Jeff successfully navigated our complex church through a number of important steps on the heels of significant pain and turmoil we had experienced. Jeff brought incredible value and stability to our church over these past two years before we ultimately called our permanent lead pastor.
Jason Mock
Program Management Director, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL.
Leadership Council Chair (2018-2019), Twin City Bible Church, Urbana, IL
It was truly a joy to work with Jeff in leadership at our church. He gave a sense of stability and healing at just the moment we needed it. From the start he displayed wisdom in navigating questions from a congregation amidst strife. He isn’t conflict avoidant. He is honest and will do the right thing even if it’s hard. He will also apologize when he makes a mistake.
Neelan Coleman
Product/Project Manager at Yahoo
Shepherding Team Chair (2020), Twin City Bible Church, Urbana, IL
Jeff showed his desire to understand our situation by spending hours interviewing dozens of people from our congregation to understand people’s experiences at TCBC and to learn of our values. He proved himself as an effective listener. His analysis was extremely thorough and objective, with his assessment report identifying areas of strength and areas of growth.
Lynn Kincaid
Marketing & Exhibits Manager for Human Kinetics
Leadership Council Member (2018 -2019) and Chair (2020), Twin City Bible Church, Urbana, IL
Out of a heart for discipleship, Jeff chooses to invest in people in order to equip them to lead and love strategically and with intention. Jeff makes a wonderful spiritual coach and mentor. Jeff has an amazingly large capacity to take on multiple projects concurrently while demonstrating he can faithfully carry each of them to completion with excellence.
Jeremy Rush
Executive Director of His House Christian Fellowship
Oakbrook Church Pastoral Search Team Chairman, Oshkosh, WI
I’m not sure Jeff knew what he was stepping into when he agreed to act as an interim pastor at TCBC. We were in the midst of a significant split related to a personnel matter. Below the surface of the split were years of unresolved hurt and distrust. Jeff possesses a healthy level of “cool” confidence even in the midst of chaos. It’s clearly a spiritual gift.
Matt Anderson
Lawyer
Chair of TCBC Stewardship Team
TCBC has never been an easy church to lead. Jeff jumped in with both feet. He listened to many congregants’ concerns and then competently and systematically moved us forward with a plan towards wholeness. He skillfully trained leaders and church members with effective, reproducible tools to aid in our reconciliation and restitution.
Pam Bloom
Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) Instructor
TCBC Vice-Chair of Shepherding Team & 20-year member
I was grateful for Jeff’s leadership skills. Rather than insist on his thoughts/approach – he humbly shared his knowledge from both past experience and Christian resources that encouraged us as leaders. When there was disagreement among us – he worked patiently to help us come to God directed decisions.
Ruth Krehbiel
Campus Missionary with International Students, Incorporated
TCBC Shepherding Team Member
Jeff was the right man because he is a strong leader and had a step by step process laid out to deal with the hurt and develop a vision for where the church should be headed. Jeff’s strong leadership was needed to say, “the past is behind us and we are now focused on the future”, no more debating the past.
Larry Berger
Professor Emeritus U of I Department of Animal Science
Previous Department Head of Animal Science at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
TCBC Leadership Council Vice-Chairman (2020)
In his two years with us, Jeff confidently yet humbly led our church through conflicts that he anticipated upon his arrival at the church, as well as hardships that arose throughout his tenure. By God’s grace, Jeff was a gift to our congregation. Jeff has strong experience analyzing, naming, and working through deep entanglements of sin and its consequences in churches, in addition to managing the norms and quirks of churches. Jeff served at TCBC for two God-honoring years, during which he helped us heal and grow as the people of God.
Betsy Alderman
Centennial High School Math Instructor
TCBC Leadership Council Member
Pastoral Search Team Co-Chairman
If you spend any time with Jeff, you quickly learn about his love for gardening and landscaping, so I will borrow on that theme. Before anything grows or any fruit is seen, the soil must be prepared. Jeff helped lead us in the “dirty work” of preparing the soil – clearing out rocks, weeding, tilling, and putting nutrients in. Years from now we pray that TCBC will be flourishing and bearing a lot of fruit for the Lord. We know that none it will have come without the work Jeff did in these two years.
Scott Beatty
Operations Manager, News-Gazette
TCBC Leadership Council Member, TCBC Pastoral Search Co-Chairman
I was very grateful to have served with Jeff LoCaste as he stepped in as Interim Lead Pastor and immediately set to work supporting and encouraging the staff. Jeff took on a very tough assignment when he came to our church. He handled it very professionally, humbly and with integrity. It was evident that he has a deep relationship with God and is a man of prayer. We were blessed to have him walk this journey with us the past two years.
