Staff and Deacons – First Baptist Church of North Port

SENIOR PASTOR

JARED GRITTON

Pastor Gritton has served as senior pastor at First Baptist Church since July 2010. He grew up the son of a Baptist pastor in central Illinois. He was saved as a young boy at home in 1982. During the summer of 1992, he felt the calling of the Lord to full-time Christian ministry and surrendered to following that call. He graduated from Pensacola Christian College with a degree in Pastoral Studies in 1999, and later gained the Master of Divinity from Pensacola Theological Seminary in 2002. From 2002 until the summer of 2010 he served as assistant pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Urbana, Illinois. He and his wife Rebekah were married in 2000, and have ten children; Andrew, Annie, Alexander, Nathanael, Elijah, Samuel, Asa, Ezra, Noel and Jared Jr.

ASSISTANT PASTOR

BENJAMIN PECK

Pastor Peck joined the staff at First Baptist Church of North Port as assistant pastor in June 2015. He works in the church as a Youth Pastor as well as being involved in the music ministry and discipleship. He grew up on a farm in central Illinois and was saved in 2002. He was later called into full-time Christian ministry during a youth conference in 2011. He graduated from West Coast Baptist College in 2015 with a degree in Pastoral Theology, and later a Masters Degree of Biblical Studies in 2021.

Pastor Benjamin and his wife, Natalea, have been married since July 2015 and have two children, Levi and Emily.

ASSISTANT PASTOR

REECE JOHNSON

Pastor Johnson joined our staff in June 2022 as an assistant pastor with a focus in children’s ministries. He is a Florida native having grown up in Englewood his whole life. He graduated from Trinity Baptist College in 2022 with a degree in Pastoral Theology, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity from Bob Jones.