Brentwood Baptist Church, Pastor Joe Ratliff is a native of Lumberton, North Carolina. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Morehouse College and both Master’s and doctor of divinity degrees from the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta. He was installed as pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston in February 1980, which has a membership of 12,000. Dr. Ratliff is the first African-American pastor to lead the Union Baptist Association, the largest urban southern Baptist organization in the United States. He is the founding president of the National African-American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is chairman of the Board of Trustees of Morehouse School of Religion and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ITC.