Father John Phelps is the priest-in-charge at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Mineral Wells, Texas. He also serves at St. Peter's by the Lake at Possum Kingdom, Texas, and Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, in Graham, Texas.
Father Phelps grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended college in Colorado at Colorado State University. He taught mathematics in Boston, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the college level. He received an engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a computer programmer and software engineer in the telecommunications industry in North Dallas for several years.
Father Phelps met his wife in Colorado while attending an Episcopal student retreat.
Raised a Presbyterian, he was converted to the Episcopal Church while in college. He says, "I had felt a call to the ordained ministry since I was a teenager, but it was not until around 1996 that I was led to act on that call."
After much prayer and consultation he was accepted as a postulant in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and attended seminary at Nashotah House in Wisconsin for three years. After graduation he and his family, wife Kate and daughters Amber and Crystal, returned to Fort Worth, and he began his ministry, being assigned to a church in Arlington as an assistant priest. He was ordained in September of 2003.
Father Phelps concludes, "I am very happy to be at Saint Luke's Episcopal Church. It's a great church with beautiful stained glass windows and a very warm, friendly, and outgoing congregation who love their church and love their Lord."