Reverend Dr Devon Dick was installed as president of the Jamaica Baptist Union during the closing services of the union’s 166th General Assembly at the National Arena in Kingston, on February 28.

A news release from the church said that as president Rev Dick now provides leadership to 337 congregations of which three are located in Haiti. The most recent congregation added to the list is that at Lilliput Baptist Church in St James.

Rev Dick, the pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church in Kingston, is being supported by two vice-presidents — Karen Kirlew, pastor of St Ann’s Bay Circuit of Baptist Churches, and Johnathan Hemmings, pastor of the Ocho Rios Circuit — and a 32-member executive, including General Secretary Karl Johnson.

Kirlew is the first woman in the history of the Jamaica Baptist Union to be elected vice-president.

In a statement following his installation, Rev Dick acknowledged the awesome responsibility of leading the union at this time, noting that his primary focus will be on mission.

“He pointed to the Mission 2020 goal of attaining 20,000 members and urged all Baptists to use every opportunity to reach more people with the Gospel,” the news release said. “In order to do so, he said, sacrifices would have to be made. He further encouraged Baptists to engage in best practices in ministries that would give expression to the sacrificial life.”

Rev Dick, the release pointed out, has 30 years in pastoral ministry since he was commissioned at the Fletchers Grove Circuit of Baptist Churches in 1985. He has been serving at Boulevard Baptist Church since 1990.

A consummate writer who has several publications in regional and international journals, Reverend Dick is a Gleaner columnist and author of two books: From Rebellion to Riot, the Jamaican Church in Nation-Building and The Cross and the Machete: The Native Baptists of Jamaica-Identity, Ministry and Legacy.

“Devon Dick has a lifelong interest in the institution of national heroes and the church in nation-building as evidenced in his Caribbean Studies project, ‘William Knibb a National Hero?’ (1985); his post-graduate thesis ‘Paul Bogle: Prophet without Honour’ (1997) and his PhD dissertation ‘The Origin and Development of the Native Baptists and the Influence of their Biblical Hermeneutic on the 1865 Native Baptist War’ (2008),“ the release said.