The Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle has been tapped to serve as interim senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland beginning January 7th, 2024.
McMickle has been a prominent presence in greater Cleveland since his arrival here in 1987 to lead Antioch Baptist Church. During his tenure the church established a ministry for people infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. This ministry was the first of its kind in the entire country. The church also instituted a community tithing initiative in which the church tithed out 10% of its annual budget to various community programs and agencies.
He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of Cleveland State University in Cleveland, OH, president of the Cleveland NAACP and Urban League, and president of the Shaker Heights Board of Education.
McMickle left Antioch in 2011 to become president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. He retired from Colgate and returned to Cleveland in June 2019. He has served as guest preacher and interim pastor at several area institutions, most recently as interim executive minister of the Cleveland Baptist Association.
A prolific writer, McMickle has authored eighteen books, including Hiding God’s Word in our Hearts, published earlier this year. His column From Pulpit to Public Square is one of the best-read features of this site.
McMickle graduated in 1970 with a B. A. in philosophy from Aurora University in Illinois, which awarded him Doctor of Divinity degree in 1990. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1973 and did two additional years of graduate study at Columbia University in New York. He earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey in 1983. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Case Western Reserve University in 1998. He was also awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio in 2010.
He was ordained to the Christian ministry in 1973 at Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City where he served on the pastoral staff from 1972-1976. He is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Board of Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. In the winter semester of 2009, he served as a Visiting Professor of Preaching at Yale University Divinity School. He was also an adjunct instructor at Princeton, New Brunswick, and New York theological seminaries. He was a professor of homiletics at Ashland Theological Seminary from 1996-2011.
He is an active member of the Progressive National Convention and American Baptist Churches (ABCUSA). He is also a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and a member of Sigma Pi Phi.
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