Skip to content
Pastor J. Edgar Boyd, Senior Minister
Reverend “J” Edgar Boyd is the Pastor of the 148-year-old First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles (FAME), the oldest African American church in the city.
Assigned to the church in 2012, Pastor Boyd leads a congregation of thousands and emphasizes Biblically-based spiritual practices, stewardship, congregational involvement, appropriate record-keeping, fiscal controls and accountability and transparency in operating procedures. In addition to ministering to the spiritual needs of the congregation, he has 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 welfare of transitional age youth within the foster care system, law enforcement relations within diverse communities, K-12 education and economic empowerment.
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 there, he established a multi-million dollar housing and community development corporation and substantially increased the church’s portfolio of assets.
Since accepting the call to ministry in 1968, his pastoral assignments have also included: Bethel A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles; Brookins A.M.E. of Oakland; Walker Chapel A.M.E. of Seattle; Grace A.M.E. Church of Casper, Wyoming and St. John A.M.E. Church of Pueblo, Colorado. Active within African Methodism, he served as Clerical Dean of the California Conference for 20 years and currently serves as a member of the General Board of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inc., and as Treasurer for the denomination’s 5th Episcopal District.
A native of Florida, he served two years in the United States Army and was honorably discharged. 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. He is currently in the dissertation phase of a Doctor of Ministry degree program at the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California.
Pastor Boyd is married to Florence Miles-Boyd, a native of Oakland, California. They are the parents of two sons and two daughters.