Henry Blackaby, creator of Experiencing God, passed away Saturday. He was 88.
Considered a spiritual statesman by many, the quiet pastor from Canada had a ministry that reached from pastors, missionaries, and lay people, to CEOs, US presidents, and world leaders.
Blackaby’s famous summary of methods to know and do the need of God—“watch to see where God is working and join him”—has guided many people, churches, and ministries to affix God’s work. Blackaby’s teaching and influence crossed denominational lines in addition to cultural and geographic boundaries.
“We are deeply saddened to listen to the news of the passing of Henry Blackaby,” said Lifeway President and CEO Ben Mandrell. “He was a terrific man of God and minister to the body of Christ, starting together with his time as a neighborhood church pastor and continuing through his ministry as an creator and Bible teacher.
“Millions of individuals across the globe have been impacted by his Bible study Experiencing God. He loved his Lord, his family, and his local church. Lifeway sends the Blackaby family our sincere condolences as they remember the life and ministry of this godly man.”
Blackaby served as founder and president emeritus of Blackaby Ministries International, a corporation built to assist people experience God. He coauthored the trendy classic Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. His other acclaimed works include Spiritual Leadership, Fresh Encounter, and A God Centered Church.
“Only eternity will reveal the extent of Henry’s impact on the church. I do know of no published material that has impacted more churches in additional ways than Experiencing God,” said Lifeway President Emeritus Jimmy Draper.
“Though Henry wrote more materials after Experiencing God, that book became the inspiration upon which his entire ministry was built. It was obviously the hand of God upon Henry and his message. He shall be eternally remembered for his passion for spiritual awakening and for the sensible working of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives. The impact on the church will proceed until the Lord returns!”
Blackaby, a native Canadian, was pastoring a church in southern California when a Canadian pastor approached him and asked him to think about returning to Canada and becoming pastor of a small, dying church in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Blackaby was struck when he said, “The only hope for Canada is that if Canadian pastors come back home.”
He and his wife Marilynn answered the decision to serve Faith Baptist Church in Saskatoon. Over the following 12 years, the once-dying church grew from 10 members to a thriving congregation that launched 38 mission churches in addition to the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary and College.
There, in those years of local church ministry, the principles of Experiencing God took shape into what would change into the resource that has led to hundreds of thousands of modified lives.
“Experiencing God is my life’s message,” the noted creator often said. “It’s how I had at all times understood and walked with God. This is how I pastored and led God’s people.”
Experiencing God has touched and adjusted hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of churches all over the world. Since 1990, the study has sold greater than 8 million copies in English and is out there in greater than 75 languages. The study, published by Lifeway and co-authored by Claude King, promotes a God-centered lifestyle that helps people know God intimately, recognize his voice and understand his will for his or her lives.
“Our human tendency is to think and act from a human-centered perspective. We often make plans and ask God to bless them, but God is the One who has the plan,” said King. “Henry taught me to search out where God is working and join him. God has a plan, and he’s working in places we wouldn’t know. When we recognize where he’s working and join him, he does amazing things.”
Countless pastors, denominational and ministry leaders, church planters, and missionaries discover Experiencing God as an influential tool God utilized in calling them to vocational ministry, in response to King.
“Only heaven would have an accounting,” King said. “There are hundreds and hundreds who’ve sensed God’s call to ministry due to Experiencing God. Through Henry, God has revealed what he can do through one peculiar man who’s a humble servant and filled with faith.”
Blackaby’s son Richard now leads Blackaby Ministries International and writes and speaks on spiritual awakening, experiencing God, and the Christian life. In 2022, Lifeway re-released the Bible study with latest video content that features Richard and Mike Blackaby, the son and grandson of Henry Blackaby.
Reflecting on the legacy of his father’s work on the unique Experiencing God study, Richard Blackaby said there was no option to know the way dramatically the study’s message can be received or how it could spawn a multigenerational movement of individuals in search of to acknowledge God’s voice.
“My dad at all times said there may be a deep longing in people’s hearts to know and experience God,” he said. “Many people knew there needed to be more to the Christian life than what they were experiencing.”
Describing what it was prefer to grow up the son of Henry Blackaby and watching his parents, Richard Blackaby said: “I knew you didn’t need to be a superhero to be a person of God or a girl of God. You just needed to be willing to follow wherever Jesus leads you.”
After pastoring Faith Baptist Church, Henry Blackaby served as director of missions in Vancouver for 2 years before moving to the United States to change into the director of prayer and spiritual awakening on the North American Mission Board.
He later served as special assistant to the presidents of the Southern Baptist International and North American mission boards and Lifeway.
Blackaby was born April 15, 1935, in British Columbia. He is preceded in death by his wife Marilynn and survived by their five children and 14 grandchildren.
