Samuel Moor Shoemaker was born December 27, 1893, in Baltimore, Maryland, and lived until 1908 on the family's estate, Burnside. In that year, he entered Princeton University and graduated in 1916. The next three years were spent in China doing missionary work for the YMCA, after which he returned in 1919 to become director of the Philadelphia Society, a group with which he had been involved at Princeton.

Between 1920 and 1921, Shoemaker studied for the diaconate and Episcopalian priesthood at General and Union Seminaries in New York City and after graduation in 1921 he returned once more to Princeton to work with the Philadelphia Society until 1923. The next year he accepted a call to Calvary Episcopal Church, New York City, and began what became a twenty-eight year ministry there. He was married in 1930 to Helen Dominick Smith, staff member of Calvary Church, and their first child. Sally Falls, was born a year later; Helen Dominick, their second daughter, was born in 1942.

Programs and participation at Calvary Church increased significantly during Shoemaker's years there. Calvary House, an eighteen-story building for meetings and office staff, was added in 1928 and in the late 1930s became national headquarters for the Oxford Group, renamed Moral Re-Armament in 1936. Shoemaker's extensive involvement with this movement, however, led ultimately (in 1941) to removal of MRA's headquarters from Calvary after Shoemaker became dissatisfied with the new direction toward which MRA had moved. Calvary Chapel was transformed into Calvary Mission, a center for rehabilitation and rescue programs. Shoemaker was an important influence in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Shoemaker was awarded a D.D. from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1948 and an S.T.D. from Berkeley Divinity School the same year. About this time he also began the formation of Calvary Clergy School as the result of his lifelong interest in encouraging men to enter the ministry. In 1945, a radio ministry was added to Shoemaker's extensive pastoral ministry and he continued to use this medium, along with television, throughout the rest of his professional life and after retirement in 1962.

In 1952, when the Shoemakers were invited to accept another call to Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, they agreed. Shoemaker's initiative and personal warmth was equally successful in the new setting and his work with young married couples of the community, businessmen, Bible and prayer groups developed into the Pittsburgh Experiment, an interdenominational evangelistic movement aimed primarily at the business community. Faith At Work, a group which published a magazine and sponsored a radio program of the same name, was also influential through its promotion of small study groups. The radio program featured a short sermon, broadcast once a week on KDKA, Pittsburgh. Shoemaker was also a frequent contributing speaker on The Episcopal Hour, WIST.

In 1955, Newsweek named him one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States and a year later, January 20, 1956, he was named "Man of the Year in Religion" by the Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce. His successful leadership resulted in his being offered rectorships in Richmond, San Francisco, and Baltimore and the offices of Dean and Bishop. However, he chose to remain at the Pittsburgh church until failing health required his retirement in 1962.

During this entire period, Shoemaker was also a prolific writer, contributing to many denominational and national magazines and authoring at least thirty-eight books. Some of these were: Religion That Works, Beginning Your Ministry, Children of the Second Birth, How You Can Find Happiness, With the Holy Spirit and with Fire, and By the Power of God. His sermons were printed and mailed to subscribers in forty-six states and twelve foreign countries. In addition to his regular pastoral ministry, he also was in great demand for speaking engagements across the country.

After retirement, Shoemaker was appointed Canon to the Bishop of Pittsburgh, but maintained his residence in the family home in Baltimore, where he died October 30, 1963, at sixty-nine years of age.