Bert Browning, pastor of Huguenot Road Baptist Church in Richmond, will lead Virginia Baptists as president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia in 2006.
Browning, a Virginia pastor since 1976, was elected at the BGAV annual meeting in Woodbridge. He was unopposed for the office, as were the other officers.
Browning had been serving as first vice president. His election continues a recent tradition of electing the sitting first vice president as president of the state association. The BGAV restricts presidents to a single one-year term, and electing the first vice president is seen as a way of providing experience to the top office holder.
Browning's election also continues a longstanding tradition of alternating between clergy and laity for the post. He succeeds Richard Smith, an attorney and member of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church.
Other newly-elected officers for 2006 are first vice president Boyce Brannock, a Waynesboro attorney; second vice president Barbara Filling, a Charles City pastor; and clerk Fred Anderson, Virginia Baptists' historian.
Brannock, a member of First Baptist Church in Waynesboro since 1967, has served his congregation as deacon, endowment committee chair and member of the long range and pastor search committees. He is former chair of the BGAV's religious liberty committee; former member and first vice president of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty; and charter member and former president of the board of the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.
Filling, pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church since 2001, is former pastor of Coan Baptist Church in Heathsville. She has also served as a chaplain for three organizations and as an adjunct religion professor at Rappahannock Community College. She is a former vice president of the Virginia Baptist Pastors Conference and has served as both moderator and president of the Rappahannock Baptist Association. She is married to G. Lewis Filling, former mayor of Urbanna.
Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, both in Richmond. He has served as BGAV clerk for 23 years.
Staff report