Over 40 years of pastoral care experience
Ray has served over 40 years in full-time ministry in Texas, Southern California, and Kentucky as a senior pastor, associate/discipleship pastor, student/children's pastor, and now as a pastor to terminally ill patients. Those various experiences and locations give him a unique opportunity to help ministry leaders in need.
Ray has a heart for pastors and a desire to help them through the joys and struggles of ministry; he knows them both firsthand. He has watched people grow and flourish, and be used of God in powerful ways. He has watched struggling churches begin to thrive again. But he has also watched pastors struggle to survive the unrealistic expectations and pressures of church life, and pastors be bullied by others within the church. Ray has personally known the joy of a church tripling in size, and the hurt of being forced out of a church (on two different occasions, both twenty years apart). In addition, Ray has known the personal challenge of walking with his wife through her battle with an aggressive form of cancer, which she has survived, but has forever changed her life.
Ray and his wife, Lauri, have been married for over 38 years and have 4 grown children. Three of their four grown children are married and have their own children—providing 7 grandchildren for Ray & Lauri to enjoy! Lauri has faithfully supported, encouraged, and ministered alongside Ray every step of the way. In her gentle and quiet spirit, she found ways to serve, love, and encourage others. She has a heart for ladies and especially those who have been affected by the hurts of ministry or life. As Ray ministers to men, Lauri is graciously willing to come alongside their spouses with love and encouragement, knowing the struggles and challenges they face.
Ray Johnson
Ray serves as a "shepherd to the shepherd"
Let Ray come along side of you, and help provide that support, encouragement, and ministry that you need as a pastor/ministry leader. Ray serves as a "shepherd to the shepherd" with a nationally recognized ministry that has ministered to over 2,000 ministry leaders.
Ray helps minister to those in need of grief care
Ray deals with over 160 deaths a year as a hospice chaplain, and leads grief classes that have been attended by over 400 grieving loved ones. Join Ray in one of his grief classes or let him minister to your church-- providing care for your members or training your leaders.
I have known Ray Johnson since he was a college student. Ray was one of my top leaders in helping guide and grow a large and dynamic college ministry within a church setting. He was highly committed, faithful, hard-working, energetic, and creative. He also displayed a godly spirit that was manifested in a dynamic personal relationship and what today we call high EQ. Ray is also committed to God's Word and is theologically minded and understands that it is God, through His Spirit and His Word, that changes people.
-Brad Waggoner, Executive Vice President of Church Answers