Pastor Ray Hammond is the teaching elder and founding pastor of Grace Bible Church of Bakersfield. Ray was born in Whittier, California, in 1961. He moved to Bakersfield, California, in 1982 to attend Cal State University Bakersfield. He began serving the Lord along with his wife, Lisa, in 1981, and they married in the following year. In 1992 he began attending The Master's Seminary, where he earned a Master of Divinity (1996), and later a Master of Theology (2001). Ray and Lisa have been blessed with five children.