RONALD LEE ROGERS, SR.

 

 

 

Pastor Ronald Lee Rogers was born in Kinston, North Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville. Ronald Rogers moved to California in 1971 to work as a manager with Sealand Services.  His professional background also includes employment with Prudential Life Insurance Company and the City of Oakland’s Head Start Program as a Family Advocate.  Ronald Rogers is a graduate of Livingstone College, with a bachelor’s degree in business education, and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Hood Theological Seminary, in Salisbury, North Carolina.

 

In 1972 Ronald Rogers was appointed Pastor of St. James AMEZ Church in San Mateo.  Four years later, he went on to a rewarding pastorate at Greater Cooper AMEZ in Oakland, serving the Church and community for 13 years. While there the Church achieved many of its milestones. Among them were celebrating its mortgage burning, and instituting Project LEAKE (Learning Enhances Aptitude, Knowledge, Experience), a program honoring Bishop George J. Leake III and funded by the City of Oakland to tutor elementary and middle school students. The Church was “open” to the community seven days a week and participated in ecumenical programs for the Oakland Unified School District and with individual congregations. During that time, Pastor Rogers also ministered as Presiding Elder of the Central Valley District, California Conference. He accepted an appointment as Pastor of the New Mt. Olivet AMEZ Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1988.  After 11 months, and consultation and the blessings of Bishop Richard Fisher, he returned to California, answering the call to begin a new work. 

 

Pastor Rogers organized the Glad Tidings Community Church of Oakland and pastored Glad Tidings for 16 years until retiring in August 2005 when he relocated to Houston, Texas.  In Houston, he was a member of Brookhollow Baptist Church, “The Church Without Walls”, and Coordinator of its Kerygma (Preaching) Ministry. He returned to California in April 2019, after being away from the California Conference for 30 years, to serve as Pastor of First AMEZ Church, San Jose, and Presiding Elder of the Bay Cities District, under the leadership of Presiding Prelate, Bishop George D. Crenshaw. November 9, 2022, will mark his 58th year in the ministry. 

 

Realizing that his work is not finished, Pastor Rogers humbly accepted a new appointment with an old friend.  In May 2021, he was re-appointed to Greater Cooper AME Zion Church, after being away for 33 years.  It was with a spirit of gratitude that he willingly returned to this congregation that had nurtured him in his early years of pastoring and played an integral part in the life of his family and in his personal and social growth.

 

Ronald Rogers and his wife, Frances Miller-Rogers, have been married for 38 years.