James Edward Gray

James “Jim” Edward Gray went to be with his Lord and Savior, August 5th, 2021. Jim was born September 8, 1938 number ten of fifteen children born to Clarence and Grace Gray. Husband of 61 years to Shirley Wheeler Gray; dad to Denise Lampione and Jennifer Gray, father-in-law to Gene Lampione, Jr. and Chris Baker; grandfather to Gene Lampione, III and his wife Beth, Haley Lampione, Isaac, Grace, Isaiah and Hope Sanders and one treasured great grandson Gene Lampione, IV, whom he fondly called “G4”.

Jim enjoyed working on cars and was successful getting just about anything he wanted to run. This often lead to him and one or more of his siblings driving cars when they shouldn’t have. These adventures provided many great stories to tell over the years.

At the age of 17 he decided he was sick and tired of people telling him what to do so he joined the US Army. It didn’t take long for him to excel and by the age of 18 he was promoted to Sergeant. He was one of the youngest sergeants at the time, and the Korean locals called him “Boy Sarg”. At the age of 21 he made a drastic change to his life when he met Shirley Wheeler at a local drive-in. Not long after they were married, Jim accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Jim served the Lord in many capacities. One was working on and driving church buses. When one of the former bus riders heard of Jim’s passing he said "Jim was a nice man and always made the bus kids feel welcome and he had a contagious laugh". We are sure that he was referring to Dad’s hyena laugh (at least that’s what we called the noise dad would make). In the mid 70's Jim was called to preach. Jim and his girls, yes, that included Shirley, moved to Chattanooga where he worked full-time, went to school full-time, and had fun with his family while he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in History and Bible.

After graduating, he started three churches which are still in existence today. During his time in the pulpit he was often told “You made the scripture come to life” and “you tell it like it is”. He studied very, very hard for each sermon and made sure that he presented the word of God how it was meant to be presented. In 2007 his health declined and he retired from preaching full-time.

Jim had many talents one of which was his desire and ability to make people laugh. He was a great story teller, blogger and published author. He will be tremendously missed.