Pastor John Wright and Kay Wright

Pastor John Wright serves the Northumberland Charge which consists of Fairfields United Methodist Church in Burgess and Afton United Methodist Church in Ophelia. John was born in the mountains of WV and grew up in the area of Princeton and Athens in the southern part of the mountain state. In 1981, he completed a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech. Following graduation, he was employed at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and worked there for 36 years, retiring in the summer of 2017. While working at the Warfare Center, John completed a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.

John and Kay were married in 1982, and raised three daughters on a small farm in King George County, VA.  John was an active member of the Dahlgren United Methodist Church in King George and served there until his appointment to the Northumberland Charge.

Kay matriculated at the University of Mary Washington completing a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Mathematics in 1978. She has completed post graduate work at Virginian Tech.  Kay is currently an employee of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division where she returned to work after homeschooling the couple’s three girls.

John enjoys participating in the United Methodist Church’s Volunteers in Missions (VIM) program and has been blessed to serve with that program in the United States in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Alaska and in other countries including Peru, Costa Rica, and Mexico. John has been active in prison ministry working with the Epiphany program for juveniles.  John also enjoys singing and has been a member of the St. Paul’s Masterworks Chorus in King George and the Fredericksburg Community Chorus in Fredericksburg.

While attending the Virginia Annual Conference in 2010, John received a new call to enter the ministry and after a time of discernment began taking classes as a part time student at Asbury Theological Seminary where he is currently pursuing a Master’s of Divinity degree. John is seeking to follow God's leading into ministry and the fulfillment of that call.

On June 17, 2017, during the 235th Virginia Annual Conference in Hampton, Virginia, John was licensed as a Local Pastor; he was appointed to serve the Northumberland Charge, and he began serving in this capacity June 28, 2017.  John's first day in the pulpit was July 2, 2017.

Pastor John Wright