Dr. Jerome Coleman, senior pastor of Crestmont First Baptist Church in Willow Grove, was elected President of the National African American Fellowship (NAAF) on June 8 in Orlando.
The NAAF is comprised of nearly 4,000 churches and missions. Dr. Coleman previously served as the outfit’s vice president.
“I am humbled in being chosen and have made the commitment to represent the unique voice of NAAF to the best of my ability to the glory of God,” Dr. Coleman said in his acceptance speech.
According to Crestmont First Baptist Church’s website, he was formerly a Parole Supervisor for the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, retiring in 2007 to focus on ministry full-time. He began his tenure in Willow Grove in January 2008.
According to Baptist Press, Coleman is now calling for extended dialogue among Southern Baptists on the proposed Mohler Amendment, which precludes women from preaching to the assembled congregation.
Among its objections to the amendment, NAAF said the change:
- is “in direct contradiction to Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message, which explicitly defines the church as an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, governed by His laws, and exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word”;
- is clothed in rhetoric that “creates a troubling theological dichotomy” that frames “one specific viewpoint as the singular standard of truth and conviction,” carrying “a painful implication” suggesting “that those who interpret and/or apply leadership passages differently are not operating in truth, or that they lack biblical fidelity”; and
- “overlooks kingdom work by using vague language to target women preaching to an ‘assembled congregation,’” a term that has no precise definition in the New Testament and “therefore threatens to create arbitrary lines for selective enforcement.
“A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough,” Coleman told Baptist Press. “The continued ambiguity of ‘assembled congregation’ is open to many interpretations. … If the intention is not to go into the life and ministry of individual churches, then why this mandating to local church pastors as to how they should title and employ their staff persons? This amendment already goes into the life and ministry of individual churches.”
Dr. Coleman graduated from Central High school with a diploma in Academics and went on to graduate from Millersville University, Millersville, Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration. He received his Master of Divinity from the Luther Rice Seminary in May 2008 and his Doctorate in Pastoral Leadership from Temple Baptist Seminary of Piedmont International University, Winston-Salem, NC, in May 2017.
He published a book titled “Stewarding Your Life: Time. Talent. Treasure. Tongue” in April. You can purchase a copy here.
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Photo: Crestmont First Baptist Church