Chris Shumate has received a second degree from the Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
Shumate has served as pastor of Oak Street Baptist Church since July 2016.
He has been in the ministry for 11 years and graduated from East Tennessee State University and the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
The Rev. Shumate and his family came to Oak Street Baptist from Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he pastored. He has also pastored churches in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Both he and his wife, Michelle, are from the neighboring town of Greeneville.
“We both grew up in Greeneville and attended high school there. My father is a minister on the staff at Towering Oak Baptist Church in Greeneville, having served the church for 30 years,” Shumate said.
The new pastor said he committed his life to Christ at the age of six and first felt the call to the ministry when he was in high school. “That call was confirmed while a college student. I had a passion of local churches,” Pastor Shumate said.
His goals as a pastor, particularly at Oak Street Baptist, is to be found faithful to God and His Word and to carry out the Great Commission of making disciples, both here and elsewhere.
Rev. Shumate and his wife are the parents of three children, a daughter, Avery, six, and two sons, Nolan, three, and Haydon, six months.