Kathrine Alderman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Ralph Wrightstone is a pastor who has been serving the United Methodist Church since 1994. He lives in Monticello, and his last appointment was as Waukeenah. He retired from his service but said, "methodist preachers never retire. We make ourselves available to small churches, churches that can't afford a full-time pastor." So, he has been serving as the pastor for Bethel United Methodist Church in Tallahassee.
Though originally from Harrisburg, Penn., Wrightstone came to Florida in 1971 and "got sand in [his] shoes," before returning to live in Florida permanently in 1975, at Indian Harbour Beach. Before feeling the call to become a pastor, Wrightstone worked in the automobile business for thirty years. "I always tell people, the car business was the training ground for ministry," Wrightstone says, "dealing with all kinds of problems and all kinds of people."
Wrightstone felt the call to serve a while after he was saved. "In my old life, I was an alcoholic," Wrightstone recalls, "not only that, but my life was like a combination of the apostle Paul and David, so you can imagine how screwed up I was." Despite this, one day, his first wife, who eventually passed due to lung cancer, decided that she had a drinking problem, "though I didn't think she did," Wrightstone adds, "but I didn't think I did," and she started going to AA. She realized that she had a problem, so she committed to the recovery program. "She also found a church right down the road and told me, 'I recommitted my life to Christ, and I'd like you to go to AA with me'" Wrightstone recalls. "So I said, 'yeah, I'll go.' Because I didn't really think I had a problem, but after a while, I realized I did have a problem."
So, Wrightstone started going to AA as well and committed to his recovery. However, he was in and out of AA a lot. In AA, they give you a white chip every time you commit to being sober for thirty days. "I had enough of those chips to start a poker game," Wrightstone said. "I was in and out and in and out. So, one day I decided to really get real about it." Wrightstone recalled being Sober for six months and had changed some of his habits, as AA had suggested, such as going home a different way. But one day, he decided to stop in at the bar to see if his friend was there. "I hadn't seen him in quite a while," Wrightstone said, "because after I stopped drinking, he stopped coming around as much, saying, 'you're not the same person since you've stopped drinking.' So I stopped in to see if his truck was at the bar."
They socialized, and Wrightstone had about six diet sprites while they talked, but eventually gave in and ordered a beer, which turned into a few beers. After they were done, Wrightstone went home, showered and went to bed. "My wife liked to play Bingo, so she wasn't home when I got home," Wrightstone recalls. "When I woke up the next day, I had a hangover. Not a bad hangover, but a hangover, and I knew, 'wow, this is not really what I want to do.'" Wrightstone mentions they had a swimming pool in their backyard that he would jump into right after waking up. So that day, he did that and said he felt something come over him. "It was almost like remembering your baptism," Wrightstone said. "When I came out of that water, I felt cleansed and refreshed. And I said, 'Lord, if you're everything that they say you are, then I want you to come into my life and be Lord over it. But this one day at a time thing that AA teaches is too much for me to handle. If we can get it down to one second at a time, I think I can do this. I'm willing if you are.' And that was in 1986, so that's 34 years now, of sobriety."
After that, Wrightstone did a lot in his home church and held many different offices. One thing he had always wanted to do, though, from a young age, was be a disk jockey on the radio. Well, one day, a man from the Christian radio station, 106.3 FM, called him and asked him if he'd like to volunteer at the radio station and do a Saturday afternoon program. Wrightstone enthusiastically agreed. "And there you are," Wrightstone said, "God fulfilled one of my life-long dreams. Little by little, God kept working on my desires and different things. Then one day, I was sitting at a red light at 192 and US 1 in Melbourne, and whether it was audible or not, I don't know, but it was so strong that the Spirit said to me, 'go home and write the district superintendent a letter declaring your candidacy for ministry.'" So that's what Wrightstone did. He went home, wrote the letter and they accepted it.
However, Wrightstone had a realization. He didn't have a high school education. His father had passed when he was 16, so Wrightstone had quit school to help run the family business. To go to college now for ministry, he would need to get it. So, he started taking adult classes to get his GED. "My worst subject in high school was English," Wrightstone said. "My English teacher used to just give me a D so I could play football. But my best subject in the GED was English."
