Rev. Dr. Jonathan Weaver
President, Pan African Collective
After having served as the Pastor of Greater Mt. Nebo A.M.E. Church in Bowie, Maryland for 34 years, the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Leslie Weaver graciously accepted his appointment as Presiding Elder of the Potomac District of the Washington Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church on May 27, 2023. Under his leadership, the Greater Mt. Nebo Church Family grew from a membership of approximately 100 members in 1988 to more than 1,500 at its peak and included 40+ ministries that continue to serve the church and the greater community. It was also under his tenure that the church acquired 90 acres of land and built the edifice that now serves as Greater Mt. Nebo’s current worship center.
Presiding Elder Weaver has a strong belief that one’s Christian duty should encompass community outreach. As Pastor of Greater Mt. Nebo, Elder Weaver insisted that the ministries support not only the members of the church, but also those in the broader community. Under his leadership, the Greater Mt. Nebo ministries have had many successful projects in the community, such as assisting in The Christmas in April Program, Food & Friends (providing food for persons who are homebound), The Tools for School Program, serving as a host location and providing support to the Prince George’s County’s Warm Nights program, partnering with community-based violence prevention and re-entry programs, and providing support for victims of abuse. Due to his influence and encouragement, the Greater Mt. Nebo Church Family continues to support the Bowie Food Pantry and the Bowie University Nutritional Lounge with regular donations, provide local families with food baskets and gifts during the holidays, and serve as a partner organization with several schools in the Prince George’s County Public School System.
Presiding Elder Weaver’s sense of community transcends the borders of Prince George’s County, Maryland and the borders of the United States. In 1986, Elder Weaver was the sole American Delegate to the first Hispanic-African Cultural Congress held in Equatorial Guinea. In 1999, Dr. Weaver preached and lectured in Swaziland and served as an official delegate to the Conference on Reconciliation held in Benin in that same year. It was with his motivation and support that for 9 years volunteers from the Greater Mt. Nebo Church Family traveled to New Orleans annually to assist in rebuilding efforts following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. More recently, Elder Weaver has led more than a dozen medical mission trips to Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and the island nation of Haiti resulting in more than 30,000 persons receiving much needed medical care and nutritional support. His continued advocacy and support in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has resulted in the development of a school, named in his honor, that serves more than 1,280 students, all of whom are either orphans, children of rape survivors, or children of refugees.
Presiding Elder Weaver is a visionary who uses his gifts to help empower churches, within and outside the denomination and the local community. He currently serves as the National President of the Collective Empowerment Group, formerly known as the Collective Banking Group, an ecumenical association composed of nearly five hundred churches in four states and the District of Columbia, engaged in economic empowerment initiatives through partnerships with banks and other businesses in their communities. In 2015, Elder Weaver was appointed Chairman of the Board of Industrial Bank, one of the oldest black-owned banks in America and in 2019 joined the Board of Directors of Mercy Ships, a global organization that travels the world to provide much needed medical and surgical care to underserved communities in Africa. Additionally, Dr. Weaver is a member of the Board of Directors of the Second District Religious, Educational, and Charitable Development Projects, an A.M.E. organization that fosters the development of nonprofit programs and projects for spiritual, educational, social, and economic growth and development. He is also the Founder and President of The Pan African Collective, an organization that promotes educational, social and economic relationships between Americans and the people of Africa.
Over the years, Presiding Elder Weaver has been publicly recognized numerous times for his willingness to extend his gifts and talents to those locally and abroad. Some of his more recent awards include the Civic Leadership Award from the Community Foundation in Prince George’s County (2017), the Global Humanitarian Leadership Award from the Caribbean and African Faith based Leadership Conference (2022), and the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award (2022). In recognition of his exemplary leadership, the members, business partners and friends of the Collective Empowerment Group established the Reverend Dr. Jonathan L. Weaver Scholarship in 2014.
The son of an educator, Elder Weaver is a graduate of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Harvard University Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Sojourner-Douglass College in Baltimore, Maryland. Married to Pamela Lynn Weaver, Presiding Elder Weaver is the father of two daughters, Jaime and Megan, and the grandfather of three grandsons and one granddaughter.