We’ve had an exciting start to the New Year here at White Oak! As 2024 wrapped up and led into 2025, we welcomed three new staff members to our team. We also kicked off a two-year season emphasizing spiritual formation which we pray sets a new and lasting culture for our church family.
We are excited for Erin Feiser to move from her former role on staff into the role of Formations Pastor. Erin is working to help us determine how, at White Oak, we help each other be spiritually formed into the likeness of Jesus. She will oversee programs such as groups ministries and begin her work on how we help one another move from attending church to becoming fully devoted apprentices to Jesus. We are also happy to introduce Christy Redford as our Executive Administrative Assistant. Christy has been a high-impact leader at White Oak for many years particularly in our Kid’s Ministry. It’s a great new addition to have her join our staff team, helping us to lead, organize, and execute ministry. Finally, I am happy to introduce to you Jeffrey Derico as our Executive Pastor. I have been working with our elders and staff for a year in determining the help we need to assist the staff in day-to-day ministry and what assistance is needed to come alongside them in executing their goals for mission impact. As Executive Pastor, Jeff will lead with me in guiding the staff while I will focus energy pastoring our staff, preaching and teaching, and directing the vision for White Oak’s impact in our city and around the world over the next 10 years! When you see Erin, Christy, and Jeff please welcome them!
Spiritual Formation: Being formed into the image of Jesus for the sake of others. This is a theme and desire we have for our church family. We kicked off our first sermon series of the year entitled Practicing The Way. We’ve gleaned much from our reading of John Mark Comer’s book with the same title. In John 14:6 Jesus says that he is the Way. We talk a lot about the call to believe in and follow Jesus—to put your trust and confidence in him to lead you to full life. This is good and fitting. However, it must also be said that Jesus believes in YOU. He wants to form you. He wants to transform you into his likeness more and more. He believes that you can become his apprentice. To follow Jesus is to become his apprentice and to organize your entire life around three driving goals: Be with Jesus, Become like him, and Do as he Did.
Comer goes on to say this: Following Jesus is NOT about doing MORE… but doing LESS. There is no formation without repetition. We simply can’t add Jesus to the top of our already overly busy, consumeristic, emotionally unhealthy, hyper-individualistic, digitally distracted, media-saturated, undisciplined modern life. That’s the whole point of learning under a master: you want them to disrupt how you live.
Jesus’s invitation was not to convert to a new religion called Christianity but to apprentice under him into the life of the kingdom of God. This is a costly decision. It’s a life-long process of deepening surrender. You have an invitation before you to become an apprentice of Jesus. What will you say?
Over the course of this year and next you’re going to notice an intentional focus at White Oak in our teaching, studies, programs, groups, and more. There is no problem in life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve. I want our White Oak family to know that transformation is possible if we are willing to arrange our lives around the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did which will open our lives to God’s power to change. We can be transformed if we are willing to apprentice ourselves to Jesus.
One critical disclaimer. If you’ve been in the Church for any length of time, you have a distinction you’ve probably made. We’re tempted to organize ministry into two categories: discipleship and evangelism. We define discipleship as spiritual formation. We define evangelism, then, as sharing the Gospel with others. Spiritual formation IS Gospel-sharing. We are formed for the sake of others! There is no evangelism without apprenticeship and there is no apprenticeship to Jesus without the emphatic call to share the Good News of Jesus with others.
And so, this is the journey we embark on together at White Oak. I am praying that you’ll join us!
Being formed,
Nathan
Nathan Hinkle
Lead Pastor