|  Executive
Minister
The Reverend Dr. Joan S. Parrott
The Reverend Dr. Joan S. Parrott is the newly appointed Executive
Minister of First Baptist Church of Hampton, Virginia. Prior
to this assignment Dr. Parrott served as the Executive Pastor
of the 11,000-member University Park Baptist Church in Charlotte,
North Carolina and supervised the ministry staff responsible
for more than eighty ministries.
An American Baptist minister, Dr. Parrott was the first woman
to be ordained in the 137-year history of her home church,
the Bethany Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey.
Since then she has preached throughout the United States and
abroad, and on two occasions had the rare privilege of a private
audience with the late Pope John Paul II.
Dr. Parrott holds degrees from Montclair State University,
Montclair, New Jersey; Union Theological Seminary in New York
City; and United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio. She also
has post-graduate certificates from The Ecumenical Institute
of Bossey in Céligny, Switzerland, and the John F. Kennedy
School of Government Community Builder Fellowship Program
at Harvard University.
Dr. Parrott has served American Baptist Churches USA as deputy
general secretary for Cooperative Christianity and the director
of the Board of International Ministries’ Missionary Recruitment
and Volunteer Service Program.
Other previous positions include being a fourth grade teacher;
an adult education guidance counselor; Peace Corps Volunteer
in Niger, West Africa; regional program manager for Contracts
and Procurement with the Internal Revenue Service, New York;
executive director of the Lighthouse Community Services Homeless
Shelter in Newark, New Jersey; vice president of the National
Council of Churches in the U.S.A.; Community Builder with
the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Camden, New Jersey;
vice president of the Children’s Defense Fund; and executive
director of Alex Haley Farm in Clinton, Tennessee.
Dr. Parrott continues to strive for a life of compassion,
integrity and excellence, where her actions and deep faith
in God are a paradigm of servant-leadership and a sign of
hope in a divided world.
|
