Rev. Chance Ward currently serves the Springfield United Methodist Church as Associate Pastor and Director of Children and Youth.  After fourteen years of teaching and coaching in the Effingham County School systerm, Chance embraced the opportunity to become a member of the full time staff at Springfield UMC in the summer of 2005.  In answering this call to serve full time, Chance began the Ministry Inquiry Process and entered the candidacy program for ordained ministry.  Rev. Ward was licensed as a part-time local pastor in 2007 and was appointed to Springfield UMC in 2008.  He is currently attending Asbury Theological Seminary pursuing a Masters of Divinty and continues to work towards ordiantion as an elder in the South Georgia Annual Conference.  

Chance is originally from Riverdale, Georgia.  After graduating in 1987, he went on to attend Georgia Southern University where he played football and graduated with a B.S. in Health Science.  It was during his time at Georgia Southern that he met the former Tonya Palmer of Springfield, Georgia.  Tonya and Chance were married in 1992 and chose to call Effingham County home.  Tonya is in education and is the school counselor at Marlow Elementary.  Tonya and Chance have been blessed with three wonderful children: Kiley (15), Sarah-Lyn (11), and Brennan (2 1/2).  As a family, the Ward's enjoy hanging out together; especially, when they are able to do so at the beach.

Rev. Ward says, "I am blessed to be able to serve the people of Springfield UMC and others I come in contact with on a daily basis.  God continues to bless the work that we are a part of and I believe that wonderful things lie ahead for the future."  One of his favorite verses, from 2 Corinthians, reminds each of us of who we are as followers of Jesus Christ and states, "Therefore, if anyone be in Christ, they are a new creation; the old is passed away, behold, all things are made new."