Bob Whaley retired at the end of January after serving as pastor of Northgate Baptist Church in Greenville for 32 of the church’s 55-year history.
Jack Dill, a member of the pastor search committee that recommended Whaley to Northgate, said to the retiring pastor at a celebration service on Jan. 28, “God’s love and grace have flowed through you.”
Volenteerism recognized – State Rep. Glenn Hamilton presents South Carolina’s Silver Crescent Award to Bob Whaley. With him are his wife Judy and deacon chairman Ted Garner.At the conclusion of the Saturday afternoon service recognizing Whaley’s “Life and Times,” Glenn Hamilton, who represents District 20 in the South Carolina House of Representatives, presented to Whaley the Silver Crescent Award from the governor, the state’s highest honor for volunteerism.
Whaley has served on the board of directors for the Meyer Center, a pre-school facility for children with disabilities, and at St. Francis Hospital in Greenville, where his wife Judy has worked fulltime as a nurse. Whaley also led Northgate in establishing its Lighthouse ministry to the community five years ago.
Carlisle Driggers, executive director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, first met Whaley when both were students at Mars Hill College. Driggers said that even then “God had his hand” on Whaley, who was “destined to be a minister of the gospel.”
The convention’s executive director saluted Whaley for his 17 years as a trustee of the South Carolina Baptist Foundation and Northgate for contributing approximately $2 million to missions.
Erik Whaley praised his father’s servant heart, which “was instilled in him and will remain there until God calls him home.” “He always places others above himself, and this is something passed along to his children and grandchildren,” he said.
Whaley, a North Carolina native who graduated from Mars Hill College, Wake Forest University and Southeastern Baptist Seminary, began duties as pastor of Northgate in 1973.