ATLANTA — Suzii Paynter, the first woman to serve as director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Christian Life Commission, has been nominated as third executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
If elected, Paynter would join Sharon Watkins of the Disciples of Christ and the Episcopal Church’s Katharine Jefferts Schori as one of the few women ever to lead a national denominational organization in the United States.
She also would join a select sisterhood of women in top leadership roles in conventions and unions affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance, alongside names like Regina Claas, secretary general of the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany since 2003, and Karin Wilburn, who stepped down two years ago as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Sweden to become head of the nation’s ecumenical movement.
Paynter is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, with master’s degrees from Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and the University of Louisville. She was elected head of the Texas CLC in 2006. Before that she served five years as the agency’s citizenship and public policy director.
Paynter is a frequent teacher and ordained deacon at First Baptist Church, Austin, Texas, where her husband, Roger, is pastor.
Share with others: