Pastor John Westerholm has been Senior Pastor at Valley Bible Church since January, 1990. He is a graduate Briercrest Bible Institute in Saskatchewan, Canada and of Trinity International University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Il. John has been in pastoral ministry since June 1975 previously serving EFCA churches in Chicago and Nebraska.

Pastor John's passion is to let loose the Word of God to impact people's lives as we all grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. He is the primary preacher/teacher here at Valley. He was involved in beginning the discipleship groups that the Lord has powerfully used to impact all we do here at Valley. He traveled overseas to Thailand three times from 2000 to 2002 to teach church planting pastors and evangelists from the Lahu tribal group of Northern Thailand. He has also traveled three times to Mongolia in 2003 - 2005 to teach leaders in an EFCA work there. John's vision is to see the message of the Gospel spread from Valley Bible Church to the entire Connecticut Valley and on to "the ends of the earth."

John and his wife Linda have been married to each other since 1971 and have two grown sons. Matthew lives in Elgin, IL and is Worship Pastor and key piano player at Harvest Bible Chapel. He is married to Lisa. Matthew and Lisa presented John and Linda with their first grandchild, Ethan John, born May, 2002 and their second, Owen Samuel, born August, 2004. Joshua is a graduate of Northwestern University Law School. He is employed as an attorney with Sidley, Austin, Brown and Wood in downtown Chicago and also serves on the worship team at Harvest as a guitar player. He will be married to Dr. Mary LaMonica in Chicago in December 2005.

John's favorite ice cream flavor is peppermint stick and if you ever want him to join you in a round or two of golf, he is more than willing. He is also a sports fan. Some think he is a little crazy about the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Celtics, the Nebraska Cornhusker football team and UCONN basketball, men or women.