Paul Chitwood was elected president of the IMB in November 2018. He previously served as executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention from 2011-2018. For 18 years prior, Chitwood served as the pastor of local churches of varying size in Kentucky. During his pastorates, he served as chairman of the International Mission Board’s trustees from 2008-10, as part of his tenure as an IMB trustee from 2002-10. A native of Jellico, Tennessee, Chitwood is a 1992 graduate of Cumberland College and earned the Master of Divinity and Ph.D. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. He served as a faculty member of the seminary from 2002-2018.

He and his wife, Michelle, have four children.

The Richardson family (Clay, Tammy, Ryan, Ellie, Levi, and Matthew) has spent more than a decade serving as IMB missionaries in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The work has been slow and painstaking, and the Richardsons have wrestled with questions like ‘Should we go somewhere else?’ and ‘Is this ground just too hard?'

Learn more about there story here.

The Bridge Church