Dr. Edwin Jenkins

Dr. Edwin F. Jenkins came to serve at First Baptist Church on May 1, 2006. He came to Athens from Montgomery, Alabama where he had served the Alabama Baptist Convention State Board of Missions for nearly 10 years. He was the inaugural Director of the Office of Leadership/Church Health and the Founding Director of the Alabama Baptist Center for Leadership Development.

In his ministry as a state missionary, he and His wife, Joan, traveled across Alabama and beyond offering leadership, consultation and speaking in numerous churches. It was, in part, the deep love the Jenkinses had for the local church that led them to accept the call of First Baptist Church of Athens to return to the pastorate. Dr. Jenkins served as local church pastor for 24 years prior to serving at the Baptist State Convention. He has been an adjunct faculty member of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary since 1997.

Edwin and Joan are the delighted parents of three grown children and six grandchildren. Edwin and Joan feel that the calling and passion of their lives is to seek and follow God's desire, God's design and God's direction in all that they are and do. They are totally convinced that the local church is God's chosen instrument for gathering His people to Himself.