Don Ng served as President of the American Baptist Churches, USA in 2014-15, the first Asian American to serve in this elected position. For 17 years, he was the Senior Pastor of the historic First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco that was started by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society in 1880. He retired from full-time ministry in June 2015.
Presently, he is the Chair of the Friends of the Northeast Christian University, Nagaland, India; Co-coordinator of the MMBB Asian Colloquium; Chair of the Pacific Coast Baptist Association (PCBA); Member of the Board of Trustees of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School, Member of the ABC Creation Justice Network and Advisor to the ABC Young Adult Caucus.
Previous board service includes: Vice-President and Past President of ABCUSA; Board Member of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS); Trustee of the American Baptist Seminary of the West (Berkeley), President of the Asian Alliance of ABCUSA, and other ecumenical and denominational groups.
Denominationally, he served as national staff in ABC Educational Ministries in Valley Forge from 1978-1998 in the areas of youth ministry, Christian education, leader development and administration.
Publications include: Asian Pacific American Youth Ministry (Judson, 1988) and numerous articles in Christian education, ministry and life.
One of the foundational beliefs of Baptists is soul freedom, the belief that God created persons to have the capacity to read Scriptures for themselves in the context of an informed community of laity to discern the meaning of the Word of God and to know God’s calling.
“Why I Am An American Baptist”
Don is a graduate of Gordon College in psychology and the first in his family to receive a college diploma. He received his M.Div. from Andover Newton Theological School in 1975. He completed doctoral course work in education at Temple University. In May 2013, he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from ABSW. In May 2014, he received the “Spirit of the Hill” award from Andover Newton. At the ABC Biennial Mission Summit in 2019, he was awarded the Equipping Disciples Award granted by ABHMS. His home church, First Baptist Church of Boston, is one of the oldest Baptist churches in the U.S. founded in 1665 is where he was ordained in 1975.
Don is married to Joy Shih Ng for 48 years and lives in Sausalito, CA. They have two married children, Greg and Heather who live in North Carolina and Lauren and Daniel in California with a total of six grandchildren.