Editor’s Note: As a tribute to (and surprise for) Ralph, we have illustrated his last editorial with some scenes from his ministry with the Ohio Conference.

This is the final editorial that I will write as the Ohio Conference Minister.

A lot of people are asking me what I will do after I retire. My quick answer is that I have promised Sue, my wife of soon-to-be-44 years, that I will give myself a sabbatical for at least six months to refresh my soul and my body.

I will work my hands doing yard work, planting and tending the flowers, playing golf, playing golf, playing golf, reading and yes, Sue, I will clean out the basement storage room. Sue and I are also planning some travel adventures with friends.

I will dig out my carpentry tools and try to build a couple of things again. The last major project I built was a hog house when I was in high school. I was known as a "rough carpenter."

Somehow I don’t think the neighbors would really enjoy it if I built a hog house in our suburban neighborhood. So I will try something smaller.

However, these activities do not really describe what I feel about retirement as the Ohio Conference Minister. I have served in a wider church ministry role since 1967: first as a member of the Ohio Conference staff based in Northwest Ohio Association, then for a number of years on the national staff of the UCC living in the New York area.

During the last 21 years, I was Conference Minister in Indiana-Kentucky for 10 years and here in Ohio for almost eleven. These have been growing, exciting, challenging and busy years. I thank God for the opportunity to serve God through the church in these ways.

Now a different future awaits me. I am retiring from the oversight of a part of the institutional wider church that seeks to strengthen the ministry of local churches.

I am not retiring from seeking a better insight as to how to call people to greater faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in ministry to the world.

I am retiring from developing and making budgets to seek the financial and spiritual support of congregation members for the ministries of the wider church.

I am not retiring from making passionate appeals for all of God’s people to be better stewards of God’s creation.

I am not retiring from asking people to care for the poor of the world. I am not retiring from challenging people to tithe and share their wealth with others – not as an obligation but as a faith statement.

I am retiring from being accountable to the Board of Directors and the Ohio Conference. But I am not retiring from being accountable to God to call others to serve as lay and clergy leaders in the life and ministry of the church of Jesus Christ.

I am retiring as the Conference Minister, but I am not retiring as a baptized Christian who God calls to faithfulness by living my life with integrity to the Gospel story.

When I was sixteen I was in a tractor accident which caused me to be in a coma for a week. During the weeks of recovery that followed, I assessed what I was going to do with my life.

I was guided by a nurse who helped me reflect upon my future. I felt a call to be a pastor. That call is as sure today as it was then.

Retirement does not mean forgetting that call. It means making a new determination of how that call will be lived. I shall wait as I have in the past for God to guide me. It has worked in the past, and I see no reason to change that behavior now. I do look forward with anticipation to the next stage where God leads me.

A final personal note: Thank you for all the ways that the people of this Conference and other places have taught me how to do what I was called to do at age sixteen.

I have had the privilege to work with lots of friends and staff colleagues on the conferences and national bodies of the wider church. They have been rich sources of support and teaching for me as well. Thank you for those gifts of your spirit to my life and ministry.

Over the years I have been embraced by the love and support of Sue, my wife and best friend. What a gift of God for me.

I have also felt God’s grace when Sue and I were blessed with three wonderful daughters, Mindy Lacefield, Cindy Bowser and Pam Houston, and their caring husbands, Danny, Harry and Tim.

And finally, seeing our four grandsons grow and mature has been a source of great joy. We are embracing the future in new ways through the lives of Brad, Rob, A.J. and Andy. I am profoundly blessed by the families in my life.