Urbanna Baptist Church will welcome Rev. John Upton, the executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) and former president of the Baptist World Alliance, as the speaker during its 11 a.m. Easter Sunday worship service April 17.
Rev. Upton is a former pastor of Urbanna Baptist, having served from 1984-1986 and again from 1991-1995. In between, he and his wife, Deborah, served as Baptist Foreign Mission Board missionaries in Taiwan.
Rev. Upton joined the BGAV as group leader of the Mission Mobilization Group in 1995 and was elected executive director in 2001. He also headed the international Baptist World Alliance from 2010-2015.
Rev. Upton and Deborah, who is associate pastor for spiritual development at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond, and their three children, Christopher, Richard and Emily, were active members of the local community during their years in Urbanna, and all their friends are cordially invited to attend the Easter service.
The children are grown with their own families now, and the Uptons have eight grandchildren.
