On Sunday, February 27, 2022, our church voted to call Seth Brown as Minister of Students and Community Engagement and Ron Murray as Minister of Pastoral Care by an overwhelming majority. The search committee felt confident that God led them to these two candidates and we are excited about their forthcoming ministry here at FBC Griffin.
Seth Brown will be transitioning into his new role immediately and be fully engaged with the position once we fill the position of youth worker. Seth earned his Bachelor of Art in History from Georgia College and State University. He has a diverse ministry background. His call into ministry began with his work at children’s homes in North Carolina and also Georgia. He has served at three different churches as minister to students, most recently at First Presbyterian Church of Griffin, prior to joining the staff of First Baptist Griffin in March of 2018. He is married to Emily and they have two boys, Xander and Sheppard. Seth grew up with a love of sports and the outdoors. In his hometown of Lilburn, he is a neighborhood two-hand touch football legend. He is a huge fan of Duke Basketball, the DAWGS, music, and coffee. If he is not in the middle of a nerf gun battle or a trampoline wrestling match, you will probably find him listening to music while sipping coffee on the back porch. Seth will continue to serve as the primary leader of our student ministry, although we will hire a part-time youth worker to assist him in this area. He will also spend a portion of his week in the community, building relationships and helping FBC be the best neighbor we can be to the wider Griffin and Spalding County community.
Dr. Ron Murray will begin serving during the week starting on March 8, and he will join us on Sunday mornings starting in mid-May. Ron has over four decades of experience as a pastor and has served Baptist churches in Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana and Tennessee. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Baylor University and his Master of Divinity from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Christian Ethics. After retiring from the full-time pastorate in 2015, Dr. Murray has focused on supporting churches in an interim capacity — most recently as interim pastor for First Baptist Church of Rome, GA. A native of Kentucky, Ron and his wife Freddie currently live in Sun City Peachtree, where they are neighbors of their former college roommates from Baylor. They have been members of First Baptist Church of Griffin since March of 2020 and are members of the Long Sunday school class. Ron’s interests include mission work, photography, travel, and spending time with his children and grandchildren. Ron will be serving FBC Griffin in a part-time capacity, focused primarily on the area of pastoral care. In addition to personally caring for members of FBC Griffin, he will help coordinate pastoral care among our ministerial staff and training lay leaders serving in our deacon-led ministry teams.
We warmly welcome both ministers as they take on these ministerial roles. We also want to extend a heart-felt thank you to the search committee for their tireless work over the past two years. A special word of thanks goes to Brian McCartney for chairing this committee so well.