Pastor Ford is a son of South Central. He grew up in Louisville, KY. And attended the Historic Magazine St. SDA Church. His parents James E. and Carolyn Ford raised him in a Christian home. Music was such a vibrant part of Pastor Ford’s home life; he became a choir director at age 14, writing and arranging many of the songs that were sung. He was Minister of Music there for many years.
He had a formal Christian education at Emma L. Minnis Academy and graduated from New Albany High School. He attended Indiana University Southeast where he studied psychology, and became a Drug and Alcohol Counselor. Shortly afterwards, God called him into the Literature Ministry, for fulltime employment. He was very successful from the start and eventually became Associate Publishing Director in Kentucky for South Central Conference. He received certification in Christian Ministry at Black Hills Mission College in Black Hills, South Dakota.
While in the literature work, he fell in love with giving bible studies and winning souls to Jesus and was instrumental in starting the New Life Church SDA Church in Louisville, KY. Eventually he left Louisville and became the Evangelism Coordinator for Pastor Robert L. Davis in Charlotte, NC. While working together there at the Berean SDA Church, they baptized 150 souls in 2 short years. From there, he went with Pastor Davis to the Berean SDA Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where God blessed them with many souls. While there for a year, he was picked up by the Southwest Region Conference as a Bible Instructor and was sent to Houston, TX. His job was to set up a Bible Instructors’ Guild in that city; training bible workers in every church. During his 5 ½ years in Houston, TX and to his great surprise, God called him into pastoral ministry. He was placed as interim Pastor at the New Life SDA Church for almost a year and engaged the small church in soul winning. In that time they baptized 13 new souls. Although Pastor Ford admits he never wanted to be a pastor, God made it clear He had other plans and now Pastor Ford says he loves it.
He is widowed and a single dad to Carrie Ford and Ralph J Ford Jr (RJ) two adult children; Nicol Ford Edmeade and de-Evelyn Farrell.