Tony Morgan died Sept. 4 following complications from a heart attack. Morgan was founder of the Unstuck Group, a church consultancy firm that “helps pastors clarify where God’s called the church to go in the future, and how you’ll get there.” Since its founding in 2009, the organization claims to have “helped over 600 churches solve the complexity of their staffing and structure and find greater ministry effectiveness on the other side.”
January
Donald Wildmon, a southern minister who rallied evangelicals to promote decency and reverse America’s moral decline by employing advertiser boycotts as a culture war weapon, died on Dec. 28 after a long battle with Lewy Body Dementia. He was 85. Ordained a pastor in the United Methodist Church, Wildmon felt a stronger calling to activism after he and his family members saw obscenity, adultery, and torture on primetime network TV just before Christmas 1976.
He organized a “Turn the TV Off Week” in Mississippi in 1977, and in 1978 founded the National Federation for Decency, renamed the American Family Association in 1988. In 2017, the National Religious Broadcasters honored Don Wildmon with the NRB Hall of Fame Award. He authored 22 books in his lifetime and led over 30 tours to the Holy Land and Western Europe. Wildmon is survived by his wife Linda, their four children, six grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.
Junior Hill, a well-loved and well-traveled Southern Baptist evangelist, died Jan. 3 at the age of 87 in Hartselle, Alabama. In his 2005 autobiography “They Call Him Junior,” Hill estimated that he preached at more than 1,800 Sunday-to-Sunday revivals during his five decades of ministry. He was invited to speak at pastor’s conferences, state conventions, churches, colleges and seminaries throughout that time. In 1989, Hill was elected as the Southern Baptist Convention’s first vice president at the convention’s annual meeting in Las Vegas. Hill is survived by his wife of 66 years, Carole, plus two children and five grandchildren.
February
Joel Belz, founder of WORLD Magazine, died Feb. 4 at age 82 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Belz left a rich legacy as a churchman, a leader in Christian education, and in other arenas in life, but it is his role as the founder of WORLD Magazine that had the biggest impact on me and – ultimately – on MinistryWatch.
Henry Blackaby, a pastor and author whose “Experiencing God” Bible study sold more than 8 million copies, died on Feb. 10 at age 88. Born April 15, 1935, in British Columbia, Blackaby had been serving as pastor of a church in California when asked to return to his native Canada and assist a small church in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, that was on the verge of closing.
At the time, Faith Baptist Church in Saskatoon had 10 members, according to a history on the website of Blackaby Ministries International. Under his leadership, the church not only grew, it eventually sponsored a college and 38 other churches. Blackaby, with the help of co-author Claude King, would distill the lessons from his pastoral experience in a Bible study called “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God.” He summed up his approach to ministry with a short but memorable statement: “Watch to see where God is working and join him.”
Chad Hayward, who spent 17 years as CEO of The Accord Network died from lung cancer. He was 50. The Accord Network is a group of more than 100 Christian organizations involved in relief and development work. Accord brings its member organizations together to provide training and support, as well as create platforms for collaboration and knowledge sharing across their respective industries. In the 1990s, Hayward got his start in the nonprofit world doing marketing for organizations in Oklahoma and Colorado. In 2001, he moved to Washington, D.C. to work as communications director for Rep. Jim Ryun for two years. Following his tenure with Ryun, he became a senior advisor with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
April
Pastor Antwane “AD” Lenoir, 41, was found stabbed to death on April 6, at Westview Baptist Church in Opa-locka, Florida, where he had served as senior pastor since 2009. The following day, police arrested a suspect—a homeless man Lenoir had been trying to help—and charged him with first-degree murder. Local news accounts described Lenoir as a “community activist” whose efforts to “model Christ in a practical way” made him a symbol of hope in a city better known for poverty and corruption.
Beverly LaHaye, influential conservative activist and founder of Concerned Women for America, died on Sunday at a retirement home in California. She was 94 years old. Her husband Tim LaHaye was a well-known pastor and co-author of the wildly popular Left Behind book series. Yet, despite his own platform and success, Tim was a vocal supporter of his wife’s activism. When she was 17, she enrolled in Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., where she met Tim LaHaye. They were married a year later.
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