meet bryan mcwhite << previous page
mcwhite family

Family: I've been married to my best friend, Leslie, for the nine best years of my life. We have a three year-old son named Owen, a baby girl named Ruthie, and a knucklehead of a yellow lab named Caribou.

Education: B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College (2000); M.Div., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (2005); Th. M. in New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (currently).

Equipped for Service: The single greatest gift God has given me for this pastorate is a passion for his renown, to magnify the name of Jesus Christ for the joy of the people to whom I minister. God has blessed me with a deep love for his church, and with a passionate desire to build his people up in Christ by teaching his Word and inviting them into the story of what he's doing in the world.

Prepared for Service: My seminary experience at Trinity was a crucial part of my pastoral formation that gave me great tools needed to handle, teach and preach Scripture effectively and faithfully. But the most formative aspect of my ongoing preparation for ministry has been the time and wisdom that have been invested in me by the three faithful and exceedingly gifted senior pastors I have been under during the past 12 years.

Appreciation for NHC: I love the leadership of this church and their desire to reach this community with the gospel of the Kingdom. Too often churches are unwilling to evolve in order to become all things to all people in order that they might win some (1 Corinthians 9:22). I admire the elders for their vision and courage to lead this evolution for the sake of the progress of the Gospel. Leslie and I love this church and hope to be here until I preach my own funeral, climb in the box and shut the door behind me.
bryan mcwhite hiking

Free Time: I love spending all the time I can with my amazing bride and kids. With what's left over, I love reading and studying, training for my third marathon, backpacking, biking and just about anything else outdoors. I've also been known to frequent Facebook.

Scripture: I deeply desire to be formed by the entire counsel of God and it seems that God presses and shapes me with different texts all the time, depending on what facet of me he's working on at the moment (the project is endless). Lately he's been using the Sermon on the Mount to teach me a lot about the interior life of the disciple of Christ and the development of virtue through Spirit-led discipline.

Recommended Resources: Some of the authors who have had the greatest impact on me have been John Owen (especially "Communion with God" and "On the Mortification of Sin"), C.S. Lewis (especially "The Weight of Glory"), John Piper (especially "Desiring God," "The Pleasures of God," and "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ"), N.T. Wright (especially "Surprised By Hope" and "After You Believe"), Jerry Bridges (especially "The Pursuit of Holiness" and "The Discipline of Grace"), and Francis Chan ("Crazy Love" and "Forgotten God"). I also love just about anything by Jonathan Edwards, Henry Scougal, D.A. Carson, C.J. Mahaney, and Mark Driscoll. Monergism.com and Between Two Worlds are daily stops on the web for me, and I listen to almost every Leadership Interview Series audio 9 Marks produces.