Blaine Bartel

Tribute to Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty

November 23, 2009

Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty, founding pastor of Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, passed away quietly early Sunday morning after a battle with lymphoma, surrounded by his family and close friends.

I wish I had the opportunity to become a closer friend of Pastor Billy Joe. For the better part of our ministry lives, Cathy and I admired he and his wonderful wife Sharon from a distance. It was only recently that we had an chance to become friends with the Daugherty family. I was invited to preach at some of Victory’s midweek gatherings a few months ago. We spent time with the Daugherty children that week, who all serve faithfully in their father’s church. Each of them are humble, respectful and passionate about their relationship with God and simply love the people of their church. They reflect their father’s grace.

While I was there, Pastor Billy Joe called me. He thanked me for coming and offered me inspiration and encouragement in our church planting mission at Northstar Church. He spoke to me as a peer with nary a tone of superiority or self-importance. I took mental notes of everything he said, all coming from a man that had given 3 decades to building one of the truly great soulwinning churches in America.

Before moving to Dallas, Cathy and I served at a church on the other side of the city from Victory. In more than 15 years of ministry in Tulsa, I can say this about Pastor Billy Joe and Victory… there was never a time that I ever encountered a person or family coming from his church that had been hurt or mistreated. Billy Joe defined the love of God and anyone who had the privilege of being around him left a better, stronger, happier person.

I sent Billy Joe a text a few weeks after visiting his church, not knowing he had already been admitted to the hospital. I asked if he would meet for lunch to help me with some ministry decisions at our church. From a hospital bed, he asked his son-in-law Adam to let me know that he would gladly meet with me just as soon as he was out of the hospital. That lunch would never come.

Though he is no longer with us, his legacy of love lives on through his family, his church and each of us he has touched across the world.

Thinking back to my request for lunch that day, all I really wanted to do was sit across from this good man and thank him.

So if you are listening Pastor Billy Joe… thank you.

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Categories: Church •General •Personal •Thoughts
Tags: northstar • church • america • mission • time • grace • building • courage • god • lives
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Kathleen Kaseman said:

Thanks for this awesome tribute to a man who was our pastor for years. A man of love. He would greet us and ask what the Holy Spirit was showing us. Us?? You are right he never felt superior or looked down on us. He treated us as his equal. What a man! We met Pastor Billy Joe and Sharon when we came to Tulsa for Rhema Bible Training center in 1974. He was youth pastor at Sheridan Assembly and dedicated our 6 month old son who is in heaven with him now!! He was our daughters youth pastor. He got our girls in to youth camp as we had no money to send them. He supported us as missionaries, asked us to sit on the board of Victory World Missions Training Center.
We sent him a love gift one Christmas and he called us to thank us!! We admired them. Humble servants. He made of himself no reputation.
I wish I could write all that is in my heart today. What a loss to the body of Christ. We are praying for Sharon, the family and VCC family.

Posted on 11/23 at 01:24 PM

Kelly Ward said:

Blaine,
Lee Ann and I were products of Victory and Pastors Billy Joe and Sharon.
The words you have written are very true, we were very blessed by the ministry and by being able to work within it. Then to be able to work with Pastor George and you at WGM were extensions of the training from Victory.
Pastor Billy Joe’s heart for the people of his church and the world was bottomless.
He will be greatly missed.

Posted on 11/23 at 02:44 PM

Angela said:

When I was a child my family attended Victory Christian Center in Tulsa and my parents thought the world of Billiy Joe. He was a wonderful man of God. He will be missed.

Posted on 11/24 at 03:31 PM

Ted Egly said:

Blaine: All I have to say is, “wow.” The words you depicted above truly describes Pastor Billy Joe to the “T.” I appreciate you sharing the stories in which reflexively you looked back at the small and large things he exhibited in his “daily” life.

While we grieve on earth, heaven rejoices. Grief can be proof, in some ways, that love is more powerful than death.

It is one thing to talk about being Jesus to those around us, and it is another to look through the lenses of someone who truly was Jesus to the world around him.

Thank you for your kind and loving words.

Posted on 11/24 at 11:59 PM

Diana Vance-Wise said:

Blaine,
After graduating from ORU and attending VCC for a few years, I admired Billie Joe’s ability to remember an individual who had once attended his church. In the mid-90’s as I too worked in at that church across town from Victory for a couple of years to launch their school, Pastor Billie Joe always offered the resources of VCC’s proven programs to help us along the way. He seemed to leave a positive imprint on every life he touched. Although I no longer live in the Tulsa area, the news of his home-going was emotional. No matter where the Lord leads, you always look back on your formative years with fondness and appreciation for such genuine role models. To say that he will be missed is certainly an understatement. I look forward to seeing his influence continue through those who knew and loved him.

Posted on 11/25 at 03:50 AM

about blaine
For more than a quarter of a century, Blaine Bartel has served what he believes is the hope of the world, the local church. Before leading the launch of Northstar Church, Blaine served as associate pastor in Tulsa, helping to build one of America's most innovative churches.