Ricky Allen Griffith left the contracting business for the ministry.

Ricky Allen Griffith helped a friend start a Richmond-area contracting business in 1979 and worked for him for 24 years. Then one night he had a dream.

In the dream, Mr. Griffith's pastor was pointing to him and saying, "This is the man who will feed my flock." He wrestled with what that might mean and finally went to his pastor, who helped him understand it.

"He felt truly called to the ministry," said a son, Nathaniel S. Griffith of Chesterfield County.

A 1979 business graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, the Buckhannon, W.Va., native became licensed several years ago as a United Methodist minister and later completed a master of divinity degree at Virginia Union University in 2006.

Mr.. Griffith, who had served as pastor of both Fairmount and Bishop Memorial churches in Henrico County for five years, died Wednesday after suffering a heart attack at his Chesterfield County home. He was 52.

A funeral was held Sunday afternoon at Walmsley Boulevard United Methodist Church, with burial in Dale Memorial Park in Chesterfield.

Mr. Griffith was preaching Sundays at 9:30 a.m. at Fairmount Church and at 11 a.m. at Bishop Memorial, each with about 30 congregants, his son said.

Fairmount Church has a youth group. "He did everything with them," Nathaniel Griffith said. "Vacation Bible School was going to start soon. They had a children's festival -- my father was the one in the dunking booth. They often did Christmas angels so children of incarcerated parents would have a Christmas."

Mr. Griffith was involved with the Richmond Emmaus Community, a group that offers three-day weekend retreats for men and women to have "an intimate encounter with God," Nathaniel Griffith said.

"His passion was the youth version of Emmaus -- the Chrysalis Community. He claimed more than 200 'sons' and 'daughters' in that. A prayer vigil was held for him on the day he died at River Road United Methodist Church and about 100 youth showed up for that," Nathaniel Griffith said. Six of the Chrysalis boys were pallbearers, and the rest were honorary pallbearers, he said.

Mr. Griffith was involved with the Kairos Prison Ministry, which took the Emmaus experience into prisons. Mr. Griffith became close with an inmate who said he would preach with Mr. Griffith when he got out of prison. Mr. Griffith was to be buried with that inmate's Bible.

His strength was "his evangelism as a whole, his reaching out to the community, building the family of God," said son Christian A. Griffith of Winston-Salem, N.C.

In addition to his sons, survivors include his wife, Cathy Pleasant Griffith; his mother, Patricia R. Griffith; and a sister, Cerena L. Griffith, all of Chesterfield.