So Wrightstone got this GED and continued the candidacy process, enrolling in Emory University Chandler School of Theology. In the United Methodist Church, if you're a certain age, they allow you to serve a church while you're still going to school. "Which was a blessing," Wrightstone adds. So he served his first appointment in Wacissa in 1995, "and that's where I got to know all the folks in Jefferson County, including my current wife," Wrightstone said. His first wife died of lung cancer, passing during his process of becoming a minister. "After she died, I didn't know if I wanted to continue on my ministry track or not," he added.
However, Wrightstone mentioned there was a woman at his home church that played the keyboard and sang, but also would cut hair for a lot for the men in the church. After Wrightstone's wife died, he was down at her house, though he can't remember if it was for a bible study or to get his hair cut. She told him not to worry about it, he'll find someone. Wrightstone recalls, "she said, 'Brother Ralph, don't worry about where the woman's gonna be. Won't be in Melbourne. It'll be in the area of the church where He's gonna put you.' So I said, 'well, if that's the case, she's gotta be pretty, she's gotta be able to sing and she's gotta be able to cut hair.'"
When Wrightstone left to visit where he was going to be appointed in Wacissa, the pastor at the time had him do the children's message. "We were getting ready to go out on the platform, and this lady came bopping in with a dress on that was almost identical to a dress my first wife used to wear," Wrightstone said. "I said to the pastor, 'is she married?' And he said, 'no.' And I was like, 'oh, well that's cool.'" So the two of them went out on the platform and said the message. Afterward, the choir got up to sing. Wrightstone said he heard this voice, his eyes were drawn to it and it was the lady with the pretty dress.
When he eventually got the appointment and started preaching there, he says he was there for about a week or so and got a phone call one day. It was the lady he had seen, named Judy, and she invited him to go to the Watermelon Festival with her. So they went together, "and it was just like we'd known each other all our life," Wrightstone said. Once it was over, Wrightstone invited her to go to a gospel sing in Lamont with him. So they went. The next week she called him and invited him to St. George Island for the fourth of July. At that point, he said he felt comfortable enough to ask her if she was dating anyone.
When she responded that she wasn't, he said, "well, Elvis sang a song that was called 'won't you wear your ring around my neck,' and if you're not going steady with anybody, could we maybe develop a relationship?" She replied that they could, and Wrightstone continued to say, "I knew she was pretty, I knew she could sing and as we were leaving St. George Island I said to her, 'Bill said there is someone in the church who cuts hair, you know who that is?' And she said, 'yeah, it's me!' So I told her, 'well if God's got his hand on this relationship, which I think he does, if that's the case, we should just elope.'" She obviously responded that he was crazy, but later on, she told him that a Pastor at the church in Waukeenah, who had met Wrightstone at the annual conference, said to her that he had met Wrightstone there and he thought that she would like him. When she replied that that was good, the pastor replied, "no, I mean you're really gonna like him. In fact, I'll be doing a wedding ceremony in about six months." At that point, Judy had been unmarried for five to six years, so she replied that it wouldn't happen. However, about six months later, they were married.
They've been married now for 25 years come January, and decided they wanted to do it God's way. So, that's what they've done, putting God first in all things. "So, by following God's plan, acting upon his will, I've been blessed," Wrightstone says. "It's been a real blessing, and it's a fact that God exists. It's God that gives us the ability to make changes. I still fall short in a lot of areas, but I repent daily and follow God's plan."
Wrightstone says that we all have a biblical mandate to encourage others because we're all dealing with things. We've all got things we have to struggle with, so we should encourage others. "The times may change, but human nature never changes," Wrightstone says. "I think that God reaffirms with us that we have eternal life. The Ralph deep down inside is still young, my soul doesn't age, but this outside thing makes me realize that I'm not physically young, but I'm spiritually young. And I think that's his way of letting us know that we have eternal life." Wrightstone goes on to say that the real you, living inside you, will never get old. You're the original spirit that God put into you.
Wrightstone says that sometimes the work of a pastor can be demanding, but it doesn't really matter. It's not work for him, it's a labor of love.
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