Media Relations

Bart Barber serves as the 64th President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was elected on June 14, 2022, at the SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

Barber has served FBC Farmersville since 1999. He is married to Tracy (Brady) Barber. Together they have two children, Jim and Sarah. Bart is a native of Lake City, Arkansas, where his parents had him in church before he was born. God saved him at the tender age of almost-six, called him to preach when he was eleven, allowed him to preach his first sermon when he was fifteen, and permitted him to serve as a pastor of a church when he was a senior in high school.

Bart has a B.A. from Baylor University in their University Scholars program, an M.Div. from The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and a Ph.D. in Church History, also from Southwestern. For his dissertation he wrote about a denominational split among Arkansas Baptists in 1902, suggesting that they all should’ve gotten along with one another.

Tracy serves with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief as the state coordinator for Texas Baptist Men in the area of caring for children during the aftermath of disasters.

Contact Bart Barber

On Feb. 1, 2022, Willie McLaurin was announced as the interim president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee. 

McLaurin joined the Executive Committee staff in December 2019 as the vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization. Prior to the EC, McLaurin served in executive leadership at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, where he developed strategic relationships for the advancement of the Cooperative Program and invested in the a leadership program for young pastors. 

Prior to serving at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, McLaurin was executive pastor at Greater Missionary Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tenn., and senior pastor at Greater Hope Baptist Church in Union City, Tenn. He has also served as an interim pastor for eight Southern Baptist churches.

In Baptist life, McLaurin served on the SBC Resolutions Committee in 2018 and as president of the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network in 2011-2012. He also was on the Executive Board of the Tennessee Baptist Convention from 2003-2005 and was the inaugural president of the African American Fellowship of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.

He is currently a member of the Tennessee Baptist Convention Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response Team and the New Churches Task Force of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.

McLaurin is the author “Which Race Are You Running? Keeping Life in Perspective” and “VIP: Very Important Purpose. Discover, Develop and Deploy Your Divine Design for Your Life.”

A native of North Carolina, McLaurin holds a Master of Divinity from the Duke University School of Divinity, a B.S. in biology and sociology, and an honorary doctor of theology degree from Saint Thomas Christian College.

McLaurin is a member of Simeon Baptist Church in Antioch, Tenn. He and his wife Antonia have two daughters, Sierra and SiChanna.