White Oak Presbyterian Church is a reformed body of believers seeking to glorify the LORD Jesus Christ in every area of life. We are a member of the Presbyterian Church in America, a conservative Bible believing denomination. We accept the Scripture as the only infallible Word of God and the Westminster Confession and catechisms as a clear statement of what the Scripture teaches. We have a Book of Church Order of the PCA as an operational and procedural guide for the functioning of the local church, presbytery, and general assembly.
White Oak is located in a beautiful rural setting. We are between Wilson, Smithfield, and Goldsboro, North Carolina. Our attendance is about 55, consisting of families who live in the local community as well as those who commute some 40 plus minutes from the surrounding area. We have a fellowship dinner each week following the worship service, which many families attend regularly.
We are a congregation that take God's word seriously and believes our weekly coming together is for the purpose of worshipping our triune God. Though we believe evangelism is the duty of all believers, we believe our worship is to be God centered and not for the primary purpose of reaching the lost. It is our coming for an audience with God and only in the manner in which God Himself has commanded. Because we are covenantal in our theology we emphasize family solidarity in corporate worship. Our form of worship would be considered traditional in that we sing hymns and Psalms, offer prayers, read Scripture, and preach with our focus on God as He has declared Himself in His Word.
We believe in the plurality of elders, and that God has ordained that only men rule in the Church. We do not believe that women are somehow less intelligent or skillful, but rather that God ordained Adam,the first man, to be a type of Christ representing man in creation as Jesus Christ is our representative in His Church. In the family and Church God has established the man as a type of Christ, as He is the head, while the woman is the type of the Church, which is the bride of Christ.
Our pastor Gene Thompson is a native of Savannah, GA, and a graduate of Bob Jones University and Reformed Theological Seminary. He was ordained as a PCA minister in 1982 and has served churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, and California. His wife is a native of Monmouth, OR, and they have four children.
