Since March of 2017, Reverend Christopher McKee, Jr. has served as the proud senior pastor of the historic First Baptist Church of Oakland (The Church of Oakland) in Jacksonville, Florida. Under Pastor McKee’s leadership, “The Oak '' has continued to be a beacon of hope on Jacksoville’s historic East Side and place of transformational spiritual growth which reaches across the Jacksonville community. Pastor McKee’s time of leadership has witnessed both numerical and ministerial growth within The Church of Oakland Family.
A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Pastor McKee holds a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in History (Summa Cum Laude) from Youngstown State University and a Master of Divinity Degree from Yale Divinity School (New Haven, Connecticut) where he received the Mersick Prize for public speaking. Pastor McKee is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Transformational Leadership at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (Rochester, New York).
Committed to ministry beyond the pulpit, Pastor McKee has served on the boards of the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative, Access Health Mahoning Valley and helped to lead faith-based voter engagement efforts across Ohio. He is on the Board of OneJax and has served on advisory teams for the Urban Education Symposium and the Clinton Foundation. He is a proud member of the Jacksonville Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, Fraternity Inc.
As a man devoted to the Lord and his family, Pastor McKee’s greatest privilege is to share in the ministry of love and marriage with his beautiful wife, the former Éres Cristen Brown. Together they are the proud parents of daughters, Karis Iman and Koryn Ivana.