meet bryan mcwhite << previous page
mcwhite family

Family: I've been married to my best friend, Leslie, for the eight best years of my life. We have a two 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); Ph.D. in Theological Studies/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, hiking, backpacking, canoeing, snowshoeing and just about anything else outdoors. I've also been training for the Twin Cities Marathon this year and plan to finish or die (or maybe both). I've also been known to frequent Facebook.

Scripture: I'm not really into the whole "life verse" thing because 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 Acts of the Apostles to teach me a lot about the life and work of the Holy Spirit in and through the church as it works to spread the gospel and expand the Kingdom.

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"), 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. N.T. Wright is very good at challenging me to reexamine everything I thought I knew, even if I end up largely disagreeing with him! 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.