Stan Parris

  The Rev. Stan Parris retired as pastor of Second Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, after pastoring churches in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, including First Baptist Church of Hope, Arkansas, his hometown and the church he belonged to when the Lord called him to the ministry.

Stan continues to reside in Arkadelphia, a small town that is home to two universities — Henderson State University, a public school, and Ouachita Baptist University, a private Southern Baptist University that supplies more denominational preachers and music ministers than any school in Arkansas.  Parris took a different path to the ministry. He graduated from Henderson.

In retirement, Stan began posting on Facebook about the trials and tribulations of doing the grocery shopping at the Walmart Supercenter only 1.3 miles from his country home. The posts drew rave reviews and friends began telling him he should write a book. He had discovered a new love of writing and decided if he was going to be an author, he should first write about his missionary experiences and how he saw the Lord work in the lives of people in several countries where he had lived or visited. That first book, published in 2021, was titled “Just Outside of Hope,” a double meaning related to the way his dad always described where he lived and the travails of people who have no real hope until they meet Jesus.

Stan grew up in his parents’ modest home “just outside of Hope,” to become an All-America college football player, which led him to an NFL camp where he was one misstep from making the team, to coaching high school football, then surrendering to his long-held call to the ministry, which eventually led to a call to missions. 

He graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, entered the pastorate, then answered a call to missions. After training in Costa Rica and he was named a fulltime missionary to Maricaibo, Venezuela,. Stan re-entered the pastorate after his time overseas, later using his experience on the mission field to be named missions pastor at one of the largest Southern Baptist Churches in his home state of Arkansas. He ended his fulltime ministry in the town where and when football was No. 1 in his life. His priorities changed, both when he met his future wife, Charlotte Wilson Parris, and again when he answered the call to ministry. His love of preaching has not diminished in retirement, leading him to interim pastorships and opportunities to fill in for pastors on leave or vacation.

Even while working on his first book, he continued his Facebook postings, but changed the focus of his posts by emphasizing something meaningful or spiritual under the heading, “Just Saying.” His second book, due out this fall, is a compilation of his “Walmart Words” postings and the later ones under the “Just Saying” heading.

Stan and Charlotte have three children, Kyle, Kelly, and Kenneth. They also are “Papa” and “Nana” to five grandchildren — Alexa Nicole, Dustin James, Sara Elizabeth, Charlee Lane and Campbell Elise — and a great-grandson, Beckham James Spinks.