RICHMOND, Va.—In an unprecedented move, the president of Virginia’s oldest predominantly white Baptist convention also has been elected the top officer in the state’s oldest historically black Baptist convention.

Mark Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va., was elected May 17 to a three-year term as president of the Virginia Baptist State Convention, founded in 1867. He had been serving as first vice president of the convention, an historically African-American organization of about 700 congregations.

Mark Croston

“I am humbled at the opportunity to serve as the 27th president of the 145-year-old Virginia Baptist State Convention,” said Croston. “To serve the VBSC and the BGAV at the same time was never my plan, but God often does things we are not expecting.”

BGAV presidents are elected for one-year, non-renewable terms. Croston will serve simultaneously as president of both conventions for about seven months.

He succeeds Arlington, Va., pastor Leonard Smith as VBSC president. Smith, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Arlington, was elected in 2009.

Croston has been pastor of the Suffolk church since 1987 and long active in both the VBSC and the BGAV. He has been a trustee of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and for more than 15 years has been a board member of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention, serving as its president from 2005-2008.

He has expressed strong support for SBC presidential candidate Fred Luter, who, if elected next month, would be the denomination’s first black president. Croston has called the possible election of Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, a “significant move for Christianity, given the size and reach of the SBC.”

Robert Dilday ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.

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