[1]ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Three new city coordinators recently have been appointed for the North American Mission Board’s Strategic Focus Cities initiative, putting leadership in place for the all of the first four efforts targeting Chicago, Phoenix, Boston and Las Vegas.
The new city coordinators are Phil Miglioratti in Chicago, Jack Parrott in Boston and Steven Pearson in Las Vegas.
Through Strategic Focus Cities, Southern Baptists will be injecting massive resources and volunteers into a wide variety of evangelism and church-starting projects in two major cities each year. Chicago and Phoenix will be the focus of efforts during the first year in 2000, and Boston and Las Vegas will be targeted in 2001. Seattle and Philadelphia have been identified as Strategic Focus Cities for 2002, although development of leadership for those efforts will not officially begin until early next year.
“The position of the city-coordinator is key to the success of our efforts in Strategic Focus Cities,” said Doug Metzger, director of NAMB’s strategic focus cities team. “We are blessed to have top-quality, godly men. They have a huge responsibility of leading and coordinating a massive effort utilizing a vast assortment of resources in a never before attempted endeavor to touch a whole city with the gospel at the beginning of the 21st Century.
“Their passion to make a difference in their city will need to be coupled with the ability to network, organize and implement a strategy that focuses upon evangelization and church planting,” Metzger said.
Parrott, coordinator for Boston, comes from New Colony Baptist Church in Billerica, Mass., where he had served as pastor since 1992 and for 10 months prior to that as interim pastor. He previously served as associate executive director of the Greater Boston Baptist Association, director of evangelism and assistant to the executive director of the Baptist Convention of New York, assistant director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention, and director of evangelism and church administration for the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware.
Parrott has been moderator of the Greater Boston Baptist Association since last year and has served in a variety of leadership positions in the association and state convention. He is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., where he received the master of religious education and doctor of ministry degrees.
He and his wife, Victoria, have three children: John , 22; Nathan, 19; and Olivia, 7.
Pearson, city coordinator for Las Vegas, previously was pastor of education for Green Valley Baptist Church in Henderson, Nev. He served churches in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and California in a variety of church staff positions — including administration, education, youth, church recreation and music.
Pearson is a graduate of Fullerton Community College in Fullerton, Calif. (associate degree in commercial art), California State University in Los Angeles (bachelor’s degree in music), and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received the master’s of religious education degree.
Pearson and his wife, Joy, have two children: Holly, 17, and Matthew, 12.
Miglioratti served 19 years as pastor of The Woodfield Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Schaumburg, Ill., before assuming the city coordinator role for Chicago. Previous positions include family ministry for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., and youth ministry at First Evangelical Covenant Church in Rockford, Ill.
Miglioratti also has been active in prayer leadership locally and nationally, serving as facilitator of the National Pastor’s Prayer Network, Strategic Focus Cities prayer mobilizer, vice-chairman of PrayUSA! and prayer leader for Pray Chicago. He also was a contributor to the LifeWay Christian Services’ Church Prayer Manual and was editor of the “Prayorit!ze” prayer manual. He is a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Miglioratti and his wife, Carol, have two children: Carol, 25, and Jennie, 23.
The Phoenix coordinator, Billy D. Agee, has been leading SFC efforts in that city since his appointment last year. Previously he served as executive director of the Central Association of Southern Baptists in Arizona, where he received the director of missions of the year award from NAMB in 1997. He also served as valley coordinator for Celebrate Jesus 2000 efforts.