Meet our Pastor:

Reverend E. Solomon Ernst, Sr. is a native of Liberia, West Africa. He received the Lord and was later baptized in September, 1977 by the Reverend Earl Williams, a Southern Baptist Missionary and former Pastor of Mount Nimba Baptist Church.

He preached his trial sermon and was licensed and later ordained in in 1988 by the Providence Baptist Association, the highest ecclesiastical body of the Liberia Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention, Inc.

He is the former Associate Pastor of the Second Providence Baptist Church, Pastor of the Elijah Baptist Church and the James R. Davis Memorial Baptist Church where he served for five years. He was also the Dean of the Baptist Union Meeting of Liberia.

Reverend Ernst is a devoted family man and is married to the former Dora A.
Cole. This union is blessed with two lovely and beautiful children, Sodora and little Solomon.

He formerly served as a full-time Associate Minister for Mission and Campus Ministry for the Shiloh Baptist Church at the Ohio State University Campus under the Pastorate of Rev. Dr. Otha Gilyard.

Rev. Ernst has been an active member of the NAACP in Licking County, Newark, Ohio. He formerly serves as 1st Vice President of the Newark, Ohio branch #3310 and is the recipient of the 2004 Roy Wilkins Man of the Year Award, NAACP Region III Civil Rights Advocacy institute. He is a board Member of the Perry Center and the Harambee Academy of Columbus, Ohio. Rev. Ernst is also an instructor of Pastoral Education and Pastoral Care at the Eastern Union Bible College of the Ohio General Baptist Convention, Inc. He serves as a member of the Martin Luther King Breakfast Organizing Committee and Chaplain of the the Baptist Ministerial Alliance of Columbus and Vicinity.  He is also member of the Civitan International of Westerville.

His academic achievements and awards include a Bachelor of Theology degree in 1988;  Bachelor of Religious Education, Baptist Theological Seminary Paynesville, Monrovia; Master of Arts in Counseling Ministry and Master of Theological Studies - 2001,Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware County, Ohio; Master of Divinity in process at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Columbus, Ohio; and Certificates - including two units of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). He hopes to obtain his Doctor of Divinity from the Liberty University Divinity School in Virginia.

While on campus of the Methodist Theological School in Ohio , he served diligently as the president of the Racial Diversity Ethnic Minority Commission; Chairman, Peace with Justice; and President of the Student Body.

Rev. Ernst is also a former Counselor of the Franklin Court of Common Pleas Correctional and Chaplain of the Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

He was one of the three speakers at the Hearing The Cry Peace Conference, preceding the Baptist World Congress in Melbourne, Australia, 2000.

Reverend Ernst has traveled and preached extensively throughout the United States and internationally, 30 States and 7 Countries. Above all Reverend Ernst is a child of God, committed to Human Rights, Peace with Justice and equality. His finest statement of love is "If I can help somebody as I pass this way, then my living will not be in vain." He was one of the many Speakers from the USA at the Baptist World Congress in 2000 in Melbourne, Australia under the Theme "Jesus Christ For Ever, Yes!"

Because of his commitment to the growth of the church, foster Christian Education and the propagation of the gospel globally, He was appointed by President Harold Simons as the Chairman, of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. Laymen's Movement, at the 2003 National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. held in Kansas City, Missouri.  He also currently sits on the board of the Granville T. Wood Community School of Columbus, Ohio.