Rev. Tellis Chapman, senior pastor of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit.
Rev. Tellis Chapman, the senior pastor of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church on the city’s northeast side since 1985, is seeking to expand his territory of leadership. Chapman recently launched a campaign for president of the storied National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., an eight-million-plus member Christian organization with more than 21,000 churches around the globe. The National Baptist Convention, founded in 1886, is considered one of the world’s largest, oldest, and most influential Black organizations of any kind.
Chapman believes now is the time for his candidacy.
“I believe the Convention’s constituency is ready to make a shift in terms of meeting the needs of the African American community,” Chapman told the Michigan Chronicle. “We are, of course, a large religious organization. However, we need to implement an agenda that will be more relevant to the African American community from the vantage points of politics, social economics and having greater access to capital, and from the vantage points of education, employment, and ownership. I believe the Convention, under my leadership, can address all of these things with a viable, plausible, practical, and comprehensive agenda.”
While the National Baptist Convention, USA was at the forefront at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, over the years, according to Chapman, the organization’s actionable platforms on many issues facing Black people had somewhat waned. Yet, because of the continuing incidents of crimes, social injustices, and police misconduct against Black people, the organization’s interest, said Chapman, in taking a more proactive role has resurfaced.
“Our voice, as a Convention, should be matched with grassroots organizations in protests, as well as productivity to make a difference in public policy regarding our people,” Chapman said. “And our voice must go beyond the United States to represent and champion Black people abroad, as well.”
Chapman believes he has a strong influence with pastors on a broad scale, explaining his role with the Convention’s pastor’s division for the last seven-and-a-half years. He points out that his strength is teaching, training, and developing preachers not only for preaching, but for community leadership as well.
“Our people’s needs must be met beyond preaching and teaching,” Chapman said. “I will present a comprehensive platform that provides the Convention with a common agenda beyond what the women, the laymen, the young people, and the pastors are doing. That agenda will have the objectives to collaborate with grassroots groups, entertainers, sports figures, journalists, you name it, all for the common good of Black people around the world and certainly beyond our religious context.”
Chapman, who from 2006 to 2015 was president of the Baptist, Missionary and Educational State Convention, has been emphatically endorsed by many of the city’s political and faith-based leaders.
Video by Andre Ash
“Dr. Chapman has always been a profound preacher and has always been a person who has had his hand on the pulse of social justice,” Bishop J. Drew Sheard, senior pastor, Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church in Detroit, said at the press conference announcing Chapman’s candidacy. Sheard is also the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ after winning an international election in 2021.
Other well-known and respected leaders in Detroit publicly supporting Chapman’s bid for Convention president include Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, Bishop Edgar L. Vann, Rev. Jacqueline Nelson, Steve Bland, and Rev. Wendell Anthony (president of the Detroit Branch NAACP), and others.
To date, Chapman said four other candidates are currently running for the Convention’s top position, now held by President Dr. Jerry Young. He was elected to head the Convention in 2014; his tenure ends in 2024.
The election for the presidency of the National Baptist Convention, USA, will be held in June 2024. If elected, Chapman would be the first Detroit pastor to serve as president in the Convention’s 136-year history.
“For those who don’t know me, they will have a chance to learn more about who I am,” Chapman said. “I welcome anyone to visit www.chapmanforpresident.org and read about my platform and what I will present as president of the National Baptist Convention, USA Inc. The shift begins now!”
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