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J. Melvin Ray
About a year after the end of World War II (in November of 1946), I was born in Chicago to a migrating couple from Mississippi, Joe Eddie & Walter Mae Ray. The early years of my life is a time in w...view moreAbout a year after the end of World War II (in November of 1946), I was born in Chicago to a migrating couple from Mississippi, Joe Eddie & Walter Mae Ray. The early years of my life is a time in which my family moved from one neighborhood to the next; living in almost every area of Chicago’s Westside before I was eighteen. Our family’s focus has always been living our lives in Christ.
I grew up attended Commonwealth Missionary Baptist Church, a small Westside congregation, under the Pastorship of Rev. Eddie A. Henderson. Fore the first seventeen years of my life, this is where my week began and ended. On Sunday mornings there was 9:30 Sunday School; 11 O’clock Sunday Morning Service; back to church for the 6 O’clock evening Baptist Young People’s Training Union or better know as BYPU. Pastor Henderson kept the young people in the church active in his Wednesday night Bible studies and Thursday night Missionary Meetings. The membership of Commonwealth was also active in the trainings of the church’s district and state associations. This Church was the center and the stabilizing force in my early life and a point of focus as I entered the Ministry.
In November 1977 at Commonwealth M. B. Church under the Pastorship of Rev. James R. Goodwin – I entered the ministerial service with special gifting for organizational development. In the spring of 1978, I enrolled into the Pastoral and Evangelism course at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and I united with The True Vine of Holiness M. B. Church (Henderson Hill, Pastor) on the Southside of Chicago. At Moody and under Rev. Henderson Hill, I started understanding God’s design of His Church.
In August 1979, God started testing my understanding of His organization of the Church with a Pastorship in Dubuque Iowa; Youth Church organization in Racine Wisconsin; Church Organizational structuring and conception in Detroit Michigan. During the years of service, I obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Business (Management and Organizational Development) from Spring Arbor University.
I am the husband of Virginia for the past forty-two years and the father of James Jr., Valerie and Vellenie; but the most important thing is that I gave my life to Christ at the age of nine.view less