Chris Holck
Elder; Lead Pastor
Chris graduated from Iowa State University – where he met his wife, Kathleen – with a degree in Agricultural Banking and Finance. After a few years pursuing his career, he spent a year earning a certificate in Biblical Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School before taking over his family’s farm. Feeling a call to full-time ministry sometime later, he took a youth pastor position in Minneapolis, simultaneously enrolling at Bethel Seminary in neighboring St. Paul. He was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1990 and was ordained in the Evangelical Free Church of America (E-Free).
Over the next decade, Chris pastored churches in Austin, Minn., and Spirit Lake, Iowa; he began noticing that often, a segment of his congregation seemed underserved – older adults. A zeal to change that was born, and in 2008 he began contracting with his denomination as a consultant, helping churches around the country promote new ways to engage and empower an oft-overlooked generation. Two years later, Bill and Mary Ann Hicks were looking into planting an E-Free church where they lived in The Villages, Florida, an inquiry that soon led them to Chris and Kathleen. After much prayer, the Holcks moved south in January 2012, and the two couples stepped out in faith to hold the first worship service of Live Oaks Community Church just one month later.
Chris is passionate about preaching the Gospel, nurturing the church, and encouraging others in a perennial goal: to invest their lives in purposeful, balanced ways that honor God and further His Kingdom – that is, to “play hard, pray hard, and finish well.” The Holcks have been married since 1978; in their free time, they enjoy sports, dining out, and traveling – especially to visit their three married children and six grandkids, or to relax at their “other home” by Lake Okoboji, Iowa.
Chris and Kathleen Holck
Elder; Lead Pastor
Chris graduated from Iowa State University – where he met his wife, Kathleen – with a degree in Agricultural Banking and Finance. After a few years pursuing his career, he spent a year earning a certificate in Biblical Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School before taking over his family’s farm. Feeling a call to full-time ministry sometime later, he took a youth pastor position in Minneapolis, simultaneously enrolling at Bethel Seminary in neighboring St. Paul. He was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1990 and was ordained in the Evangelical Free Church of America (E-Free).
Over the next decade, Chris pastored churches in Austin, Minn., and Spirit Lake, Iowa; he began noticing that often, a segment of his congregation seemed underserved – older adults. A zeal to change that was born, and in 2008 he began contracting with his denomination as a consultant, helping churches around the country promote new ways to engage and empower an oft-overlooked generation. Two years later, Bill and Mary Ann Hicks were looking into planting an E-Free church where they lived in The Villages, Florida, an inquiry that soon led them to Chris and Kathleen. After much prayer, the Holcks moved south in January 2012, and the two couples stepped out in faith to hold the first worship service of Live Oaks Community Church just one month later.
Chris is passionate about preaching the Gospel, nurturing the church, and encouraging others in a perennial goal: to invest their lives in purposeful, balanced ways that honor God and further His Kingdom – that is, to “play hard, pray hard, and finish well.” The Holcks have been married since 1978; in their free time, they enjoy sports, dining out, and traveling – especially to visit their three married children and six grandkids, or to relax at their “other home” by Lake Okoboji, Iowa.