Pictured above (left to right) are newly elected 2024-25 Florida Baptist State Convention officers: Janey Frost, office administrator at The Point Church (Jackson Campus) in Pensacola, who will serve as recording secretary; Mike Orr, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Chipley, who will serve as president; layperson Jeffery Crick, a family physician at Mayo Clinic and member of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in St. Johns, who will serve as second vice president; and David Perez, pastor of Iglesia Casa de Bendicion in St. Cloud, who will serve as first vice president.
ORLANDO– Four Florida Baptist leaders were elected to serve as 2024-25 officers of the Florida Baptist State Convention during its annual meeting Nov. 11-12 at First Baptist Church, Orlando.
President
Mike Orr, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Chipley, was elected to serve his second term as Florida Baptist State Convention president. He was nominated to his second term as president by Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola.
Orr has pastored First Baptist Church in Chipley for 23 years, and he has led his church to be among the state convention’s top 100 churches in number of baptisms. Over the past 10 years, First Baptist Chipley has baptized 218 people. He has also led his church to be one of the convention’s top ten givers to the Cooperative Program, giving 15% of its undesignated receipts to Southern Baptists’ unified plan of giving.
Orr served on the Florida Baptists’ State Board of Missions for two terms, 2016-19 and 2019-22, serving twice as its president, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
As 2023-24 Florida Baptist State Convention president, Orr served as an ex officio member on the recent Florida Baptist executive director-treasurer search committee.
First vice president
David Perez, pastor of Iglesia Casa de Bendicion in St. Cloud and director of prayer for the National Hispanic Baptist Network, was elected to serve his second term as Florida Baptist State Convention first vice president. He was nominated by Manuel Barahona to serve his second term as FBSC first vice president.
For the past three years, Perez has led a daily morning devotional and prayer time on social media, with the number increasing of those who “follow” him. When the pandemic first took hold in 2020, Perez traveled throughout the state and encouraged Florida Baptist Hispanic pastors to launch concerts of prayer. His statewide emphasis on prayer among Hispanic pastors has grown into a national concert of prayer, in what has been described as a “Great Commission movement.”
Second vice president
Layperson Jeffery Crick, a family physician at Mayo Clinic and member of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in St. Johns, was elected to serve his second term as Florida Baptist State Convention second vice president. He was nominated by Tim Maynard, pastor emeritus of Fruit Cove Baptist Church. Crick has been a member of Fruit Cove since 2017 and has held numerous leadership roles in the church.
Recording secretary
Rounding out the slate of officers elected to serve Florida Baptists in the coming year is Janey Frost, who serves as office administrator at The Point Church (Jackson Campus) in Pensacola. She was nominated by her pastor Mitch Johnson to serve a third term as Florida Baptist State Convention recording secretary.