ST. LOUIS (BP)—Pastor David Crosby of New Orleans will be nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, former SBC President Fred Luter said.
David CrosbyLuter plans to nominate Crosby, pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans, during the SBC annual meeting June 14-15 in St. Louis.
“I have watched David the last 10 years here in New Orleans as he has taken the leadership of all the churches and pastors of our city in helping to rebuild New Orleans, which everybody knows was totally destroyed (in 2005) in Hurricane Katrina,” said Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans.
“I saw how he was able to get a lot of things done to get the city back up and running,” Luter said, noting Crosby’s “passion for the Body of Christ and for our convention.”
Missions giving and involvement
During the 20 years Crosby has led First Baptist Church in New Orleans, the congregation has given between 7 percent and 15 percent of its undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program unified budget, Luter said. Total missions giving for the congregation has been at least 22 percent of its undesignated receipts each of the past five years, according to SBC’s Annual Church Profile.
The church averaged 658 in worship and 24 baptisms annually the past five years.
Crosby—former pastor of First Baptist Church in Temple—has demonstrated “a heart for missions and a heart for people regardless of their skin color or what side of the tracks they were born on,” Luter said.
Following Katrina, Franklin Avenue, which is predominantly African-American, met at First Baptist’s facilities for two and a half years, and the two churches continue to engage in joint ministry and fellowship activities.
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Each week, First Baptist engages 80 to 100 adults in various ministries, including feeding the homeless, providing weekend food for needy public school students, conducting prison ministry and nursing home ministry, teaching English-as-a-Second-Language classes and ministering to people in the sex industry.
The church took 14 trips to Ghana over the past six years in conjunction with its adoption of an unreached people group.
First Baptist sponsors NOLA Baptist Church, and Crosby is a founding board member of New Orleans Baptist Ministries, the umbrella organization that operates Baptist Friendship House on behalf of the North American Mission Board and the local association.
Denominational leadership
Crosby has served a variety of leadership roles in the local association, state convention and SBC, including moderator of the New Orleans Baptist Association, Executive Board member of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and member of the SBC Committees on Committees and Resolutions Committee. He is a trustee at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
Crosby’s nomination for president is the third to be announced for the SBC annual meeting. Other nominees are Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., and J.D. Grear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Crosby earned his undergraduate degree and a doctor of philosophy degree from Baylor University, and he holds a master of divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
He and his wife, Janet, have three children and eight grandchildren.
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