Dr. Robert W. Evans serves as the founding Senior Pastor of Christ Church in Livermore, California. As a pastor-theologian, his desire is to return to the biblical theology and priorities that God Himself designed to cultivate spiritual health and holiness in the lives of both individual believers and the local church. As a preacher, his mission is to carefully, patiently, and accurately deliver an informed exposition of God’s Word, in which the sermon seamlessly transitions from an exacting study of the intended meaning of the text to the practical application of its contemporary significance in terms that people can both understand and apply to their lives.
An ordained minister in the Evangelical Free Church of America, Dr. Evans came to Christ Church with extensive Christian leadership and ministry experience, including service as a pastor, elder, district theologian, and educator, and he has taught as an adjunct professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois (www.teds.edu) and at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (www.knoxseminary.org), among other academic institutions. He is presently Adjunct Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania (www.wts.edu). In 2000, Dr. Evans was invited by the Rev. Billy Graham to travel to the Netherlands and serve on the Theologian’s Task Force at Amsterdam 2000, and he was selected to serve as a redactor, along with Drs. J.I. Packer and John Woodbridge, of “The Amsterdam Declaration,” which details the core theological content and commitments for preaching evangelists in the 21st century.
In addition to his pastoral and seminary faculty ministries, Dr. Evans also serves as President of Veritas Ministries International (www.veritasministries.com) –an international teaching, evangelistic, and apologetic ministry—and as Director of the Veritas Institute for the Study of Bioethics and Public Values (www.veritasinstitute.com) –which aims to bring an informed and sensitive voice to questions of moral choice from the vantage point of Christian conviction. As an author, academic, and speaker, Dr. Evans regularly writes and speaks on issues that lie at the intersection of medicine, morality, law, ethics, religion, and culture, and he is unusually gifted at both commending and defending the intellectual coherence of the Christian faith, as well as handling difficult questions posed by non-Christian audiences.
A prolific author, Dr. Evans has contributed numerous articles to professional peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers, and has been a contributing author to several books; among them: "The Moral Status of Embryos," In The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies, and the Family. John F. Kilner, Paige C. Cunningham and W. David Hager, ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000); "The Promises and Perils of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research," In Ethics of Human Genetics: Challenges of the Post-Genomic Era. J. Glasa, ed. (Bratislava, Slovakia: Council of Europe/Charis Publishers, 2002); "Neuropsychological Aspects of Aging and Their Implications for Decision-Making Among the Elderly, "In Aging, Death, and the Quest for Immortality. C. Ben Mitchell, Robert D. Orr, and Susan A. Salladay, ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004); The Pastor’s Book: A Comprehensive and Practical Guide to Pastoral Ministry. R. Kent Hughes and Douglas Sean O’Donnell, ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2015); and The ESV Pastor’s Bible (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2017).
Dr. Evans has traveled widely and has lectured extensively at universities, medical schools, churches, and conferences around the world, including the University of Oxford; Stanford University Medical School; Duke University; the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School; Wayne State University Medical School; Dallas Theological Seminary; the University of Cambridge; the Canadian Bioethics Society; Charles University, Prague; Overlake Christian Church, Redmond, Washington; Moscow State University Medical School, Russia; the University of Paris; the Central European Catholic Bishop’s Conference; the World Pro-Life Congress, Madrid, Spain; Hume Lake Christian Camps; the University of Aarhus, Denmark; Mount Hermon Christian Camps; Christchurch, Durham, England; and the Post-Graduate Medical School in Bratislava, Slovakia, among many others, and he has appeared as a featured guest on numerous television and radio broadcasts both in the United States and abroad.
Dr. Evans is a professional member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society, among other professional associations, and he has been selected a Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. Prior to his call to ministry, Dr. Evans was a licensed psychologist and served for many years in both hospital and private practice.
He is the recipient of numerous award and honors, and his biography appears in various publications including, Who’s Who Among International Intellectuals, Who’s Who in Religion and Science, Outstanding Young Men of America, Who’s Who Among Rising Americans, 2000 Most Notable American Men, and Who’s Who in America, among others. In 1992, Dr. Evans was selected as the “Most Admired Man of the Decade” by the International Biographical Institute, and in 1993 he was selected as the American Biographical Institute’s “Man of the Year.”
Dr. Evans took his education at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, among others, and holds the Ph.D. in clinical psychology and the Ph.D. in systematic theology. He was a post-doctoral resident graduate and teaching fellow in moral philosophy and ethics at Harvard University, and completed additional post-doctoral coursework in theology and theological ethics at the University of Oxford, where he subsequently returned as a visiting scholar. More recently, Dr. Evans graduated from the executive program in non-profit leadership at Stanford University.
In his spare time, he enjoys fly fishing, backpacking, music, sports, golf, and playing chess. Dr. Evans and his wife, Kamrin, live with their daughter in the San Francisco East Bay; their eldest living in Waco, Texas, where he is a senior in the Baylor University Honors College; and their middle child living in Nashville, Tennessee, where he a student at Belmont University.
