Pastor Rose Through Trials to Find Calling

By Carol McGraw, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Aug. 2–Pastor Brady Boyd, the top candidate for the head job at New Life Church, acknowledges he has had dark moments of the soul — when he used drugs and alcohol, sinned, turned his back on God and then embraced him again.

He’s lived a little. He says he almost died of a birth defect before he was 6 months old. He’s been a baseball announcer, basketball coach, street preacher to the poor and associate pastor to a nationally known evangelical megachurch.

Those who know the pastor at the 12,000-member Gateway Church in suburban Dallas said he is a moral and principled minister; a silvertongued preacher in the mold of Billy Graham; a man who is an effective executive; and a healer of hearts.

But Boyd, 40, has no desire to wade into the highpowered world of evangelical politics where New Life’s fall en pastor Ted Haggard was so dominant. Boyd told The Gazette via telephone Wednesday that if he led New Life, he’d have different priorities. He wouldn’t use the pulpit or the national stage for political speeches — even during next year’s national elections.

“I believe preaching from the Bible is the most important thing I can do. It has answers for all life’s problems,” he said.

While New Life’s political star might have faded, respect for the church within evangelical circles is strong, said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, a post Haggard once held.

The church is lauded for the way it is governed, and the transparent and sensitive way it handled Haggard’s firing.

“It’s the best I’ve ever seen something like that handled, Anderson said. “The New Life leadership has been so trustworthy in handling it, and if they strongly endorse (Boyd), the transfer of trust will go to him and will help him be an effective leader with the congregation and with whatever else they want to do in the future.”

Boyd grew up in rural northwestern Louisiana in a fairly poor family. His father was a poultry plant worker; his mother, a homemaker. He spent idyllic days hunting and fishing in nearby forests and swamps, he said. And every morning he woke to his mother’s prayers.

“She taught me faith, and my father taught me to be a man,” he said.

As a youth he attended an Assembly of God church but became disheartened at infighting between the congregation and pastors who seemed to not stay very long.

At 16, he tossed Christianity out of his life and turned to marijuana, alcohol and “immorality.” He said he barely escaped wrecks, arrests and death. His life was headed nowhere, when in August 1988 he was driving on a dark country road and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“He was saying, ‘My grace is enough, Brady. I have great plans for your life. I care for you,’” he said.

Boyd and his fiancee, Pam, now his wife of 18 years, were baptized at a country church in Jonesboro, La. They have two adopted children, Callie, 6, and Abram, 8, and a Persian cat named Sassy. All will arrive next week for Boyd’s tryout month at New Life. His first sermon will be Aug. 12, and the congregation will vote on his hiring Aug. 27.

Boyd majored in journalism at Louisiana Tech University and later worked for a local radio station, doing play-byplay announcing for basketball and minor league baseball.

He said the time in the broadcast booth helped hone his preaching skills.

“I had to think on my feet,” he said. He also learned to use humor, and to lay it on the line.

“I don’t have any deep, dark secrets. I live my own life in the open and don’t try to hide my humanity,” he said. “I’m a real person. I’m not just a preacher. I’m trying to find my way to heaven and help others go with me.”

He said he has no trepidation about stepping into a congregation, such as New Life, that has been immersed in troubles. He’s done it before.

After college he helped create an outreach ministry that went into the inner city of Shreveport, La. Volunteers each took 20 homes and made weekly visits to shut-ins and the elderly.

“I learned early on that there is a large population that is forgotten by the church,” he said.

At 31, he pastored his first church — Trinity Fellowship Church in Hereford, Texas. The congregation was in crisis. They had lost all but about 50 members.

“They had gone through scandals. A pastor fell into sin, and the church was suffering,” he said. “We loved and cared for them and gave them practical messages and built the community.”

Then he went to Gateway, where growth has been as meteoric as New Life’s. He was being groomed by head pastor Robert Morris to start a satellite church in northern Dallas when he got a call from New Life asking him to apply for the job. “We will hate to see him go,” Morris said. “But we are excited he will get the opportunity to help New Life Church. It’s a great church, and he will be a great help.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0371 or carol.mcgraw@gazette.com

BRADY BOYD’S THOUGHTS ON . . .

Haggard: “I have no judgment in my heart against Ted. I never met him, but I admired him, and he was gifted, and I was saddened for him and his family. We (Gateway Church) had a congregational prayer. We took it personal and were devastated and saddened because we are all one body in Christ.”

Homosexuality: “The homosexuality issue is very complex, and a lot of the time the church tries to oversimplify it.”

Things he’s learned: “My kids have taught me to be simple and to appreciate the little things. My wife, who is my best friend, taught me to be more gentle and caring. My congregation at Trinity taught me how a congregation can persevere and be strong and caring for each other. Gateway Church taught me to do things with excellence and dream big.”

New Life: “I want to tell them the future will be exciting and fun and relational. Though they have been through traumatic times, New Life is God’s idea, and I believe the best days are ahead.”

WHAT’S NEXT

Boyd is scheduled to preach at New Life on Aug 12, 19 and 26. The congregation will vote Aug. 27 on whether to hire him as senior pastor. He’s already been given the nod by a group of outside church overseers who have authority over New Life’s pastor. He must receive twothirds of the vote of the congregation, or the church will have to start the search again.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.

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