MOSELEY, Va. — Central Virginia pastor Lee Ellison will be nominated in November as first vice president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia — a position which every year since 2000 has led to the BGAV presidency.
Ellison, pastor of Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Moseley, Va., will be nominated at the BGAV's Nov. 13-14 annual meeting in Roanoke, Va., by Don Davidson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va.
Lee Ellison
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“He has all the qualities of leadership that are needed for this role and, if tradition holds and he is elected president the following year, I have no doubt that he would be excellent in that position, too,” Davidson said in a statement Sept. 10.
“Lee Ellison and I have been close friends for 20 years, serving many of those years just down the street from each other in Danville [Va.], and there’s no one I respect more in our state association than this very fine pastor,” said Davidson, adding that in making the nomination, he was “representing no group of Virginia Baptists — just myself.”
Ellison has been pastor of his Chesterfield County church since 2004. Earlier he was pastor of Pearisburg (Va.) Baptist Church, Patterson Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond and Moffett Memorial Baptist Church in Danville. He also was circulation and development director of the Religious Herald from 2002-2004.
He currently is a member of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, serving as secretary of the board’s executive committee. He also has been active in the Highland, Pittsylvania and Middle District Baptist associations and is a former trustee of the Religious Herald.
Ellison is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He and his wife, Debbie, have three children and two grandchildren.
“Lee is always focused on the issues at hand and has a wonderful ability to clarify those issues,” said Davidson. “He seeks consensus and stays with the thing until it is reached. He is inclusive and does his best to bring all points of view to the table. I know that he loves Virginia Baptists, has a good perspective on the scope of our cooperative ministries and has no other agenda than to serve the Lord by serving us. He will lead us well.”
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 Ellison 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.
No other nominees for first vice president have been announced. If elected, Ellison will succeed Carl Johnson, a retired denominational financial officer. At this point no nominations for president have been made.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.