Pastor Ray retired on June 30, 2022, after fifteen years as the Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida and the Caribbean Islands (CBF FL/CI). (By the way, you can call him “Ray”; you can call him “Pastor Ray,” or you can call him “Dr. Jay,” but you don’t have to call him Johnson. If you get that reference, you may discover that you will fit right in here at First Baptist.) Ten days after retiring, he began serving First Baptist as its interim senior pastor. Then, on January 1, 2024, Pastor Ray came out of retirement altogether to accept the call to serve First Baptist as its next full-time senior pastor.
In addition to his work as CBF FL/CI’s Coordinator, Dr. Johnson was a missionary to the Philippine Islands (six years) where he was a seminary professor teaching Old Testament and Hebrew, and where he partnered with a Filipino colleague to start a new church, The One in Christ Fellowship in Baguio City. For thirteen years, Ray pastored two congregations, the First Baptist Church of York, South Carolina, and Riverside Baptist Church in Miami. Over his many years of service, Pastor Ray has been active in mission work from Chicago to Miami, from the Philippines to Uganda, from Brazil to Cuba.
Pastor Ray has been married to his wife, Nena, since 1978, and they are the parents of Matt, a professional musician and public-school teacher, and Holly, who is currently in nursing school. When he’s trying to act like he’s retired, Ray enjoys fly fishing, tying his own flies, gardening with Nena, and birding. His life list now includes more than 430 species of North American birds, his favorite being the great gray owl.