Pastor (2000-)

     Mark was born in Springfield, Ohio, to Donald Eugene and Dorothy Lucille (Morrissey) Ryman on July 23, 1955. He has three younger sisters, Lynn and Amy of Ohio, and Leslie of Pennsylvania. His parents were faithful to take him to St. Luke Lutheran Church where he received a theological foundation that he was unaware of until recent years. Mark attended public schools and briefly went to Wright State University after graduating from Springfield North High School in 1973.
     After withdrawing from the university in 1974, God led him one Friday night to the One Way House (now Fellowship Christian Church) in his hometown. A year later, he began preaching and became the associate pastor and one of their music ministers. He served there until 1981. During those years he made another false start at education, attending Cincinnati Bible Seminary for a Revelation class and part of a Romans class. He also married Susan Allender during that first pastorate. They celebrated their 30th anniversary on September 24, 2007.
     During this time period, Susan blessed him with two daughters, Cristin in 1981 and Miriam in 1983.
     Mark's second pastorate was St. Paul United Methodist Church, also in his hometown, where he served a 110-year old, inner-city congregation for three years. This was the church Susan had grown up in and her parents were still members there while he served as Pastor. The Rymans are now blessed to have Susan's mother, Mary, living in Mebane and attending Graham Friends Church (GFC).
     Mark was sent with his wife and two daughters to Lakeview, Ohio, were he served his third pastorate, a rural congregation called Christ United Methodist Church, for almost six years. The church quadrupled in size during their time there, averaging 86 on Sundays by the time they left for North Carolina in June of 1990. They took their leave of a growing church so Mark could attend Duke Divinity School—which proved to be his third false start at education. However, while at Christ Church, he did finally obtain a liberal arts degree. In fact, Susan and Mark attended Ohio Wesleyan University together. It was a blessed, formative time of growth for them both.
     When they graduated, they headed for Durham, North Carolina, where Susan quickly began working at Duke University and Mark just as quickly began and ended his seminary work at Duke, finding it was not the place he had hoped. For the next decade, he operated a printing business and worked with youth groups in Durham and Chapel Hill, trying to figure out where he went wrong and how to get back in pastoral ministry. One day, Frank Scurry, the Dean of the Houston Graduate School of Theology (HGST) branch campus in High Point, NC, walked in to Blue Ox Press, Mark's printing establishment, and ordered their supplies and brochure for the upcoming school year. Mark printed their materials for the next few years, eventually in trade for the seminary education he had come to North Carolina seeking.
     After taking his first class work at HGST, a course in Apologetics with Dr. Ronald Selleck, Doctors Scurry and Selleck were each consulted about pastoral candidates by Carl Jones, then Clerk of Ministry and Council at Graham Friends Church (GFC). Mark was one of their recommendations and so it was that an old Lutheran boy was asked to preach at a Quaker Meeting. He was called to be the part-time pastor in June of 2000, teaching Wednesday Bible class and preaching Sunday morning and evening.
     After roughly a year, Mark was asked to come full-time and a new parsonage was constructed next to the church. The Ryman family moved in February of 2002. Concurrent with finishing his Master of Arts Degree in Theological Studies in 2004, Mark began a chaplaincy program with the Graham Police Department. Today, GFC has doubled in size due to police and their families and friends having found a home here.
     Mark and Susan have found a home in Graham too, looking forward to fruitful ministry here in the years that lie ahead. Mark begins his ninth year as Pastor of Graham Friends in June of 2008. Time flies...

• A letter of encouragement
from Pastor Mark

• Directions to Graham Friends

• Ministries   • Missions

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