Our Pastor

Rev. Jake Hooker 

As a native of Salem, VA, I’ve always had a heart for the Roanoke Valley.

My wife, Lauren, and I are both graduates of Glenvar High School and I attended the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA. At VMI, I began and led a Bible Study for my peers and began to sense a call to ministry.

Lauren and I got married right after college, worked for a couple years, and moved to Charlotte, NC where I received my Masters of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary.

During my time at RTS, my interest in church planting began to grow. The idea of building something from the ground up was appealing to me and I’ve seen the Lord draw many people to Himself through the establishment of new churches. I took several classes on church planting and attended the PCA’s church planting assessment in 2017.

I also met Stacey Severance during my time in Charlotte. Stacey was another RTS grad who was preparing to go back to his hometown of Florence, SC to plant Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church. I came on staff at Good Shepherd as a church planting apprentice in August 2017 before becoming the assistant pastor in February 2019. Stacey and the wonderful people of Good Shepherd gave me my first opportunity as a pastor — something I’ll always be grateful for. During my time at Good Shepherd I gained so much invaluable, firsthand church-planting and pastoral ministry experience.

Although Lauren and I lived in the Carolinas for nearly 8 years, the Roanoke Valley is our home.

I’ve always had a desire to return to the area to plant a church and that desire has intensified as I’ve seen the increasing need for more reformed, gospel-preaching churches. On August 14, 2021 I was officially approved by the Presbyterian Church in America to plant a church in Roanoke and I could not be more grateful for the opportunity.

If you or someone you know lives in the Roanoke Valley and wants to learn more about being a part of this new church, please contact me. I would love to get to know you and answer any questions you may have about what God is doing at Providence.