Al Baird

Elder, Los Angeles International Church of Christ

Gloria and I live in Playa Del Rey, on the West Side of Los Angeles, where I serve full-time as elder and she as women’s ministry leader. We have served in these roles in Los Angeles since 1992. 

We grew up in Texas, met and married 46 years ago in college, and moved to Boston for my first job. I received my PhD in Physics at the University of Texas and worked in research for fifteen years in Boston. Then, in 1983, I gave up my career in physics to go into the fulltime ministry (My scientist associates said I had gone from physics to metaphysics.), where I would serve both as an evangelist and elder, both in Boston and Los Angeles. During those intervening years, we were fortunate enough to be a part of several foreign church plantings, to coordinate evangelization in the Middle East and to lead the Media/Law World Sector, which helped the churches around the world function within the legal structures of their countries and produced the video news magazine Kingdom News Network.

One of our greatest joys in life is our family. We have three daughters, Staci, Kristi and Keri. All three are happily married to disciples and have served or do serve in the fulltime ministry. Staci and her husband Andy Yeatman have four daughters, Kiara, Kaleigh, Karina and Kimi. Our oldest grandchild, Kiara, was born in Milan while Andy and Staci led the church there. Just a few weeks ago, Kiara was baptized in Delhi, India. The Yeatmans are in Delhi for three years as his State Department posting. Kristi and her husband Greg Bodzioch have our only two grandsons, Brandon and Cameron, of our eight grandchildren. The Bodziochs serve the San Francisco church. Our youngest daughter Keri and her husband Steve Hiddleson have two girls, Sierra and Alia. The Hiddlesons serve the church in Phoenix.

God has shaped and molded our lives through the mountain tops and the valleys of our lives, through the triumphs and the tragedies. We rejoiced in the amazing miracles of church growth in the 1980s and mourned over His discipline in the early 2000s. But our God never gives up on us and is always working on His people, transforming us more and more into the image of our Lord Jesus. I am very encouraged, very hopeful that the church is about to write her most dynamic and beautiful chapter yet.

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. (Psalm 5:3)