Pat Murray pastors the Living Word Church-Dayton along with his wife, Jackie. Pastor Pat is a 1982 graduate of RHEMA Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he was employed with Kenneth Hagin Ministries for a year and a half. Upon graduation, Pastor Pat returned home to Florence, Kentucky to pursue the will of God in ministry.
In the fall of 1982, he went to work at the Lighthouse Church in Owenton, Kentucky as the assistant pastor and youth pastor. After one year, the call of God led them to Kettering, Ohio where the Murray’s went to work at Christ Life Sanctuary as children’s pastors and evangelism directors. The Murrays served faithfully there for two years and two months, and again the call came to move. This appointment lead them to the Living Word in Middletown, where Pastor Pat took on the challenges of Home Group Pastor, College and Career Singles, Young Married and Hospital Visitation, among other pastoral challenges. For four years, the Murrays were faithful to do what they were asked to do in submissive service under Pastor Tim Sheets of Middletown. In November of 1989, he was asked to pastor the Dayton Living Word Church.
The church began from a home group Bible study with about five excited families. This was to be the first of ten satellite churches in the Miami Valley. Little did they realize what would be in store for them as God began to pour out His Spirit upon their exercise of faith. The first service of this young church had 103 people in attendance. From there, the ministry has only increased for the glory of Jesus Christ. God has opened many doors of opportunity to minister, such as hosting the Praise the Lord telecast on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in order to reach out and touch Greater Dayton with life-changing good news of the Gospel.
“We have a vision to reach out and touch people just like yourselves with the love and power of the risen Christ. Today, we pastor an exciting fellowship of dynamic people who are making strides to be like Christ in faith, warmth and vitality. We are people who realize living with a living God has got to be life changing… and living for Him has got to be rewarding.
In the short history of the Living Word, we have seen God do wonderful things in the lives of many but little did we realize it was just a foretaste of the future.”