Pastor J. Edgar Boyd

Pastor J. Edgar Boyd is a Senior Community Engagement Advisor at NSA. Most recently he served as pastor of the 150-year-old First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles (1st AME), the oldest African American church in the city. Assigned to the church in 2012, Pastor Boyd led a congregation of thousands and emphasized Biblically-based spiritual practices, stewardship, and transparency in operating procedures. In addition to ministering to the spiritual needs of the congregation, he empowered the church’s leadership (through a commission system) to more proactively address the overall health, social and educational needs of the parishioners and the larger community. 

As the Chief Executive Officer of FAME, he conceived the recent formation of the South Los Angeles Community Development and Empowerment Corporation (SLACDEC), organized to develop a collaboration with other denominations to address social and economic issues impacting a 32 square mile area of South Los Angeles. Among his areas of interest are: the overall physical and mental health of marginalized and disenfranchised communities of Color, the welfare of transitional age youth within the foster care system, law enforcement relations within diverse communities, K-12 education/training,  and economic empowerment. Under his leadership, FAME Church organized the Sojourner Truth Industrial Club of First AME Church of Los Angeles, and acquired a five thousand square foot complex on Crenshaw Blvd.  The building provides space for academic enrichment offerings, involving after-school training for 300 school age children, weekdays and Saturdays. 

Prior to his assignment at FAME, he served as Pastor of the historic Bethel A.M.E. Church in San Francisco for 20 years. While serving there, he led the congregation in expanding its 105 housing unit portfolio into a 350 unit housing ministry, serving market rate, low-income, and moderately-low income multi-family, senior, and disabled families and individuals. A native of Florida, Pastor Boyd served a two year term of duty in the United States Army and was honorably discharged in 1970. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Community Development from Western Washington University and a Master of Divinity degree from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Iowa, and has done extensive studies in the Doctor of Ministries degree program at the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California.