Meet Pastors Justin and Eric, Young Trailblazers

This year ushered in new faces and fresh ideas for the Unification movement in the US, where a growing number of leaders are inspired young trailblazers. Meet Pastor Justin Okamoto of Belvedere, New York, and state leader and Pastor Eric White of Oklahoma. In their own words, they share about family, faith and their personal journeys, as well as the vision they have for their unique communities.

Pastor Justin Okamoto, 30, Belvedere Family Church

I get my joy finding innovative ways to do things. 

As the new pastor of Belvedere Family Church, I aim to bring fresh energy, ideas and perspectives and create a community that people can be excited about. I want us to live up to what we believe in and I really want to develop a community where we can raise families and keep marriages strong. People need to feel valued, that they are being served and that our community is a place where they can raise their family. As a community, I want to do more to really create a space for our kids to feel safe, make friends, have fun, and develop their character and life of faith. Organizing a fundraiser for a bouncy castle and church cleanup of our parsonage in Tarrytown have been just some of the creative efforts toward this goal.

Belvedere is my home where I’ve been a member of this community since I was a small child. 

I was born in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, before my family moved to New Jersey and then New York. My parents are Japanese and Australian and have five kids total. I started working in ministry about eight years ago as the assistant pastor of Belvedere. I also worked at CARP headquarters for about a year during Rev. Naokimi’s CARP presidency. I then spent four years in Japan as an English teacher and also started my own life coaching business there. 

But I was at a crossroads.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay in Japan or go back to America. Then Rev. Naokimi became FFWPU national president and Dr. Yong became the regional president of North America. I came back to the U.S. in December 2020 unsure if I wanted to go all in with my life coaching business, or go into ministry. After talking with Rev. Naokimi, I was really inspired by what he said and what Dr. Yong was doing with Morning Devotion.

I wanted to inherit from these leaders and I thought maybe this was God’s way of calling me back into ministry.

I started working part time at headquarters earlier this year with the online holy communities, then I became assistant pastor at Belvedere under Dr. Drissa Kone. I felt this was God calling me to do what I was originally inspired to do with my life. Dr. Kone has been a mentor to me but he is now working with the doctoral program at UTS. My wife Kazuka has been an amazing support in my journey. So has my family. All of my siblings are Blessed and there are four grandchildren, including my own two kids. We have a pretty big tribe at this point and it’s great. As a father and pastor, I want to see all the kids of our community eventually develop their own life of faith, too, and do this in the most innovative ways possible.

Pastor Eric White, 30, Oklahoma Family Church

Working in law enforcement helped me to see the real transcending value of spiritual principles.

As a Sheriff’s Deputy in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, I realize there is no law you can pass or anything you can physically do to solve all the evil and corruption in the world. Arresting people won’t change anything. I came to this realization when I kept seeing a trend throughout my career. I arrested the same guy several weeks in a row, for example, and it was always for the same reason — a DUI. No matter what I was doing physically through my job, I couldn’t change people’s hearts and “save” them. 

I believe the core values of the Unification movement, and the Divine Principle, is the only thing that will help people. 

Living for the sake of others is the answer; there’s no other way to save the world. I’ve lived in the city of Norman my whole life and we have a really small community here. My father was doing ocean providence on the East Coast before moving here after I was born. He’s an American and my mom is from Germany. My older brother lives in Wisconsin and has two kids. The importance of family was the recurring theme that led me to rejoin the Unification movement. I had a really amazing childhood growing up — I couldn’t have had a better childhood — but despite that, I left the church at age 16. I dated and married my girlfriend, then got divorced eight years later. In February 2020, I received the Marriage Blessing with my wonderful wife Junko, from Japan.

My driving force is knowing that nothing we do will ever matter if we don’t get to where we need to be spiritual. 

I became the youth and young adult pastor for about two years before I became the state leader and Pastor of Oklahoma Family Church. We have a few active members and families that regularly come to church; however, if everyone was active, we could probably quadruple our community turnout. So for me, I want to create incentives for people to be active and involved. There is value in coming to church and in being part of our movement, so I want to make people feel welcomed. I want to create that sense of community and experience of being valued by bringing a spark back and investing in the people here.

I think living for the sake of others means we should be uplifting each other so people can really feel valued and loved.

It’s challenging to get young people motivated because they have a lot going on with school, friends and family. But I think when we practice what we preach and invest in something outside of ourselves, we see incredible outcomes. I organized a service project where we cleaned a women’s shelter for those who have escaped domestic abuse, and a lot of people showed up! We recently had a Thanksgiving potluck as well to create a more open and inviting environment with fellowship, and we tripled our normal attendance. I’d like to do more service-based and community-oriented projects like that.

We are the Family Federation, and we should build that culture of family love and community at every level. 

Our community is doing tribal messiahship and we have growing young families. I’m also developing more volunteer projects for the Oklahoma community. My wife and I are expecting our first child in February — a baby girl — and I think to myself, we must really do community outreach now so that the next generation will have a better experience in the future and a world that is better off.

You can share a story idea from your community at info@unification.org.