Pastor Ray is a graduate of Ohio University, and received his Masters of Divinity at United Theological Seminary in Dayton Ohio.  He has been married for 40 years to Catherine Ake who serves as the pastor of Vienna UMC.  Pastor Ray comes to us after serving  Henrietta UMC in Firelands District for the last 6 years and guiding them through an exciting time of growth and change as the church outgrew its facilities and moved to multiple services, and transformed its parsonage into additional Sunday School classrooms and office space.

Pastor Ray is also serving as the lead pastor for the newly forming Living Waters Cluster of United Methodist churches (Brookfield, Coalburg, Hubbard and Masury) which will be striving to discover ways in which the churches can work together to more effectively address and respond to the needs of our community together.  He serves the East Ohio Conference as a member of the New Church Start Team which works to identify, train pastors in the work of starting new congregations in under-served areas, and provide funding to enable these new ministry and faith communities to flourish.  Pastor Ray has also been asked to serve on the Mahoning Valley District UMC Strategy Committee.

This June at the East Ohio Annual Conference held in Lakeside, Ohio, Pastor Ray was honored as the Firelands District Pastor of the year by the District Lay Speakers.  He also was asked to present to the Annual Conference “Farmer-To-Farmer”, a ministry he has begun that has now become a key part of the Conference Classrooms, Clinics and Churches Initiative. Please see www.farmertofarmer.webs.com  This ministry is a simple attempt to transform the world one farmer at a time by reconditioning tractors and farm equipment that is no longer appropriate for modern farming in Ohio and transporting to the St. John's river area of Liberia where it is life changing to folks surviving by hoe and machete subsistence farming following a 14 year civil war.  Proceeds from the extra crops are sold to fund a clinic (the closest hospital is a 3 day walk) and a school (children must currently walk 3 ½ hours each way to attend).

Masury UMC, 1382 Broadway Avenue in Masury, would also like to announce that we are now celebrating worship at a new time: 11:00am on Sunday mornings.  For more information about the ministries of  Masury UMC please call the church at 330 448-1643, or Pastor Ray at 330 531-4221.