Blair Brings Lifelong Calling to Youth & Discipleship
David Blair began his term as the Church of God’s International Youth and Discipleship Director on August 1, 2016, a lifelong journey that began with the release of a dream to be a jet pilot while on a table in a South Georgia emergency room.
By David White
“I felt the call to ministry at an early age, but was hesitant because being raised in a pastor’s home allowed me to see the challenges of ministry. At one point I told fellow classmates that ministry was the last thing I wanted to do,” Blair said. “After a routine tonsillectomy my sophomore year of high school, I developed internal bleeding and no one knew it for two weeks.”
“My parents rushed me to the emergency room one night at 1 a.m. The doctor was shocked how much blood I had lost. They stitched me back up and gave me a blood transfusion. While mom and dad were in the hallway talking to the doctor, I remember looking up at the ceiling and saying, ‘God, you know I want to fly planes for my country, but if you will let me live, I will follow you even if it’s preaching.’”
Blair attended Lee University and met the love of his life, Janet Knight. They married and for over three decades have been answering the call of ministry that has taken them from a small coal mining town of eastern Tennessee to state/regional offices in Arkansas to Delmarva-D.C., and to the international offices in Cleveland, Tenn., where he served the previous four years as the International Assistant Youth and Discipleship Director.
Blair was nominated and elected to the top position in the youth department during last month’s International General Assembly. Even as he accepted the new ministry position, his heart and mind reflected back to where it all began.
Blair said, “We are grateful for every opportunity given to us by the church.”
Blair was offered a youth pastor position in LaFollette, a small town in eastern Tennessee, where a huge revival was underway. Just out of Lee University and freshly married, he accepted the ministry offer of $175 a week and watched the youth group grow to over 200 students in their short time there. An estimated forty students from that group would eventually move into full-time ministry.
“We got there during the revival, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Blair said. Hundreds of kids got saved, many of them from tough situations who had never heard of Jesus. “That,” Janet said, “is when we experienced the burden to minister to students.”
“Janet would pick up a carload of kids, I’d throw a bunch of them in the back of my ol’ truck, and we’d haul them to church.”
The burden hasn’t lifted since.
David and Janet Blair
The Blairs later became youth pastors at the North Cleveland Church of God in Cleveland, Tennessee for over eight years. God blessed their ministry and in 1994 they transitioned to the role of state youth and discipleship directors in Arkansas, Kentucky, Delmarva-D.C. and South Georgia. He served as the International Youth Ministries Coordinator from 2004 – 2008.
Through it all, from the local church to the international platform, the Blairs’ mission has remained the same: to help ordinary people become extraordinary through the power of the Holy Spirit.
“It is our desire to reach, teach, and train a generation for the cause of Christ,” Blair said. Researchers have projected only 4 percent of the millennial generation will come to know Christ; we have a job to do in reaching this generation.
David and Janet have successfully raised a generation of leaders in their own household.
Their daughter Brittani, 27, is a Lee University graduate with a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A.T. in Special Education. She shares the burden for youth ministry with her parents and is answering the call on her life to invest in the next generation by working with all students to reach their full potential, serving as a middle grade Special Services Resource Teacher for Bradley County Schools.
Their son Bruce, 23, is a recent Lee University graduate with a B.S. degree in Digital Media. He launched Cardiac Media Ministry (cardiacmedia.org), in January of this year to partner with local churches and ministries to spread the gospel through websites and social media. Bruce and his wife, KaLea Boswell, were married in May.
David is the son of longtime Church of God pastors Charles and Jo-Ann Blair of South Georgia. He holds a B.S. in Biblical Studies from Lee University, M. Div. in Pastoral Ministries from the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and a D. Min. in Leadership Development from Columbia International University.
Janet is the daughter of L.B. and Ruth Knight of Fyffe, Alabama. She holds a B.S. in Education and an M.A. in Youth & Family Ministry. She has served as a public school educator for many years and has been an adjunct instructor for Lee University. She is also the founding director of BCU, an after-school program for at-risk students in Bradley County, Tennessee.
Youth and Discipleship is excited to see what God will do over the next four years through their leadership.
David White is director of youth and discipleship for the Church of God in California and Nevada.
