Presently having a long standing commitment of working with youth, families, churches, ministries and community outreach organizations in various communities throughout the country, spanning over 15 years, Willie L. Gary is a living testimony of Jeremiah 1:5-8, which he embraces as his life’s verse. Pastor Willie, as he is affectionately known, was born on December 23, 1968. Being born as a breach baby, he suffered a number of traumatic defects during the delivery process which included major physical impairments as well as damage to vital internal organs which warranted intensive care treatment immediately following birth. He was given a very slim chance of survival through infancy due to these multiple birth complications. Nevertheless, God had a different plan, for not only did he survive through weeks in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, doctors were also able to correct most of his physical limitations through numerous surgeries throughout his childhood.

At a very early age he knew God had a plan for his life. In pursuit of God’s will, he was led to the Greater Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, where he was baptized at the age of eight years old and began to serve in various capacities and was mentored by the late Rev. Dr. Daniel Pierce, who was the founder and senior pastor. The mentoring of Dr. Pierce fostered an admiration and respect in him for great leaders who impact the lives of people through helping them discover their potential and motivating them to be all that God had created them to be. This admiration motivated him to aspire to become such a leader, and he therefore began to discover his own personal call to ministry. At this young age, he would observe and learn of many great pastors and ministry leaders through various radio and television ministry broadcasts, local as well as national. One of the most inspiring to him was the early Sunday morning local broadcasts of “I’m So Happy”, hosted by Rev. Dr. Earl Preston, Jr., which jumpstarted his preparation for church.

As years progressed, Pastor Willie developed an endeared interest in music and fine arts production, which led him to explore the music, broadcasting and entertainment industries, during his early teenage years. This great interest in the arts motivated him to write scripts, screenplays, short stories and songs and gained him an open door to the television broadcasting field with his first live television interview on the “Morning Exchange”, a very popular local morning news and talk show at that time. As a result of this interview, a mentoring relationship was developed with Fred Griffith, one the the hosts of that show. On occasional visits to the television station, Mr. Griffith would dedicate time to introduce him to production and news staff, as well as various behind the scenes aspects of television production.This inspired him even the more to consider pursuing a career in the media and broadcasting. During this time of exploration he also grew to admire Motown founder, Berry Gordy and his works in the entertainment field. Following Gordy’s career and his tremendous impact in the lives of many performers, he then began to pursue opportunities in talent promoting, music production, and artist development through various ventures with talent agents, managers, and promoters. It wasn’t long before God moved and led him to meet Pastor Joe Abraham, who at that time was a director for Youth for Christ Campus Life Programs. As he began to attend the Campus Life meetings, Pastor Joe inspired him to stay focused on his primary call, which was to continue to serve the church and develop and equip His people for the work of the ministry. He thus advanced from serving as a Sunday School teacher to assistant superintendent as well as associate minister. He then began to pursue formal education at Liberty University School of Life Long Learning as well as Liberty and Moody Bible Institutes.

Soon after this, his gifts made room for him in that God opened a great door of opportunity in January of 1990, at the Morning Star Baptist Church, (Dr. Earl Preston, Jr., Pastor), where he would be installed as the first full time Youth Pastor and served for ten years, seven of which, he also served as Pastoral Care Administrator. These years proved to be the most rewarding, in that, with the homegoing of his ministry father and mentor Dr. Pierce in 1992, Pastor Preston would then assume the role and priceless deposits of wisdom, ministry and experience were made. During this season also, the ministry to youth and families of the church and community began to greatly flourished resulting from his effective leadership and Pastor Preston’s dedicated mentoring and support.

In the midst of the great work of his ministry at Morning Star, Pastor Willie was able to devote some time to establishing his own personal ministries at large, the first of which was GEM Productions Ministry Enterprises, which provides management, production, and promotion services to gospel/Christian artists and performance ministries. During the years of his ministry he discovered that many inner city youth were facing educational, social, and economic adversities due to the lack of positive adult models. In addition, exposure to advancement opportunities was limited. This discovery led Pastor Willie to expand his outreach efforts by founding and establishing YMARI, Inc. which stands for Youth Mentoring and at Risk Intervention, and is a not for profit corporation established to build mentoring relationships with youth along with creating opportunities of career awareness, YMARI’s ultimate goal is to instill a sense of worth, dignity, and pride in each youth being served so that they may function as viable and productive citizens of society.

Recognizing the potential growth and expansion of these outreach efforts, Pastor Willie knew that he would need to dedicate more time to nurture the vision which God had given him. Therefore, with Pastor Preston’s blessing, after 10 years of dedicated pastoral ministry to youth, and families of Morning Star Baptist Church, he was released to fully pursue his ministry. A few years later he would hear of yet another great ministry leader God was raising up to reach the masses, which was Pastor R.A Vernon, whose acquaintance he had made years prior during his ministry at Morning Star, where he was invited as a guest speaker at an annual youth crusade, coordinated by Pastor Willie and the ministry staff. With the rapid growth of THE WORD Church, Pastor Vernon expressed the need for the same type of leadership for the church’s youth ministry he observed during his visits to Morning Star. So without reservation, Pastor Willie embarked upon a brief season of service as the youth pastor of THE WORD Church, with his concentration on laying a foundation for the youth ministry for other leaders to begin to build upon.

At the end of that season of pastoral service, he remained on course in building upon the vision God had given him. In January of 2005 God confirmed the vision for the inception of a new church and ministry through the late Pastor Reginald Bailey, Anointed Gates Church, who was instrumental in providing support in establishing a presence for this new ministry in the city of Euclid, Ohio. As the founder of Kingdom Community Fellowship Church and Visionary Moment Enterprises, Pastor Willie currently pursues his ministry calling as a Pastor/Teacher and conference speaker, through providing service to the Body of Christ at large in equipping and training ministry leaders and workers, providing counsel and spiritual guidance to individuals of all walks of life, particularly youth, families, performing artists as well as entrepreneurs, and also assisting churches in developing effective outreach ministries. Some other credentials include: memberships in American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC), National Mentoring Partnership, Gospel Music Association (GMA), National Network of Youth Ministries, and the Greater Cleveland Youth Leaders Network, and 2006 Ohio Christian Education Association (OCEA) Workshop Facilitator.

Above all of this Pastor Willie is a devoted husband and father. He and his wife Enise were wed in August of 1995 and have three children, a daughter Mikayla Dane, and two sons Jared Emmanuel and Joshua Michael. With all that he endeavors, he is most grateful to the Lord for his family and the time that he has been blessed with to dedicate to being a godly leader and example first and foremost in his home.