A St. Louis pastor convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl inside his Baltimore church nearly two decades ago is set to become Missouri state overseer of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International next week, a promotion that places a registered Tier 3 sex offender atop a state branch of a fellowship claiming roughly 2 million members. Timothy D. Price III, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of St. Louis, is scheduled for installation as the fellowship's Missouri state overseer on September 16, according to facts confirmed in reporting on the appointment.
Price pleaded guilty to second-degree rape in May 2008 and was sentenced that August to seven years in prison, according to reporting by The Roys Report. He was 31 years old at sentencing. Charging documents from February 2008 cited by the Baltimore Sun detailed how Price had obtained permission from the victim's mother to drive the 12-year-old parishioner home from church Bible study and dance class before assaulting her in his vehicle. At the time, Price was working as music director at the 17,000-member Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore, a position he had landed in 2006 following a national search after previously serving at a church in Houston.
A Sentencing Marked by Remorse — and a Prosecutor's Doubt
At his August 2008 sentencing, Price addressed the victim's relatives and friends directly, expressing regret for his conduct and saying he was committed to making wiser decisions and better choices going forward. His defense attorney said at the time that Price was definitely remorseful for what happened. But prosecutor Robert B. Kershaw offered a starkly different assessment in Baltimore that same month, saying Price's sentencing statement failed to reflect the seriousness of the crime.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol Sex Offender Registry currently classifies Price as a Compliant Tier Level 3 offender — the state's highest severity tier — for his conviction, and lists his registered residence in Florissant, Missouri. He remains a registered sex offender to this day. Under Missouri Senate Bill 982, which took effect in late August, the state overhauled its registry into a federally aligned three-tier system that requires Tier 3 registrants to report in person every 90 days, according to KY3 News. Separately, Missouri Revised Statutes Section 589.414 requires registered offenders to report any employment, volunteer work, or pastoral roles in person to local law enforcement.
A 200-Year-Old Pulpit and a National Fellowship's Silence
Price now leads First Baptist Church of St. Louis as its 20th senior pastor, a congregation founded in 1817 by former slave John Berry Meachum and missionary John Mason Peck that stands as the oldest African American church west of the Mississippi River, according to The St. Louis American. His rise to statewide leadership comes within the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International, a denomination founded in 1993 by Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr. and now led by International Presiding Bishop Joseph W. Walker III, encompassing roughly 2 million members and thousands of affiliated congregations nationwide, per Wikipedia. The fellowship first publicly featured Price as its Pastor of the Week in December 2024, highlighting his work as Missouri State Director nearly two years before his scheduled installation as overseer. The organization did not respond to comment requests from The Roys Report for its reporting on the appointment.
Price has preached sermons about grace, survival and restoration, and has addressed abuse from the pulpit while counseling trauma survivors, calling himself a poster boy for God's grace and saying he believed God could produce glory after abuse. He has also said that having a felony does not define him. However, available sermon transcripts examined in that reporting contain no direct expression of sorrow for the harm inflicted on the victim and no specific acknowledgment of the 12-year-old girl he assaulted.
Church Defends Appointment, Citing Evaluations and Scripture
First Baptist Church of St. Louis has publicly defended Price, saying he did not know the victim's age at the time of the assault and that he learned her age only later from detectives. The church said Price was not serving as a pastor when the incident occurred. It also said professional evaluations found the crime was an isolated incident and concluded Price did not require treatment or pose an ongoing threat, and the church cited 2 Corinthians 5:17 in its statement.
The congregation said safety concerns about Price are legitimate but maintained that safeguarding remains essential to its mission, adding that an online search does not determine whether someone accepted responsibility or expressed remorse. The church said mockery, speculation and distorted facts are not biblical accountability, and argued that accountability should not become perpetual condemnation after a person serves a sentence and demonstrates lasting change. It said Price served his sentence and has lived without reoffending, while stressing that none of this excuses wrongdoing or compromises child safety. First Baptist Church of St. Louis did not respond to comment requests from The Roys Report.
Scrutiny of Price's background has also surfaced on social media, where the Facebook page 50 Years of Abuse at Willow Creek Community Church questioned whether Price had actually served prison time for raping a child. Separately, Missouri laws under RSMo Sections 566.147 through 566.150 bar registered sex offenders from loitering or being present within 500 feet of school property or child-care facilities, a restriction that can create legal complications for churches running youth or daycare programs, according to VOTP News STL. It is not stated in available reporting whether First Baptist Church of St. Louis operates any such youth or child-care programming that would trigger those buffer-zone rules.
Price's academic credentials, according to promotional biographies published by the fellowship, include a Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and a Master of Arts in Worship Studies from Liberty University, along with a Doctor of Ministry degree from South University. His September 16 installation as Missouri state overseer would formalize a leadership role he has effectively held in some capacity since at least his 2024 designation as the fellowship's Missouri State Director, cementing a case that has drawn attention to how independent church structures handle leadership decisions involving convicted offenders.