Kay Miller
TCBC Staff Director of Family Ministries
In the two years I served under his leadership at Twin City Bible Church (Urbana, IL), I have found Pastor LoCaste to be an exceptional interim lead pastor in the following four aspects: 1) a deep passion for the Church, 2) a wealth of experience in interim pastoral work that has served us well, 3) abounding courage in relationships, and 4) integrity and humility as a leader. I would heartily recommend Pastor LoCaste to your church. He has been a wonderful pastor, a skillful leader, and has now become a good friend.
Andy Kim
National Director with Intervarsity
TCBC Leadership Council Board Member (2019-2021)
TCBC is in a better place after Jeff’s time with us at TCBC. A number of difficult decisions and problems lay behind us. The start of rebuilding a culture of unity and outreach has begun with Jeff’s help. Jeff got us refocused on vision for our church and skillfully assisted our search committee to find our next lead pastor to lead us in that vision.
John Roeckeman
Retired Director of Inter Varsity Campus Ministry
TCBC leadership Council Member (2018-2020)
One of the things I appreciated most about working with Jeff was how he was one of us from the very start – using language like “we” and “us” when facing the problems that we had gotten ourselves into before he showed up. He was one of us right away, willing to share our burden and to be part of the solution. Giving us hope that we would get past our problems!
Kris Hamblin
Church Staff: Administration & HR
Jeff is of exceptional character, and foremost, a steadfast man of God. I am honored to recommend Jeff through our two and a half years of serving together on multiple ministry teams, including our Servant Team (acting Elder Board). Not only is Jeff the finest, most complete leader I have ever worked for, or served under, but is also extremely proficient at training and raising up leaders.
Mark Pribbernow
Machinist
Oakbrook Chruch Board Member
Jeff became a trusted friend, shepherd, mentor, and coach. Jeff has an outstanding ability to strategically think through leadership, vision, and staff and church development and relationships; all the while bringing me back to scripture and the foundation of Christ. I have found many men that can lead in business or in spiritual matters; very few have the ability Jeff does to lead in both.
Aaron Preston
Lead Campus Minister at His House Christian Fellowship, UWO
Director of Small Groups, Oakbrook Church
Jeff did a very thorough job in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Oakbrook Church. His insights were focused and accurate and provided the foundation for our efforts to improve the ministry. He was able to help us develop a game plan to address core issues with intentionality that produced real results.
DJ Doty
Musician and Owner of Road Trip Band
Oakbrook Church Chairman
In addition to his strong organizational leadership, Jeff provided consistent, relevant and applicable teaching from the pulpit that was always Christ-centered. He is very relational and cares about people. He became a confidant and a good friend. I highly recommend Jeff as an employee in many roles. He would be an asset to any organization.
Jenny Terreau
CFO of local paper-goods company
Financial Secretary Oakbrook Church
Collectively, our church body benefited from his encouraging leadership, resourcefulness, Christ-centered preaching, and teamwork to name a few. As a fourteen-year member, I grieved the retirement of our founding pastor. Now looking back, I can clearly see it was God’s provision to have Jeff LoCaste fill the role of interim pastor.
Lisa Hutchinson
High School Language Arts Instructor
Oakbrook Church Pastoral Search Team Member, Children’s Ministry Teacher & VBS Director
Jeff provided stable, consistent leadership to our staff team during our church’s interim season. He worked with us to identify areas of weakness as a team and within the individual ministries we led. He set clear expectations, created communication channels between the church leaders and staffers, advocated for our needs, protected us, pushed us to higher levels of productivity, and celebrated our success. My leadership and the ministry areas I led flourished under his leadership!
Watch a video of Lori Rush’s contributions to Oakbrook Church.
Lori Rush
Chair of Oshkosh Homeschool CO-OP
Oakbrook Part-time Staff over Children’s Ministry Director and Outreach Director
Jeff had a significant impact on our church during his tenure. One area that he had a great positive impact was developing teams to address specific ministry areas. Personally, I was on the worship leadership team as the media team leader. Jeff guided us through the process of forming our team, including defining our mission and team member roles.
Scott Hutchinson
Mechanical Engineer
Oakbrook Church Congregant
Jeff brings an outside perspective based on past coaching experience with the ability to motivate for real change. Jeff works with attendees all the way up through leadership to evaluate your current weak areas and develop a cohesive plan to see biblical transformation brought to your church. By using Christ-centered preaching coupled with leadership training and development, he is able to bring together a team atmosphere for the glory of God.
Jesse Dorsch
Computer/Electronic Security System Designer & Technician
Oakbrook Church Board Member