Ron Herrod was saved, called into ministry and leading his first church by age 16. And this year, friends and family get to celebrate his 50 years in the ministry.
Franklin Kirksey, pastor of First Baptist Church, Spanish Fort, in Baldwin Baptist Association, said Herrod has been a great encouragement to him through Herrod’s many years of preaching through the Bible. It is a tradition he plans to continue.
“Dr. Ron Herrod should be highly commended for his unflinching stand upon the divinely inspired, inerrant and infallible Word of God,” said Kirksey, who attended Herrod‘s church in New Orleans while in seminary. “Many pastors serving all around the world have benefited immensely from [his] teaching and pulpit ministry.”
A Chickasaw native, Herrod spent a year in high school as assistant superintendent of the Mobile Rescue Mission, where he preached his first sermon at only 15 years old.
“I had three 30-minute sermons planned, and I preached them all in 10 minutes,” Herrod said jokingly.
Then, in his senior year of high school and first year at William Carey College (now William Carey University) in Hattiesburg, Miss., he led West Fowl River Baptist Church, Coden. Later the church merged with First Baptist Church, Heron Bay, in Coden in Mobile Baptist Association and Herrod remained as pastor.
“There was quite a revival going on in south Alabama at that time among young people,” he said. “It was a great time.”
After graduating from college, Herrod spent the next 36 years acquiring seminary degrees and leading churches.
He earned a master of theology degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; doctorate in theology from Luther Rice Seminary in Lithonia, Ga.; and doctorate in divinity from Baptist Bible Seminary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He led Navco Baptist Church, Mobile, in Mobile Association and Fairfield Highlands Baptist Church, Midfield, in Bessemer Baptist Association, as well as churches in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee.
But in 1995, Herrod began Ron Herrod Evangelism Ministries Association (RHEMA), an international ministry that sponsors crusades and provides training and support for national pastors in developing countries. He trains these pastors to do the same type of ministry in their neighborhoods.
“I left a very secure position pastoring a church to go into this ministry by faith, but God has abundantly and lavishly met every need, and I am especially excited about what He has been able to do internationally,” Herrod said. “We are able to train a national pastor for about $800, and we can support him for a year for about $1,000.”
Thus far, RHEMA has trained more than 1,000 national pastors in India, Nicaragua, Nepal and Liberia.
Currently Herrod is also president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists and world missions consultant for Grace Baptist Church, Knoxville, Tenn. In addition to his church work, he has conducted more than 500 revival and evangelistic crusades around the world. He has also acquired a doctorate in divinity from Theological Institute of Nimes, France, and written seven books.
Although Herrod was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, cancer of the plasma cell, in 2001, he has no plans to leave the ministry in the future.
“I am way beyond what any doctor thought I would be because of the prayers of God’s people and God’s healing power,” Herrod said. “Retirement is not in the Bible. God’s hall of fame is heaven, and that’s when we will get to rest. … So we are not slowing down.”
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