Contact Information
Office Phone: 724-869-4500
Home: 724 266-3937
Email Address: rich.grassel@conwayalliance.org

Family
Rich has been married to his wife, Ruth, for 22 years. She is a graduate of Nyack College, with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. Currently, Ruth is seeking a Master of Arts degree in Higher Education with a specialization in Learning Support from Geneva College. They also have two sons. The eldest son, Jeremiah, is a soccer player and attends Geneva College, majoring in Human Services with the intention of pursuing a career in law enforcement. Their youngest son, Jordan, attends Ambridge Area High School. He plays basketball and loves participating in the church’s youth group activities.

Background
Rich graduated from Geneva with a double major in Sociology and Biblical Studies in 1984. He earned a Master of Arts (Religion) degree with a specialization in church history from Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry where he is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

Prior to coming to Conway Alliance Church, Rich was an assistant professor for Student Ministries at Geneva College. During his tenure, he enjoyed serving various local churches as an interim pastor, which is how he eventually came to Conway Alliance Church. Rich has extensive experience as a student minister in several settings, including New Life Presbyterian Church (Aliquippa, PA, 1995–97), First Presbyterian Church of Lancaster (Lancaster, OH, 1987–95) and Crestmont Alliance Church (Aliquippa, PA, from 1985–87). He also served as pastor of the Wiley Hill Baptist Church (1984-85).

Publishing and Consultant Activities
Rich has contributed articles to Youth Worker Magazine and Group Magazine. In 2002 Zondervan published his book titled "Help! I'm a Small Church Youth Worker."

As a professor, Rich was a frequent seminar speaker for the annual Youth Specialties Convention and serves as a consultant and speaker in the areas of student ministry program development, youth ministry in the small church, leadership and mentoring, and spiritual formation.

Current Educational Research Projects
Rich is deeply engaged with his doctoral thesis titled "Christian Spirituality and Genocide in the 20th Century." The phenomena of genocide might well be one of the great true tests in the authenticity of one’s faith in Christ. Therefore, the point behind this research is to discover why historically Christians don’t appear to perform any better than any other religious or ideological groups, which begs the question of the veracity of the nature of one's spiritual formation as a believer in Christ. He has concluded that to the degree Christians have been transformed over into the image of Christ, they then have the ability to overly transcend great manifestations of evil in the world, which then enables them to be transformational agents within the world in which they live on any level.

Current Ministry Engagement
I am seeking to live among my people authentically ... living life and engaging our life's journey together. I love "hanging out" in their homes, community, and at our church. The vision I have in mind is for us to be a "missional" church that lives genuinely and incarnationally within the community ... living to be like Christ among the lives that God has placed providentially within our midst.

Personal Credo
"I want to be known as a gracious, authentic, biblical Christian—infused with godly and empathetic wisdom; as well as becoming a growing Christian mystic, exercised through a primarily intuitive nature; who is completely unafraid to take the inner walk both within myself, as well as within my brother, and as a result becoming transformed over into the image of Christ—fully restored in my relationship with Christ, within myself, between others and within the Created order."

Some of Pastor Grassel's Favorite Quotes
"Fellowship searches friendships, burning, dissolving, ennobling, transfiguring them in Heaven's glowing fire" (from Thomas Kelly's "A Testament of Devotion"). I like this passage because this is exactly what I attempt to do in all of the relationships that God providentially brings to me.

"Nobody knows more of the truth than what His is of the truth" (Kierkegaard). It seems to me that Kierkegaard's idea here gets at another vital passionate principle that I live for ... the integration and praxis of truth in the individual ... without that kind of integration; it always rings in authentically to me.