By Robert Dilday
Central Virginia pastor Nancy Stanton McDaniel, who currently serves as the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s first vice president, will be nominated in November as BGAV president, it was confirmed Oct. 20.
If elected, McDaniel, pastor of Rhoadesville Baptist Church near Fredericksburg, Va., will succeed Ann Brown, a Gretna, Va., mission activist.
Bert Browning, a retired Richmond, Va., pastor said Oct. 20 he will nominate McDaniel at the BGAV meeting scheduled for Nov. 10-11 in Richmond.
McDaniel would be the first female pastor to hold the BGAV’s top elected post, though the BGAV has long elected women to the presidency and women pastors have held both the first and second vice presidencies.
Her election would be consistent with a more than 50-year-old practice of rotating the BGAV presidency between ministers and laypersons — a well-established tradition that isn’t required by bylaws. Outgoing president Brown is a layperson and member of First Baptist Church in Gretna.
Since 2000, serving BGAV first vice presidents have been nominated — and invariably elected — as the organization’s president — another tradition that isn’t mandated by bylaws. The practice was established to enhance the experience of BGAV presidents, whose terms are restricted to one year.
McDaniel has been pastor of the Rhoadesville church for about 15 years. For 20 years prior to that she was minister of education, and later associate pastor for education, at First Baptist Church in Martinsville, Va. She holds degrees from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
She has served several terms on the former Virginia Baptist Mission Board (now the BGAV Executive Board), where she chaired its education subcommittee. Active in partnership missions and the Goshen Baptist Association, McDaniel also has been moderator of both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia and Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry.
As of Oct. 20, McDaniel was the only announced candidate for BGAV president, though at least one other person is expected to be nominated, BNG has confirmed. An announcement is expected in the next few days.
No nominees have been announced for first or second vice president.