The Rev. Dr. Samuel Ray, the pastor of a West Baltimore Baptist church for more than four decades, died Wednesday of complications from a fall he suffered in February. He was a patient at Genesis Health Care on Hammonds Lane. The Glen Burnie resident was 81.
Born in Baltimore and raised on North Mount Street, he was a 1954 Frederick Douglass High School graduate.
He earned a degree in history at what is now Morgan State University and held a master's degree in divinity from Howard University. He also received a doctorate in divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary.
He initially worked as a state probation officer. In his preaching, he said that he was called to the ministry in 1954 while attending the Lott Carey Foreign Youth Convention at Vermont Avenue Baptist Church in Washington.
He said he delivered his initial sermon in June of that year.
He was ordained on Aug. 31, 1962, at Morning Star Baptist Church of Christ, where he worshipped as a young man.
"He exemplified service to his people," said a daughter, Dawn Ray of Glen Burnie. "You did not have to be a member of his church to have known him. He visited the sick and went to the jails. His ministry centered on rendering service to others."
According to a church biography, Dr. Ray served as pastor of First Baptist Church of Mount Winans from 1961 to 1963. In 1964, he became superintendent of the Lott Carey Foreign Mission School.
While a student at Morgan State, he met his future wife, Chestine A. McGlone. They served as missionaries in Liberia from 1965 to 1966.
Dr. Ray was installed as the pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church of Christ on Dec. 17, 1967. He was the congregation's fourth pastor.
"His style of preaching was extemporaneous. I never saw him use notes," said the Rev. Errol D. Gilliard Sr., pastor of the Greater Harvest Baptist Church. "His sermons were scripturally sound and socially relevant."
Mr. Gilliard said Dr. Ray had the ability to attract "the salt of the earth to his church," and that he told the members of his congregation to "check their titles at the door." Dr. Ray also opened a vacation Bible school many years ago so neighborhood children would have a place to go in the summer, Mr. Gilliard recalled.
"His doors were always open to us," said Mr. Gilliard, who is also president of the Baptist Ministers Convention and spent his childhood in West Baltimore. "He had a strong sense of mission and evangelization."
He recalled that Dr. Ray spent hours visiting the sick. At a funeral, he made it a practice to accompany the family to the cemetery and spend time with them there.
"He gave me advice," said Mr. Gilliard. "He told me, 'A cemetery is a lonely place.' He was also a man who did not hold grudges. I think he would have forgiven Judas."
In his writings, Dr. Ray said he believed that his church "must reach out to reaffirm Christian ethics." He began an outdoor ministry on his church's Fayette Street parking lot. He later moved his summer outdoor services to Franklin Square Park, at Carey and Fayette streets.
"He was powerful. You did not know how influential he was," said the Rev. Beverly Cromartie, an associate minister at Morning Star who is also a mortician. "You also didn't realize the people he knew. And yet he was the type of pastor who shoveled his own snow."
Services will be held at 11 a.m. June 20 at Morning Star Baptist Church of Christ, 1063 W. Fayette St.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include a son, the Rev. Samuel J. Ray Jr. of Glen Burnie; another daughter, Teri Ray of Glen Burnie; and two sisters, Mary Louise Dixon of Catonsville and Betty Ray Campbell of Baltimore. His wife died in 1997.