The Ministry and Legacy of Ralph and Margaret Hampton

Posted By Jackson Watts on Sep 11, 2017 | 4 comments

Many names fill the pages of Welch College history. The 75th anniversary of the college’s founding gives occasion to consider some of those names, including ones that are sometimes overlooked. Though Ralph and Margaret Hampton aren’t as well known to a rising generation of Free Will Baptists, their dependability, versatility, and longevity in the service of our movement and denominational college constitute a story that should be retold to a new generation.^[1]

Beginnings

Ralph C. Hampton Jr. was born into a pastor’s home in Oklahoma on December 13, 1934. Ralph Sr. was a respected pastor and later state leader in California. He and his wife Lucille raised four boys, including their oldest, Ralph Jr. He was converted at age twelve at a youth camp. By the time he was college-age, his family was ministering in California. Hampton first attended two years of junior college in California but then left Modesto for the relatively new Free Will Baptist Bible College in the fall of 1955. Ralph was a world away from home culturally and geographically. Yet the Lord also brought a special young lady, Margaret Evans, from Springfield, Missouri to Nashville that semester.

Ralph and Margaret noticed one another very soon around a special spot on campus known as the “parting tree.” Ralph invited her to the school banquet just before Christmas. This would be their first official date. They married just after his graduation in 1958 and began seeking ministry opportunities. Margaret had not quite finished her degree, and though they intended to assume a pastorate in Arkansas, the college asked for this bright new graduate to remain and teach. This was the beginning of a fifty-year ministry shared by Ralph and Margaret as they invested in the lives of students and future leaders.

Balance, Busyness, and Versatility

Ralph got straight to work, teaching courses in Ancient History and Christian Education. But the twenty-three-year-old wore other hats as well. He directed the Student Practical Work program (now known as Christian Service), helped students who did not have high school equivalency degrees, and served as dorm supervisor. Amid these many duties, Ralph and Margaret welcomed their first child, Laura, in 1959. Clayton followed in 1960, and Kenneth in 1962.

Ralph was ordained in 1960 and earned his first masters through Winona Lake School of Theology during summer sessions (1961). After several years of teaching, Ralph and Margaret followed the Lord’s leadership and took leave from the college in 1968 to move their young family to St. Louis to attend Covenant Theological Seminary. There Ralph earned a Master of Divinity (1970). Many other Free Will Baptists would follow his example in later years to study at this respected seminary. During their two years in St. Louis, the Hamptons also pastored an area church.

They returned to the college to resume their work in 1970. Although Margaret stayed at home to raise their small children in the early years, her ministry extended beyond the home. She was always very involved in the ministries of the churches where Ralph pastored, and she also had a long ministry at the college also.

In earlier years, she worked part-time in the Business Office as Cashier and as Secretary to Tom Sass, the school’s long-time Treasurer/VP for Financial Affairs. In those early days when funds were scarce at the college she would work part-time in the library in the morning, four hours in the office after that, and then she would return to the library for a second stretch in the library.

Today Margaret is best remembered for her thirty-seven years as Library Manager. Early on she helped steer the library alongside Judy Shrewsbury, the Librarian in training. Margaret brought a level of life maturity that helped her in her main task: the oversight of all student workers. As she recalls, though she had no formal training in library science, she learned “through the doing of it.” She and Judy were a team. Later she and Carol Reid, another Welch librarian, would also enjoy a warm and productive relationship.

Through the years Margaret found herself doing much more than overseeing students. She ordered and processed periodicals and books, began the online card catalog, and helped catalog the Free Will Baptist Historical Collection, wearing out three typewriters through the years! At her retirement, Carol Reid referred to her as “the Energizer Bunny of Welch Library.”

Margaret’s work ethic isn’t surprising. After all, she was raised in the home of William and Braxine Evans. William was a career railroad man, and Braxine a homemaker and, later, a nurse. Both worked diligently in raising exemplary children. Readers may know their son, Bill Evans, formerly of the FWB Board of Retirement. The Evanses were a hard-working, blue-collar Missouri family who spent a lifetime serving the Lord. Margaret’s reflections on her family are eloquently stated in this 2007 ONE Magazine article.

The Pulpit, the Pen, and the Podium

Though Ralph is known today more for his work in the classroom, he was firmly committed to the pulpit. He served six pastorates, which includes a few interim ministries. The Hamptons were stretched in many ways for the sake of Christ’s church, sometimes driving long distances to serve. When Ralph and Margaret weren’t serving churches in the Nashville area, they were active in the Sylvan Park Free Will Baptist Church. Only when policies about faculty members pastoring churches changed did Hampton discontinue serving pastorates.

In most cases, the Hamptons served churches that were experiencing difficulties, including churches that had lost their pastors, ones facing facility challenges, or newer ministries in need of leadership. These situations required the guidance, organization, and instruction the Hamptons provided.

Ralph’s desire to see healthy churches and effective ministries is well-exemplified by his many years of chairing the college’s Bible and Ministries Department. During the 1980s, he would also serve as Dean of the college’s first graduate program. This program was designed to help sharpen pastors’ skills to serve in an increasingly complex world.

Though Hampton is often overlooked due to his understated personality, he was intellectually curious and quite the conversationalist. He is remembered as a challenging professor who gave difficult tests, although those who knew him best know he loved students, had a great sense of humor, and had a knack for telling stories. His many years of teaching Ancient History and Homiletics illustrate his interest in history and commitment to the local church. Moreover, his breadth of knowledge and versatility were evident by his course load through the years: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Life of Christ, Christian Stewardship, and nearly everything else. Margaret recalls him teaching every course at the college at some point, except maybe for Greek and English!

