White Oak Presbyterian Church In America

Sunday Services:
Sunday School - 9:45 AM
Worship Service - 10:55 AM
(Fellowship dinner following worship service)

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 40, 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 takes God's word seriously and believes our weekly coming together is for the purpose of worshiping 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, Georgia, 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, Oregon, and they have four children.

What We Believe
We are a creedal church, which means that we hold to or believe a particular standard, the Bible. The word "creed" means "I believe." When someone asks, "What do you believe?" he is asking, "What is your creed?" Further, when someone asks, "What do you believe about the Bible?" he is asking once again, "What is your creed?" As Presbyterians we maintain the Westminster Confession of Faith (1648) as our creed. It is what we believe the Bible teaches.

1. That man's chief end or purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. (Rom 11:31; I Cor 10:31; Ps 73:25-26)

2. That the Bible is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy Him. The Bible further teaches what man is to believe concerning
God, and what duty God requires of man. (Eph 2:20; I Tim 3:16; I Jn 1:3)

3. That all men have inherited a sinful nature from Adam and are all alike, sinners dead in their trespasses and sins. (Gen 6:5; Isa 64:6; Jer
3:23; Rm 3:10-18, 6:23, 8:5-8; I Cor 2:14)

4. That Christ has once for all redeemed His Church from her sins and from the wrath and judgment of the Father, by the cross. (Acts 20:28; I Pet
1:18-20; Eph 1:7-8, 5:25-27; Col 1:12-15; I Thess 1:1; II Tim 1:9)

5. That salvation is a supernatural work of the triune God, whereby His Spirit regenerates the dead sinner, making him alive to believe. Thus,
man does not believe to be born again, but rather he is born again to believe. Regeneration precedes faith. (Jn 3:1-8; Eph 1:17-19, 2:1-10;
Phil 1:6; Col 1:13; 2:13; II Tim 1:9)

6. That God commands man not only to believe, but also to submit to Him and His revealed word, the Scripture. (Acts 17:30; Phil 2:10-11)

7. That God commands us to subdue the creation and every area of life to His Lordship. (Gen 1:26-28; Rm 6:14, 8:13, 12:9-19, 13:1-8; Eph 4:25-32)

8. That life is made up of more than the "here and now" (the essence of secularism), but is eternal. (Jn 5:25-29; I Cor 15:51-52; I Thess 4:17; I Tim
6:7-12)

9. That God is absolutely sovereign, doing His pleasure in all His creation. (Dan 4:35; Isa 14:24, 27, 46:9, 11; Job 42:2; Ps 115:2, 135:6; Prov 21:1)