The Rev. Earl Jefferson Jr., director of education for A.M.E. Church

The Rev. Earl R. Jefferson Jr., 81, of Wynnefield, who for many years was director of Christian education for the First Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, died Saturday, June 10, of a stroke at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood.

Until the stroke, Mr. Jefferson had been in reasonably good health. He retired from his A.M.E. position two years ago but continued to work as a chaplain at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Philadelphia, the family said.

Mr. Jefferson was the second of three children born to Earl R. Jefferson Sr. and Lucretia Lee Jefferson. He was a track star at West Philadelphia High School and later La Salle College, where he was a mid-Atlantic cross-country champion, said his widow, Betty Brown Jefferson.

She said they were childhood sweethearts in West Philadelphia. They married in 1960, after she had completed college at what is now West Chester University, she said.

Betty Jefferson said she had no idea her husband would become a well-known Christian educator when they married.

"He started out as an English teacher," she said. He later worked as a YMCA director.

A few years into their marriage, she said, her husband told her he wanted to study theology and the ministry. He earned several master's degrees and later a doctorate of ministry at United Theological Seminary, said son Bruce.

"He always wanted to be a Christian educator, not a pastor," Betty Jefferson said.

Being hired by Bishop Frank Cummings as director of Christian education for the First District "was a dream come true" for her husband, she said. He taught other ministers and served as an interim pastor at 20 churches in the city, including Morris Brown A.M.E. Church.

He also wrote more than 20 books, conducted numerous workshops, began the monthly publication Guidelines, and was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Mr. Jefferson also worked as a program adviser for the OIC International program in Ghana, where the family lived from 1974 to 1978.

"It was an opportunity of a lifetime," Bruce Jefferson said.

Mr. Jefferson was an avid reader who loved to dance and tell funny stories, his wife said.

Bruce Jefferson said he recalls growing up in a "very loving household that was full of music."

The family mostly sang hymns. The focus on music led two of the three sons to become church musicians, he said.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Jefferson is survived by sons Earl III and Michael; eight grandchildren; and a brother.