Though Ralph is not often remembered as a biblical scholar or a prolific writer like Leroy Forlines or Robert Picirilli, a closer review of his ministry shows a significant ability with the pen. He wrote Randall House curriculum for many years and published numerous articles in Contact and ONE Magazine. He authored several chapters on Old Testament books in a 1983 Bible survey. Additionally, he wrote a serious master’s thesis on the apostle Paul’s doctrine of adoption.^[2]

The themes of reading, studying, understanding, and loving the Bible surface in Ralph’s writings and sermons. He and Margaret are both remembered as great Bible teachers; their days as students had prepared them for that. As Ralph recalls in a 2008 article, “I had never read the Bible through until I came to Free Will Baptist Bible College.”^[3] Not only did he read it, but he also embraced its transforming power. As he explains, “I told my friends that I came to Free Will Baptist Bible College, not to learn how to make a living, but to learn how to live.”^[4]

The Hamptons knew about life, learning, and love. It showed in their family, work, and overall habits of life. Clayton recalls his family receiving numerous papers and periodicals as diverse as The Tennessean, Reader’s Digest, Time, Leadership, Christianity Today, and more. All would be read cover to cover, fueling a well-informed life and ministry. This pattern certainly explains a remark I’ve heard Garnett Reid make more than once: “[Ralph] knew more about more things than anyone I have ever met.”^[5]

Ralph also cared deeply about the Free Will Baptist movement as a whole. He served as Assistant Moderator (1981-87) and then as Moderator (1988-96) during pivotal years for the denomination, especially in the early 1980s and mid-1990s. The 1995 National Convention was a moment of crisis due to several controversial topics and resolutions that were discussed and later extended into that year’s Leadership Conference. Hampton’s wisdom and knowledge of denominational culture was instrumental in steering the movement to a peaceful détente. His gentleness, fairness, and preparation figured heavily into this outcome.^[6]

Legacy 

Ralph and Margaret are remembered by their peers as plain, understated, and faithful. Though their ministry was visible, they mostly kept their heads down, worked hard, displayed humility and flexibility, and loved people. As someone who was taught by Ralph and hired by Margaret, my appreciation runs especially deep today.

The Hamptons leave behind a large and diverse family committed to the ministry. All of their children graduated from the college and are involved in ministry today, as well as many of their grandchildren. This includes a son who is a church planter, another who is a deacon, and a daughter who is a pastor’s wife. Thousands of students and student workers bear the marks of their influence. Additionally, hundreds of congregants recall their faithful former pastor and their wonderful friend and pastor’s wife, Margaret.

After fifty-four years of marriage to Margaret, Ralph died in 2012 after a two-year battle with cancer. Following Ralph’s death, many voices expressed appreciative words. Robert Picirilli said, “Ralph graced the campus with a lifetime of quiet, dependable service. We could always count on him to be there, to do what was needed, and to do it without making a fuss. He was dedicated to keeping the school true to its founding mission, and he never swerved in his thinking from that ideal.^[7]

Former student and colleague Garnett Reid had Hampton as his pastor at one point, and was later Hampton’s pastor also. Of Hampton he said, “Ralph left an indelible imprint on this school and on all of us he taught, and that imprint bears a striking resemblance to the Savior whom he loved and whom he taught us to love.”

Two of his three brothers (Larry and Charles) also worked at the college in various capacities. His younger brother Larry said,

Ralph had a profound influence on my life. I came to the college as a student because of him. He was my teacher—one of the best I ever had. I am convinced there has been no better man who has taught here. I once told a young lady I dated that I wished I was more like Ralph. She asked why and I replied, “Because he’s more like Jesus than I am.”

Hampton believed in the centrality of the pulpit and strong pastoral leadership. In a 1994 interview, he asserted, “Without men of vision and wisdom in our pulpits, missions and other enterprises will die on the vine.”^[8] When asked what dangers he saw for young preachers, he wisely responded by first emphasizing that the fundamental challenges and dangers were still the same today as they had always been. He then closed with these powerful words: “The ultimate danger is that the preacher will cease to be a man dominated by the Spirit and the Book: his voice silenced by doubts, fears, or his own moral failures. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.”^[9]

Faithful, humble, diligent, and dependable—these are just a few of the words commonly used to describe the Hamptons. That legacy endures in Margaret’s ongoing faithfulness to the Lord, and in their eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

____________________

^[1] Many of the details of the Hampton’s life were shared with me in an interview with Margaret on July 18, 2017, as well an interview with their son Clayton on August 28, 2017. I am deeply appreciative to them for their time and candor.

^[2] In addition to earning two masters degrees, Hampton only lacked completing the dissertation requirement for a Doctorate of Ministry through Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

^[3] Ralph Hampton, “Does the Bible Fit in Your Life?” ONE Magazine (Feb/Mar 2008): 40-41.

^[4] Ibid., 41.

^[5] I remembering hearing Reid mention this in a course while I was enrolled as a student at Welch. He reiterated this in a phone conversation on August 22, 2017.

^[6] Clayton recalls his father rereading and studying Robert’s Rules of Order every single year before the Convention to ensure that he could moderate the meeting fairly and with excellence.

^[7] All quotations reflecting on Hampton’s ministry come from, “Ralph Hampton, FWB Educator & Leader, Dies,” Welch College; http://www.welch.edu/ralph-hampton-fwb-educator-leader-dies/; accessed August 15, 2017.

^[8] “Preaching is Still Top Priority,” Contact (March 1994): 26.

^[9] Ibid.

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