let’s look at the fruit of the spirit known as kindness. Why is kindness important as a fruit of the spirit? Because the kindness of God is an incredibly powerful force against injustice and cruelty. And when our world feels so full of injustice, we can work to restore the brokenness with our kindness.

As we continue to explore the fruit of the spirit, in this week’s teaching we learn about peace.  There are plenty of Bible verses about peace, but it's not just about having our own peace of mind; it’s about enjoying the peace of God that allows us to live fully at peace in a broken world.

This week, Pastor Megan Marshman takes a look at the happiest-sounding fruit of the spirit: joy! Why is joy a trait of Jesus that we should be using regularly? Because the joy of God in our lives is strength against darkness. Ever hear the phrase “the joy of the Lord is my strength”? That’s what we’re talking about! Learn how to leverage God’s strength in your life everyday through the fruit of th...

Week 2 of our series and this week, Pastor Dave explores the fruit of the spirit “patience”. Patience, or forbearance as it’s sometimes referred to in the Bible, is something we could all do with in our daily, incredibly busy lives. When impatience threatens to destabilize our mental and emotional health, the Holy Spirit can help guide us in healthy ways to respond, through the fruit of the spirit...

In this series about the 9 fruits of the spirit in the Bible, we will be exploring what it means to live like Jesus, with the Holy Spirit as our guide.  We’ve been given 9 traits of Jesus that, when applied to our lives through the Holy Spirit, can help us live more like Him. Why? Because that’s what we’re called to do. The 9 “fruits of the spirit” reflect all the qualities we need to be more like...

Revelation 7 talks of every tribe and tongue worshiping God together in heaven. If Jesus prayed, “your Kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven,” we better get moving on that type of unity NOW! This week we enjoy a multi-lingual Spanish/English teaching from pastors Fabian and Dave about mode

This week Pastor Megan Marshman paints a picture of what heaven looks like both “up there” and down here, on earth. Where is heaven? Is heaven real? What is heaven like? The Bible reveals a lot about heaven; including what we can expect in heaven, and what we can do here to engage in heaven on earth.

We’re beginning an exciting new series on heaven with Pastor Megan Marshman, who takes us through passages referencing heaven in the Bible, Revelation 21 and John 4, to discover answers to a big question; What is heaven like? What does the Bible say about heaven? Quite a bit, it turns out! It can be nerve-wracking not knowing everything about what awaits us in the afterlife, but what the Bible say...

We wrap up our series around the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible, from Luke chapter 15. Learn how transformation, the ability to change your life, comes through the power of God.  What happens after we begin a relationship with God? It’s important to develop that relationship through regular rhythms of discipleship. Such as prayer, Bible study and worship. That leads us to real life transfo...

Does God love me? YES! He does! The most significant, life-transforming truth we can learn to receive, accept, and live in, is the truth that God loves us. He really loves us with an unending, unbreakable, unwavering love. Pastor Shawn takes us through Luke chapter 15, verse 21, and the story of the Prodigal Son that gives us insight into how much love for us God has!

It’s week 3 in our series, Finding You Way Back To God, and we’re talking about how to satisfy our soul-wrenching desires through relationship with God, looking at the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Just like the prodigal son’s father, God is full of compassion for you and actively wants to welcome you back into relation with Him when you’re needing help the most, no matter where you have b...