The Rev. Boise Kimber, an Alabama native, was installed as the president of the nation’s largest Black denomination on Monday night in a service at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Kimber was elected to a five-year term as president of the 7.5-million-member National Baptist Convention USA on Sept. 5 in Baltimore. He has been senior pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church in New Haven, Conn., since 1986.

Kimber, 65, grew up in Phenix City and started preaching at a church in Opelika when he was 15, in 1974.

“My mother was one of the singers at the church and my father was one of the deacons,” Kimber said in an interview before his installation. “We were always brought up in the church. As a young lad, I went to school. I played football. Other than that, I was at church.”

The National Baptist Convention USA is in Birmingham this week for its mid-winter board meeting, through Thursday at the BJCC. “We had a board meeting today with about 1,000 people at our board meeting,” Kimber said Monday. “We were able to move some things.”

Kimber said he wants to set a focus on missions and evangelism. “Mission and evangelism to me equals Christian education,” Kimber said. “We want to move back to what our mothers and fathers started this convention on. They started this convention also on social justice. I’m a lover of social justice. We will use this platform for Christian education and for social justice.”