Hello! My name is Ron Whitehead and I have been the pastor of Bethel since 1994. I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and came to know Christ as a young child. My parents faithfully attended church and sought to live Christ before us. I attended a Christian High School and upon graduation attended college to study computers. I was extremely shy and simply wanted to hide behind a computer for the rest of my life and really didn’t want to interact with people. Boy did God have other plans!

It was at college during a chapel service where I sensed the call of God into ministry. The speaker was Dr. Michael Bere and he used a phrase where he said that “God will not enable you and then call you, He will call you and then enable you.” It was then that the Spirit of God started prompting my heart that He had other plans for my life.  Over the next several months I chose to try to pretend that God was not serious; however, that Spring I heard another message where God again made it clear that He wanted me in ministry.

I surrendered in my heart to follow the Lord, whatever He wanted me to do, knowing that He would not be serious about taking me into full-time ministry. He was simply wanting me to surrender. Well, I guess you know that God was serious. I changed majors, changed schools, and served as an assistant pastor for 3 1/2 years before God called me to Bethel.

My wife, Melissa, also grew up in a godly home and we met each other in High School in the 8th grade. We became friends and then began dating at the end of our 11th grade year. We were married on May 20, 1989 and God has blessed us with four wonderful children. Our oldest (Josh) lives about 45 minutes away and our three daughters (Jen, Julia, and Joanna) still live at home. 

We would love to have you come and be a part of our extended family here at Bethel.