Featured Pastor

Dr. Major Lewis Jemison, D. Min

Senior Pastor, St. John Missionary Baptist Church
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Dr. M. L. Jemison serves as the Senior Pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church, providing spiritual leadership and pastoral care for this urban congregation of ~2,500 members. He also functions as the church’s Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, with administrative and fiscal responsibility for 7 full-time staff, 13 part-time staff, numerous committed volunteers, an annual budget in excess of $ 1.2 million and property holdings valued at ~ $4.0 million. As St. John’s Senior Pastor, Dr. Jemison also serves as CEO of the St. John Christian Heritage Academy, a private, State accredited Christian School serving students in pre-kindergarten through the seventh grade. Dr. Jemison first came to St. John in 1984 as Assistant to the Pastor, later serving as Co-Pastor with Rev. Dr. Walter K. Jackson, becoming Senior Pastor in 2003.

Dr. Jemison recently completed a four-year term as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., an association of approximately 1,800 Baptist churches throughout the world with a collective membership of more than 2.5 million persons. Concurrent positions within PNBC included membership on its Executive Board, Chairman of its Resolution Committee, and membership on the Board of Directors of the Nannie Helen Burroughs School. Dr. Jemison previously served PNBC as 1st Vice President on the local level and President of the Southwest Region, later moving to 2nd Vice President and 1st Vice President of the national body before being elected President in 2002.

Dr. Jemison is now proudly serving the RainbowPUSH Coalition as Vice President for Civl Rights and Church Development. In that capacity, he is significantly involved as a Director of the One Thousand Churches Connected Initiative.

Dr. Jemison was licensed in the Gospel Ministry (1974) and Ordained (1982) at the Concord Baptist Church (Dallas, TX) by Dr. E. K. Bailey.

As President of PNBC, Dr. Jemison provided exceptional leadership related to the convention’s involvement in, advocacy and support of a number of civic issues and concerns, especially those directly related to the plight of African Americans and our brothers and sisters on distant shores, including the following:

• Rejection of privatization of the U.S. Social Security System
• African Action’s campaign to end HIV/AIDS in Africa
• Prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
• Support of Oxfam America’s efforts to relieve hunger, poverty and social injustice in the U.S. and around the world.
• Campaign to stop genocide in Darfur
• Campaign to cancel Africa’s debt
• The Millions More Movement
• Stopping mandatory minimum sentencing in the U.S. judicial system
• Release of IFCO Pastors for Peace humanitarian aid to Cuba
• The movement against the unacceptable arrest and incarceration of minor children
• Extension of all sections of the 1965 Voter’s Rights Act
• Children’s Defense Fund’s efforts on behalf of the plight of children
• Rigorous examination of the nomination of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts
• Partnership with the National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches on Advocacy for Children in Poverty
• Lifting of Travel Licenses for Religious Leaders
• Partnership in support of Georgetown College, Lexington, KY
• Broad-based reform in the U.S. educational system
• Reparations for African Americans
• National Living Wage
• Support of the “Body & Soul” program designed to positively impact the health of African Americans

In addition, Dr. Jemison has worked at both the national and local levels directly in support of and in conjunction with the NAACP on a variety of issues and concerns, including the following:

• Opposition to the War in Iraq
• Applying political pressure on the Bush Administration to ratify the Voters Rights Act
• Opposition to the death penalty, including advocacy on the Tookie Wilson case
• Opposition to the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” policy
• Building the NAACP membership base, initiating a membership drive within PNBC designed to result in 25,000 new NAACP members
• NAACP Religious Summit, serving as a program participant and advocate
• Championing a featured presence for the NAACP at the PNBC Annual Session each year of his tenure.

Dr. Jemison has also given leadership to a coalition of Baptist organizations entitled “Baptist Builders” that is working to not only supply resources for the relief of hurricane victims but is being instrumental in initiating leadership in the area of rebuilding the Gulf Coast Region

Dr. Jemison recently gave leadership to the Joint Midwinter Board Meeting of the four major black Baptist denominations/conventions, leading the development of political forums dealing with social issues pertinent to African Americans.