BLACKSBURG, Va. — Blacksburg, Va., pastor Tommy McDearis will be nominated for first vice president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia — the second announced candidate for a position whose incumbent for more than 10 years has been elected BGAV president the following year.
McDearis, pastor of Blacksburg Baptist Church, will be nominated at the BGAV’s annual meeting Nov. 13-14 in Roanoke, Northern Virginia pastor Jim Baucom announced Nov. 1.
Tommy McDearis
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“Tommy is one of the most capable and competent leaders in Virginia Baptist life, precisely the kind of person called for in this challenging hour for the General Association,” said Baucom, pastor of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church, Va. “I am grateful that he has responded to God’s calling and the prompting of many leaders from across the Commonwealth by allowing himself to be nominated in Roanoke.”
McDearis has been pastor of the Blacksburg church since 1997. Earlier he was pastor of Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta. He is a graduate of Berry College in Rome, Ga., and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
Since 2003 he has been chaplain for the Blacksburg Police Department, a period of time that included the fatal shootings in 2007 of 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech, across the street from the church.
McDearis currently serves on the board of trustees for the Religious Herald. He and his wife, Susan, have three grown children.
Another candidate — Lee Ellison, pastor of Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Moseley, Va. — also will nominated, pastor Don Davidson of First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., announced Sept. 10.
For 12 years BGAV first vice presidents have subsequently been nominated — and invariably elected — to serve as the state association’s president, though the practice is not mandated by BGAV bylaws. The bylaws do restrict both offices to one-year terms and incumbents cannot succeed themselves.
If either Ellison or McDearis were nominated and elected as president in 2013, that action would be consistent with a more than 50-year-old practice of rotating the BGAV presidency between ministers and laypersons — another well-established tradition that isn’t required by bylaws.
The new first vice president will succeed Carl Johnson of Richmond, a retired denominational financial officer who will be nominated for BGAV president in Roanoke.
Robert Dilday (rdilday@religiousherald.org) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.