NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee announced Monday, October 28, 2019, that Roger “Sing” Oldham and Ken Weathersby are retiring from their respective vice-presidential posts.
Weathersby, vice president for Convention advancement, began his role in 2013 and was the first African American to hold an EC vice presidential position. He came to the EC after holding a series of leadership roles at the North American Mission Board, including associate vice president for multi-ethnic mobilization and vice president for the church planting group. During his time with the Executive Committee, he has worked tirelessly to increase ethnic participation and grow relationships with demographic subsets in the SBC.
Weathersby’s ministry is highlighted by the planting and pastoring of numerous churches, as well as holding key positions within the SBC. In 1999 he became the first African American pastor to hold a full-time associate professorship at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he was director of the Cecil B. Day Center for Church Planting and director of the Nehemiah Project. Weathersby’s retirement is due to a medical disability causing visual impairment.
Oldham, vice president for Convention relations, came to the Executive Committee in 2007 following a lengthy pastorate at First Baptist Church in Martin, Tenn. He has worked to develop and strengthen relationships with numerous convention-wide and state and associational ministry groups supported by the SBC’s cooperating churches; responded to media and other inquiries about the convention; interpreted the SBC to its “internal and external publics” and served as the EC liaison to the SBC Resolutions Committee. In 2010, his role was expanded to include communications to which he gave administrative oversight until September 2019.
Written by Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.