Only God
RREACH’s first operational value is “Only God.” One way we recognize and live our dependence on Him is by beginning, covering and ending every aspect of ministry in prayer, with thanksgiving.
Dr. Richard says, “Prayer precedes ministry,” and as the Lord continues to open doors for his ministry, we realize afresh the need for prayer.
Please take a moment to pray and praise over the updates on this page, featuring a daily prayer calendar at the beginning of each month. Also let us know how we can pray for you!
Prayer Calendar
Prayer Updates
A myriad of needs: Will you pray? | January 21, 2017
Dear praying friends,
Thank you for continuing to lift up Dr. Richard and RREACH. As 2017 gets underway, we have a number of Dallas GPA-related requests to share, in addition to needs in several other areas of the RREACH ministry.
2017 Dallas GPA
Join us in praising God for the 24 pastors who have been accepted. Nine have obtained visas! Also, all of our Master Coaches are scheduled.
For the Dallas GPA pastors, please intercede for these needs:
For favor in scheduling visa appointments, and that visas would be issued
Pastors’ fundraising for their flights and visa fees
Pastors’ churches in preparing for their pastor's extended absence
Pastors’ continual community-building on social media
Pastors’ response to the admissions team for needed items
For Dallas GPA staff, please pray for:
Continual learning in our new database system for admissions
Editing and filming of new admissions videos for the incoming pastors
Even as Dallas GPA preparations increase, a flurry of activity is happening across RREACH’s three strategies. Please join us in prayer in the following ways:
Ministry training
Dr. Richard recently skyped with GPA Romania. Delegates there request prayer for unity and for protection for their churches, families and health as they are away.
GProCommission for Trainers of Pastors (the four-year follow up to the GProCongress) has key meetings at the end of this month with a number of people traveling in from around the world. Pray for efficiency, humility and unity at the meetings, and that they would yield abundant fruit toward the follow-up effort.
Also, the GProCommission team is working hard to set up a platform of wide and deep, globally-sourced resources on GProConneXt.com. This resources platform should roll out soon. Pray for excellence in every area of the planning and launch of this important element of the four-year follow up.
Finally, pray for ongoing dialogue and collaboration between traditional and non-traditional pastoral training leaders. Pray specifically for mid-February meetings that will bring these two groups together.
Media outreach
Please pray for Dr. Richard as he prepares messages for upcoming Media Outreach video talks.
Received: April 29, 2021
In his words: January update from Ramesh Richard | January 6, 2017
What a year is coming up! Nothing accents human limitation like ignorance of the future. We know the past better than the future, but only slightly better. How God was working in and through each circumstance last year is barely known to us. Here is how we experienced the hem of His garment and will do so in the new year as well.
We finished last year in joy because of what God did through RREACH. The “one word” we picked for 2016 was "exceed." It referred to the One able to do “exceedingly abundantly beyond all we can imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Exceed also referred to excellence in execution. We cried out to the Lord Most High, and He accomplished all things for us (Psalm. 57:2).
My best gift in December was the opportunity to present Jesus to Chinese scholars and professionals in Dallas. The opportunity itself was the gift. I usually pray for at least one expressed response, to rejoice like the shepherd in Luke 15. Indeed, one responded. Another professed salvation over a meal we shared in the UK. Best of all, I was stunned to hear of what God did a few months ago. I had thought 600 youth responded to the gospel invitation. Our hosts wrote that 2,449 professed faith in Christ! I could also add that my LifeRocks talk on “Sexual Corruption” was seen on 6.3 million Facebook pages. Would you pray for and give to opportunities in 2017 like never before?
We finished 2016 in peace. At the final board meeting of the year, we reviewed what God had done. God honored the faith of a few to finish “in the black” while undertaking a huge initiative disproportionate to our size. He helped us launch the next five years so countries, congregations and communities will think and hear differently about Jesus. Enjoy the newly unveiled GProCommission.org, a site to connect, unite, and strengthen trainers of pastors so that more pastors will be better trained.
I personally finished the year in joy and peace by God’s recuperative graces. I am back to a degree of normality indicated by creativity, humor, planning, even controlled impatience! My year ended with a celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary. I was able to surprise Bonnie with our entire family coming together. And nothing could have made her or me happier.
What is 2017 going to bring us? We do not know much. All we are left with is trust. Or better, we are left with the God Whom we can trust. We trust the One we know into a future we don’t. And that is enough.
Received: April 29, 2021
Ministry opportunities in 2017 | December 30, 2016
Dear praying friends,
Personal proclamation is back at the top of Dr. Richard’s focus for ministry in 2017 and he is eager for it! Many opportunities are coming his way for speaking, writing, advising, training, and more. Praise God for them and pray for wisdom as he evaluates each and for quality time he can dedicate to preparation.
GProCommission activity also needs great prayer support.
Dallas GPA: RREACH has accepted 19 pastors so far; we’re asking the Lord Jesus for at least six more, preferably from new countries.
National GPAs: Twenty have been confirmed for 2017; the first, GPA Romania, is just a month away. Pray for at least 25 excellent delegates, logistical and spiritual preparation, and a powerful experience.
GProConneXt: The core team is to gather in Dallas in January. Ask God for fruitful planning, further team cohesion, and good stewardship of GProCongress momentum to connect and strengthen trainers of pastors.
Received: April 29, 2021
Christmas greetings from Ramesh Richard and RREACH | December 23, 2016
Dear friends,
We want to wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas. We pray the Holy Spirit would create in your soul new and deepened awe as you consider that God took on flesh in order to die that we might gain true life in Him.
Received: April 29, 2021
In his words: December update from Ramesh Richard | December 9, 2016
Did you know I am being recognized as a “leadership guru”!? Who’d have ever “thunk”? When experience tames, trains and grows us, I guess even slow learners like me inevitably become experts. Combine learning with teaching, and one becomes a pundit! Mix it with a little grey hair to look like a sage, and I have earned my stripes to speak with experiential authority, not just theoretical abstraction. I find it surprising that non-profit and business leaders beat a path to my calendar and ask how to run life, organizations and companies. “I serve in the leadership space, with my specialization being self-management,” I tell pre-Christian leaders. “You can’t lead yourself—that takes God; but you can manage your life under God.” The distinction provides all kinds of interaction. If it doesn’t end up with Christ and the gospel, I have wasted everyone’s time.
Last month began with speaking on “Spiritual Convictions for Life in Leadership” to about 100 church and society leaders in South Asia. They took copious notes and complained that I finished only one of my five points on the outline—over an hour and 15 minutes. My mentor, Fred Smith, referred to this as “speaking from overflow!” At some point, one’s whole life has been preparation, and I think I am in that season.
An honored development was the launching of the RREACH Chair of Biblical Preaching and Pastoral Ministries at SAIACS—the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, perhaps the premier theological institute representing the large part of the world to which I owe my earthly birth. First in Bangalore and later in Dallas, we celebrated this pilot initiative to elevate preaching and the local church, preventing them from getting lost in theological and missiological concerns alone.
I have been meeting many friends simply to thank them for their generosity towards the GProCongress. We have created a RREACH culture of thanks (and service, gifts, hospitality and execution) because of the sad question Jesus asked only one of ten lepers who returned to say thank you. We want to give thanks frequently, adequately, quickly and specifically. Thanksgiving is year-long and hopefully life-long!
In that vein, thank you for praying. Let’s introduce the One who changed the timing and toning of all history, geography and peoples to opinion leaders and then grow them by strengthening pastoral leaders. Have you noticed that our strategy statement highlights leaders? Indeed, I am a leadership guru!
I wish you and your family a wonder-filled Christmas season.