The Houston Pastor Known as Ed Young Sr.
Homer Edwin Young is also known as H. Edwin Young and Ed Young Sr. His long leadership of Second Baptist Church in Houston made him a prominent Southern Baptist pastor. I find the most useful way into his biography is through the institution he led for more than four decades, while keeping him distinct from his son Ed Young Jr., another well-known pastor.
He was born on August 11, 1936, in Laurel, Mississippi. His early religious life included accepting Christ at twelve, and he later described feeling called to ministry during his college years. Those experiences belong to his own account of vocation and explain the direction his education and work took.
His career eventually included church leadership, denominational office, books, and broadcast preaching. Family life ran alongside those activities, with his wife Jo Beth and three sons forming a household in which ministry became a recurring occupation across generations.
Education and Early Pastoral Work
Young’s educational path included the University of Alabama, Mississippi College, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The movement from undergraduate study to theological training placed preparation alongside his sense of calling.
I would not treat that preparation as incidental. Pastoral leadership combines public speaking with teaching, institutional responsibility, and work with people at different stages of life. Formal study helped establish the professional foundation for a career that later became associated with a very large congregation.
Before Houston, he served churches in North Carolina and South Carolina. His early pastoral settings included Canton and Taylorsville in North Carolina and Columbia in South Carolina. Those assignments preceded his move to Second Baptist in 1978.
The sequence gives his later prominence some perspective. He did not begin with the large Houston church as it would eventually develop. His work passed through earlier congregations and regions, accumulating experience before the longest chapter of his ministry.
Second Baptist Church and Decades of Expansion
Young became pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston in 1978. The congregation then had about two thousand members. During his tenure, it expanded into a church with several campuses and a much larger membership.
The scale is important, but I prefer to avoid treating membership totals as if they were identical to weekly attendance. A church can publish different measures of participation. The clear feature of Young’s tenure is extensive growth and the development of a multisite organization.
That kind of expansion changes the work of leadership. A pastor remains a preacher, but the institution also requires coordinated staff, teaching programs, facilities, and communication between locations. I see the church’s development as an organizational story as well as a pulpit story.
Young stepped down from the senior pastoral role in May 2024. His son Ben succeeded him. The change marked the end of a Houston leadership chapter that had begun forty-six years earlier, even as the family name continued in the church’s senior office.
A National Baptist Role
Young served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1992 to 1994. That denominational office gave him responsibilities beyond his own congregation and placed him within national Baptist discussions about missions, doctrine, and institutional direction.
He also led the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference in 1982. These roles distinguish the father from the son with whom he shares a familiar public name. The offices associated with Homer Edwin Young should not be casually attached to Ed Young Jr.
His theology has emphasized biblical authority, evangelism, marriage, and parenting. I find those themes useful for understanding the subjects that recur in his preaching and writing. They connect the larger denominational role with the practical subjects he addressed to listeners and readers.
The Winning Walk and Written Work
Young’s broadcast ministry, The Winning Walk, extended his preaching through radio and television. It carried messages beyond the people physically attending Second Baptist, adding another audience to the one gathered at the church’s campuses.
His books include The 10 Commandments of Marriage and The 10 Commandments of Parenting. Their titles reflect the attention to family relationships present in his public ministry. Other writing addressed faith, health, and social concerns.
I think of the broadcast as an additional doorway into his work. A person could encounter Young through a sermon at church, a program at home, or a book. Those channels helped explain his visibility without requiring every listener to have a connection to Houston.
The ministry’s scale does not establish his personal wealth. Church property and institutional resources belong to a different financial category from an individual’s finances. A useful account can discuss the organization and the books without inventing a salary or net-worth figure.
Jo Beth and Their Three Sons
Young married Jo Beth Landrum on June 13, 1959. Their marriage lasted fifty-eight years, ending with her death in September 2017. Jo Beth participated in church and family life throughout the long span of his ministry.
They raised three sons: Ed, Ben, and Cliff. Ed Young Jr. became the founding pastor of Fellowship Church in the Dallas area. Ben worked at Second Baptist before succeeding his father as senior pastor. Cliff has also been involved in ministry.
A family with several pastors can sound like one continuous office, but Fellowship Church and Second Baptist are separate institutions. Ed Jr.’s work is not another title for his father’s Houston career, and Ben’s succession represents a later period of leadership.
Ed Jr. and his wife Lisa had four children: LeeBeth, EJ, Landra, and Laurie. They are part of Homer Edwin Young’s larger group of grandchildren. LeeBeth died in 2021, a family loss that was publicly remembered. The cause should not be supplied through speculation.
Leadership Changes and Institutional Questions
The transition to Ben’s leadership later became associated with disputes over church governance and members’ voting rights. Lawsuits alleged that bylaw changes had reduced congregational authority. Allegations about an institution should be described as contested claims rather than settled judgments.
I see this as a separate layer of the biography: decades of growth can coexist with later disagreement about how a church should be governed. The succession is part of Young’s institutional legacy, but the dispute does not authorize inventing personal motives for any family member.
FAQ
Are Homer Edwin Young and Ed Young Jr. the same pastor?
No. Homer Edwin Young is the pastor commonly known as Ed Young Sr., associated with Second Baptist Church in Houston. His son Ed Young Jr. founded Fellowship Church in the Dallas area. Their shared name frequently causes confusion.
When did Homer Edwin Young lead the Southern Baptist Convention?
He served as its president from 1992 to 1994. That national denominational role belongs to his career alongside his long Houston pastorate and broadcast ministry, The Winning Walk.
Who succeeded him at Second Baptist Church?
His son Ben Young succeeded him after he stepped down from the senior pastoral role in May 2024. Ben had previously worked at the church. The transition brought later public disputes about institutional governance and member voting rights.
