John David Beal

John David Beal, 78, Kansas City, MO, passed away April 3, 2003, at North Kansas City Hospital, following a brief illness. Funeral services will be 10 a.m. Monday, April 7, at Northgate Baptist Church, 800 N.E. Vivion Rd.; graveside services will follow at Floral Hills Cemetery. Friends may visit from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, April 6, at D.W. Newcomer's Sons White Chapel Funeral Home, 6600 N. Antioch Rd., Gladstone, MO. Mr. Beal was born in St. Joseph, MO, on November 3, 1924. He lived there until his family moved to Kansas City, MO, in the 1940s, where he met and married Helen Lee Huff in 1946. They were married for 54 years. He surrendered his life to the ministry in the early 1950s, while a member of the Bales Baptist Church, Kansas City, MO, and received undergraduate degrees from Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, MO, William Jewell University, Liberty, MO, and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, MO. He holds the distinction of being the very first graduate from the seminary in 1961. He joked that there was nobody with a name starting with "A"! He went on to earn his Master of Theology from the seminary in 1971 and his Doctor of Ministry from Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA, in 1981. He served as pastor for a number of rural churches in Missouri during the 1950s. He and Helen were appointed as missionaries by the Southern Baptist Home Missionary Board in 1962. After a brief time in New Orleans, they moved to the Atlanta, GA, area where they lived and worked for 25 years. During this time, he served as Director of the Clark HowellTechwood Baptist Center in central Atlanta from 1962 to 1970. He served as the Weekday Ministries Consultant/Downtown Ministry for the Atlanta Baptist Association from 1970 to 1980. His love and specialty was multi-family housing ministries. He served as National consultant in Multi-family Housing, Metropolitan Missions Department in Atlanta from 1980 until his retirement in 1989. He also wrote a book on this ministry. He trained and leaves a protege, Terry Moncrief, who has taken over much of the work that he and Helen began. In 1989, David and Helen returned to live in Kansas City, MO, to be near their nieces. David continued his multi-housing ministry work into retirement by working for a few years with the Kansas/Nebraska Baptist Association and the Northgate Baptist Church, Kansas City, MO. He loved working with children and youth through "game wagon" and volleyball at area apartment complexes, and also started a church service at a mobile home community. He was coordinating game wagon plans with his volunteers up to the day that God called him home. David is survived by two nieces and nephews, Nancy and Robert Petersen, Kansas City, MO, and Joyce and Ken Wilcox, Southlake, TX; and great-niece, Kerry Petersen, student at University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. He is also survived by a special family that he and Helen loved and cared for as their own children and grandchildren, Edwin and Betty Drane, Hilton Head, SC, David Edwin Drane, Hilton Head, and Laura Elizabeth Drane, Columbia, SC. He was preceded in death by his wife, Helen Lee, and his parents, Harry Samuel Beal and Ophie Spillman Beal. The family suggests contributions to Northgate Baptist Church, Kansas City, MO, or the Clark Howell-Techwood Baptist Center, Atlanta, GA. (Arrangements: D.W. Newcomer's Sons White Chapel, 816-452-8604)