NEW ORLEANS — Grant Ethridge, senior pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, Hampton, Va., will be nominated as president of the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference at its June 12–13 meeting in Phoenix, Louisiana pastor Fred Luter Jr. has announced. “Dr. Ethridge has been a pastor for over 27 years, serving churches in Georgia, Arkansas and Virginia,” Luter, senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, New Orleans, said in a statement to Baptist Press on May 20. Ethridge is a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and has served on various state and national boards and entities.
“Under his leadership, Liberty has grown to five worship services each Sunday,” Luter said of the 6,000-plus-member church Ethridge has led the past five years.
Liberty has received designations as one of the top 100 fastest-growing churches in the U.S., Luter stated, and has been the leading church in the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia convention in Cooperative Program giving, in giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and in baptisms. “With the emphasis today on unreached people groups and church planting, Dr. Ethridge and Liberty have led by example,” Luter stated. “Liberty has adopted UPGs [unreached people groups] in North Africa, Northwest Africa and the Middle East. They have been a part of planting churches in Virginia, Boston and Toronto.”
Ethridge and his wife, Tammy, have four children — a married daughter and son, both graduates of Liberty University, and twin sons who will be attending Liberty University in the fall to prepare for full-time ministry. Another son, Christian, died in 1992. The Ethridges are expecting their first grandson in September.
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