It is with sadness that we mark yet another passing in the Church of God, that of David C. Blair, International Director of Youth and Discipleship for the Church of God. Although most of his ministry was in youth work and did not directly impact Lay Ministries, there are two points at which his ministry touched ours.
The first was during his years as Youth Pastor at the North Cleveland Church of God, where he pastored Renée Albert, daughter of Executive Director Leonard C. Albert. My wife and I also got to know David well during his years at North Cleveland. We found him to be a great guy with a great family.
The second took place in 2008, but it requires some explanation. Lay Ministries consistently raised two thirds of its budget independent of the allocation it received from the “tithe on tithe.” Much of that came from the resources (books, courses, CD’s, clothing and other items) that it sold during the conferences it either featured or simply resourced. The “hard sell” that came with that was controversial amongst many of our ministers, but it was funding that didn’t have to come involuntarily from their local church.
In that year G. Dennis McGuire, General Overseer, sponsored four LifeBuilders Men’s Ministries conferences. One of those was in Louisville, KY, at David Boggs’ church. I was sent to resource the meeting, so my wife and I went to Louisville loaded with materials.
Successful resourcing of a meeting involves many things: the placement of your table, the ability to you have to point out its existence and to show what’s there, both in addition to having things the men wanted to buy.
David was commissioned to help run the conference, a natural with his experience with the youth Winterfest conferences. Along with Brian Yaun, Kentucky’s COG Youth Director at the time, everything that we could have wanted we got. Our table was in the back of the multipurpose room where the conference was being held. David gave me time to get up and promote some of our materials. (I prefer a softer sell than, say, Leonard Albert.) It was a great conference, featured Jason Crabb, Mitchell Tolle, Tommy Bates and Curtis Bridgeman. And we did very well that weekend.
David didn’t have to do any of that, even considering that LifeBuilders was a core part of our department’s portfolio. But he did because of the person he was. And we are grateful for the life he lived and the ministry that he did.
Our prayers go out to Janet and his family in this loss.
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