David Glenn Selby passed away peacefully at home in his sleep January 12, 2023. He was married to Anna Prince, one of Derek Prince’s adopted daughters for 61 years. For decades David played a major role in the birth and worldwide growth of Derek Prince Ministries (DPM).
Ross Paterson, chairman of the International Council of DPM, states, “We owe a massive debt to David for his many years of faithful labour with Derek Prince Ministries. Given his response to Derek's request many years ago to move to be with Derek and run the operational side of the ministry, we can all with conviction be sure that without him DPM would not be what it is today.”
A founding leader of Derek Prince Ministries
A founding leader of Derek Prince Ministries, David played a key role in the ministry's mandate to reach the unreached and teach the untaught. As Stephen Mansfield writes in Derek Prince: A Biography, David's skills and abilities were a perfect fit with Derek's vision for the ministry:
One of the reasons that Derek’s ministry expanded so dramatically in the early 1970s was the presence of his son-in-law, David Selby. At Derek and Lydia’s invitation, David and Anna moved to Ft. Lauderdale with their children and took over the administrative work that Derek had been doing largely on his own.
There were books to print and sell at Derek’s conferences, tapes to duplicate, and newsletters to print and mail. The ministry grew from a backroom project to a guesthouse and then finally to a headquarters with a warehouse for storing materials.
David’s technical skills and gentle manner with Derek helped the growing organization to run smoothly and freed Derek to do the things he was made to do.
David also oversaw a new phase of the ministry that began in the 1980s, as Derek Prince Ministries became a global organization, providing Derek’s teaching in multiple languages across many nations. David’s oversight of the workers from different nations was essential to this development, as was his skilled handling of the ministry’s finances required for these many new outreaches.
In 2006 David retired as CEO of the ministry and served several years more on the DPM-USA Board of Directors, the International Council of Derek Prince Ministries, and the boards of other international DPM offices.
David will be remembered as a strong man of faith, with great passion for the Lord and a deep love for his family and countless friends.
