While his heart is physically weak, his spirit remains strong.

On Sunday Maurice Wheat will celebrate 40 years as pastor at Central Baptist Church.

“I’m doing pretty good,” Wheat, a native of Bedford, Virginia, said in a recent interview at the church off Georgia Avenue. “I’m getting used to a different style of life. I live off electricity.”

The electricity he speaks of keeps blood pumping through his body after a fourth heart procedure. “It has to be running all the time.”

The last procedure kept him away from the church he has fostered for 26 days. “I didn’t have much choice,” the 75-year-old minister said.

Last Sunday he sat in the front pew and listened as a guest pastor delivered the message and will do the same thing for his anniversary this Sunday, opting to not get in the pulpit and preach until July.

When he is ready to preach the message it will be same he has delivered for 40 years. “I’m taking it a day at the time. I preach the Bible and teach the Bible.”

An earlier photo of the pastor.

Throughout his career Wheat has given credit to God. “I’m glad I could be an instrument he’s used.”

Growing up in Bedford, Wheat said he was not from an overly religious family, going to church mainly on special occasions.

At 17 he joined the Marines and became saved when he was on furlough after he was invited to a church service. It wasn’t a dramatic event, he says. “I heard the gospel and that Christ died on the cross.”

That decision led to enrollment at a Bible college in Winston-Salem and a church he pastored in King.

In 1972 he came to Roanoke Rapids on advice of friends whose son ran a rescue mission in Winston-Salem. “I had never heard of it,” he said of Roanoke Rapids. “This just worked out. Everything I have accomplished the Lord has done it. I give him credit for the whole thing.”

The church was four-years-old when he came to Roanoke Rapids and the early years were not easy ones. He took a job at the Roanoke Rapids Post Office and worked there for 24 years while preaching. “Mainly I worked inside as a clerk. I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning to meet the mail truck. I’ve always been of the conviction I don’t think a minister should insist on a set salary. The Lord led people to give us raises. The Lord opened the door at the post office.”

The church now has a membership of 60 to 65 people, Wheat said. “The Lord led us to have a Bible school every summer. We have over the years taken in missionaries. We support 26 missionaries.”

Wheat doesn’t keep count of the number of people who have been baptized because of his preaching. The most dramatic conversion was probably his father's. “I’ve seen a few over the years. The one that comes to mind my father was an alcoholic and I was preaching in my home church. He came forward. That meant a lot to me.”

Wheat and his wife.

Through the preaching and the heart problems that began in 2003 with a quadruple bypass is his wife, Helen. The two will celebrate 56 years of marriage in October. “She’s been a partner, helpmate. Without her I couldn’t do it. She’s been a Sunday school teacher for probably 45 years. She has been a big help.”

In 2006 he had valve replacement and in 2009 he had a pacemaker put in. “I’ve had different problems,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t feeling good. They had done everything they could do. My heart was getting weaker.”

The latest procedure placed a pump in his heart that runs off batteries and is plugged in at home. Should the current go out he has 36 hours of battery supply to keep him alive until the current comes back on or he is transported to the safety of a hospital.

The consequences don’t frighten him. “Death has never scared me because I know where I’m going.”

Through the health problems the congregation has stood behind him. “The latest situation really brought the church together. They took up the slack.”

This Sunday Wheat will listen to his cousin preach. In July he is not sure what his return sermon will be, only that he will thank those for stepping in while he was out and that it will be a Bible-based sermon.

The one thing he is certain of is it is not time for him to leave the pulpit. “I don’t feel like the Lord wants me to retire yet.”