James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry which explores the intersection of faith and culture and hosts this website, ChurchandCulture.org which features his messages and blogs; ranked adjunctive professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which he also served as their fourth president; and author of nineteen books which have been translated into ten languages.
Mecklenburg Community Church began with a single family and has grown to over 8,000 active attenders on six campuses. “Meck” experiences over seventy-percent of its growth from those who were previously unchurched and during its formative years was often cited as one of the fastest growing church starts in the United States. Dr. White’s commitment to local church ministry also includes service as Distinguished Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Anderson University, and consulting editor to Leadership Journal.
Dr. White holds a B.S. degree in public relations and business, along with the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Seminary, where he was awarded a Garrett Teaching Fellowship in both New Testament and Theology. He has also done advanced university study at Vanderbilt University in American religious history, and continuing education at Oxford University in England, including participation in Oxford’s Summer Programme in Theology. He has served as a visiting professor at such institutions as New Orleans Seminary, Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary and the Moscow Theological Institute. He currently serves on the Board of Reference at Union University and has served on the Board of the Boston Theological Institute, which includes such schools as Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard.
Dr. White is the author of nearly twenty books, including such Gold Medallion nominees as Serious Times andA Search for the Spiritual, Christianity Today book-of-the-year award winner Embracing the Mysterious God, as well as A Mind for God and Rethinking the Church. His most recent publications include What They Didn’t Teach You in Seminary, A Traveler’s Guide to the Kingdom, and The Church in An Age of Crisis. In May of 2014, Baker will release his latest book, The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated.
Though his family’s roots have been tied to North Carolina for generations, he was born in Chicago, and then lived in California, Utah, and Washington during his childhood. His family returned to North Carolina during his teen years. Dr. White and his wife, Susan, have four children.
