NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Joe McKeever, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church in Kenner, La., has accepted a position as director of missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans.
McKeever, a daily cartoonist and periodic columnist for Baptist Press, resigned from the New Orleans-area church April 11 and began his new assignment May 15.
In a March installment of his “Matter of Fax” weekly e-mail article, McKeever explained how the change began.
“I was serving on the search committee to find our next DOM,” he wrote. “Since I will reach age 64 later this month, whenever someone suggested I take the position, I dismissed it as simple kindness. Eventually, when the seventh or eighth person brought it up, I decided to ask the Father. And here we are. The committee has asked me to stay with the position for five years. I suppose I should be complimented that at the age of 69 they think I’ll still have something to contribute.
“So, I’m starting a new career just when most of my friends are winding theirs down,” McKeever continued. “Learning a new job, trying to grow new wood.”
McKeever, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, was pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, Miss., from 1967-70. For the next three years he was the minister of evangelism at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., before becoming pastor of First Baptist Church in Columbus, Miss., from 1974-86. He pastored First Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., for the next four years before becoming pastor of First Baptist Church of Kenner in 1990.
For seven years, McKeever served on the Louisiana Baptist Convention board and chaired various committees during that time. He chaired the local arrangements committee when the Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meetings in New Orleans in 1996 and 2001.
In addition to his weekly article, sent to 3,000 e-mail subscribers, McKeever does a daily radio program called “Phone Call from the Pastor” on a New Orleans station. Eight books of his cartoons have been published by Baker Book House.
McKeever and his wife, Margaret, have three children and eight grandchildren.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: JOE McKEEVER.
