J. Wendell Mapson, Jr., was born in West Palm Beach, FL and raised in Newark, NJ. He received his B.A. degree from Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA., a M. Div. degree from Crozer Theological Seminary, Chester, PA. (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, and a D. Min. degree from Palmer Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA. In 2002, Palmer conferred upon him the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at both Palmer and Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and lectured and taught at many other institutions of higher learning. From 1969 to 1987 Mapson was pastor of Union Baptist Church, Elizabeth, NJ, and in July 1987 he was called to the historic Monumental Baptist Church, Philadelphia, organized in 1826. Dr. Mapson is highly sought after as a preacher, and has lectured extensively in the area of music and worship. He is the author of The Ministry of Music in the Black Church, still used in seminary and college classes, as well as by pastors, church musicians, and choirs seeking to understand music and worship from a biblical perspective. He is also author of the more recently published, God of My Father: Sermons of a Father and Son, a collection of sermons of his father (deceased) and himself. In 1994, he was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College. Mapson has been a featured lecturer at the prestigious Hampton University Ministers' Conference. He is a past president of the Baptist Pastors' and Ministers' Conference of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is married to Shirley Jones Mapson, and they are the parents of three sons, Keith, Brian, and Jesse III.
