The Rev David Kerr (61) grew up in East Belfast. He went to school at Strandtown primary school and Sullivan Upper in Holywood, Co Down. He attended Queen's University where he took a degree. Later he mastered in ministry and theology at Sheffield university. He trained for the ministry at Edgehill Theological College and was ordained in 1964.
He served for five years at Rathcoole, Newtownabbey, and was appointed superintendent minister in Limerick in 1969. There he was responsible for initiating an alternating ministry scheme whereby Methodists and Presbyterians were united in one congregation.
In 1975 he was appointed superintendent minister in Ballyholme, Bangor, Co Down, and six years later he moved to Knockbreda in south-east Belfast. He also became Methodist adviser to the BBC religious programmes department. In 1987 he was appointed superintendent minister of the Belfast Central Mission, where he has served since. He has been very active on various church committees down the years, placing particular emphasis on inter-church relations.
His wife Eileen is principal social worker at the Beaconfield Marie Curie Project in Belfast. They had four boys and a girl, all now adults.