Pastor David Malcolm McGruder

About David

David Malcolm McGruder is a minister, educator, and organizer hailing from Kansas City, Kansas. His ministry, professional, and community service experience includes work with the Brisbane Institute of Political Science & Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, the Project for Peace & Progress Inc., the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the Black Church Center for Justice & Equality, Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland, the Office of U.S. Senator Jerry Moran, and the Office of U.S. Senator Pat Roberts. Most recently, David served as Associate Director for Youth Development and Outreach at the Princeton Family YMCA in Princeton, NJ, where he focused on creating and sustaining educational enrichment programming designed to engage minority students and their families, and close the achievement gap in Mercer County.

David is a graduate of Morehouse College (B.A., Political Science and Philosophy) in Atlanta, GA where he was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship & Prize, and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div, Theology, Politics, & Ethics) where he was awarded the Aaron E. Gast Prize in Urban Ministry. He is currently pursuing a post-graduate qualification in History, Religion, and International Relations from Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. His publications include "The Finished Work" in A Beautiful Thing: Sermons from Young Preachers (Chalice Press, 2010), “Locked Up: Theological Reflections on Prisons, Repression, and Resistance,” inThe African American Lectionary(October, 2011), et al. His broader research interests include postmodern theology, political philosophy, and Africana studies.

Today, David has the honor and privilege of serving as Executive Pastor at Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, a ministry with global impact, led by Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglass Haynes III. David is the son of Marvin and Anne McGruder and the elder brother of Marlayna & Phillip.