September 11, 2026
When I was the youth pastor at White Oak in the early 2000’s, I recall a rhythm I undertook one day each year. On that day, I would find a coffee shop somewhere in town or I would find a nice seat at a park lodge, and I would spend the day reading, dreaming, and planning for the future of our youth ministry. Those days, though few, filled my soul. I often came back from them energized and ready to try new things (new programming, new teaching, new leaders to train, new ways to invite and engage students, new methods for discipleship). I would change things that felt stale and take risks to inject freshness into the hearts of our leaders and kids… whatever it took… to see more students come to know how much Jesus loves them.
Over the last couple of years, I have written a time or two of my time learning to practice the spiritual rhythm of solitude. More recently, in my one-day retreats and in my daily time with God, though I am a novice in this practice, I am discovering the life-giving nature of time alone with only my thoughts and Jesus. Without the distractions of daily life, I have begun to hear God affirming his truths in my heart. I have heard him whisper his unparalleled love deeper into my soul. I have so much further into this practice that I want to go.
I want to talk to those of you who have been part of our White Oak family for a while now. I have a question for you:
Are you willing to do whatever it takes?
For the Gospel. For those who are not yet at White Oak but will walk through our doors one day. For the sake of the mission… that everyone would find full life in Jesus. For those reasons… are you willing to risk? Are you willing to make a change? Are you willing to put it all on the line---that our communities would be radically transformed by the power of Christ and find abundant life in him?
I was recently reminded of a movement of men and women who have become known as the desert fathers and mothers. Specifically, these were Christian leaders living in North Africa who were following Jesus in the years after Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire. There was no more persecution. Church and Christianity were stable. Growing. Comfortable. Stale. In response to this, these men and women sought solitude in the desert, leaving their jobs, families, culture, and communities in order to find their hearts once again… to be re-ignited with a holy zeal for Christ. Author Thomas Mertons writes of the desert fathers as being those who were in a shipwreck:
“… There can be no other valid reason for seeking solitude or for leaving the world. And thus to leave, the world, is in fact, to help save it in saving oneself. This is the final point, and it is an important one. The… hermits who left the world as though escaping from a wreck, did not merely intend to save themselves. They knew that they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them. . . . We cannot do exactly what they did. But we must be as thorough and as ruthless in our determination to break all spiritual chains, and cast off the domination of alien compulsions, to find our true selves, to discover and develop our inalienable spiritual liberty and use it to build, on earth, the Kingdom of God.”
Read that again. Slower. I sense there is a stirring at White Oak for bold, whatever-it-takes people to step in and up and out for the sake of our city! I feel the holy discontent in some of you. I sense the urgency in you as you sense it from Jesus. I feel it, too.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” -Matthew 25:13
As the Lead Pastor at White Oak, I want you to know that I am seeking God in solitude--- reading, praying, dreaming, and planning for a bold new future for our church. We are gaining a strong foothold. We’ll need to try new and different things. We are obligated to pull the whole world to safety with us!
Would you position your heart now toward ruthless determination to walk this journey with me? It starts this fall by each of us stepping into fresh ministry and rhythms that we may be freshly-formed into new people in Christ… for the sake of others. It starts this fall, but that’s only the beginning.
Ruthlessly determined,
Nathan
Nathan Hinkle
Lead Pastor
