In his role as Lead Pastor and Elder, Mike provides spiritual leadership for the church through prayer, preaching and teaching. He also carries primary responsibility for leading the other Lead Pastors and shaping the church’s vision and missional strategy.
Born into a strong lineage of Washington, DC pastors that includes his father, Bishop Michael V. Kelsey, Sr., and grandfather, Bishop Joseph T. Bowens, Mike grew up with a strong foundation in the gospel and by God’s grace, fully surrendered himself to Christ as a student at the University of Maryland, College Park. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and Political Culture in 2004, Mike went into full-time ministry with the Luis Palau Association, helping organize evangelistic festivals in strategic U.S. cities. In 2007 Mike joined the pastoral staff at MBC. Since then, he earned a Master of Divinity and has served in a variety of leadership roles, most recently launching and leading our Montgomery County location.
Mike has a passion to advance the gospel in secular, multiethnic contexts, and longs to see emerging generations invest their lives for the glory of God. In light of that, our congregation has affirmed God’s unique calling and gift in him to shepherd MBC to reach current and coming generations with the gospel.
Mike is married to his college sweetheart, Ashley, who has served on MBC worship staff since 2005, and they have three children: Ava, Michael, III, and Jackson.
In his role as Lead Pastor and Elder, David also provides spiritual leadership for the church through prayer, preaching and teaching. He helps to shape the church’s vision and missional strategy, in particular partnering with our Global Outreach Team and other global partners to mobilize and train MBC to bring the gospel to the approximately 3.2 billion unreached people in the world.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
David is also the founder and chairman of Radical, which exists to equip Christians to be on mission for the glory of God, and our church has affirmed God’s unique calling and gift in David to mobilize both the local and broader church for the spread of the gospel to all nations.
David is married to his beloved wife Heather, and they live in the Washington DC metro area with their six children.