Founder Bio -
Rich Cleveland

Rich Cleveland

Rich was raised in Portland, Maine and upon graduation served four years in the United States Air Force, during which he professed faith in Christ for the first time, and began a life-long quest to follow and serve Christ. He is a graduate of Auburn University where he majored in Business Management and minored in Speech. Rich his wife Gail have been involved in evangelical ministry since 1963. His early ministry was in and through The Navigators; twenty-four years of which was pioneering a ministry helping churches establish evangelism and discipleship training and invested ten years as the initial director of the Church Discipleship Ministry. They have three grown children, and eight grandchildren.

After ministering for thirty-five years as evangelicals, Rich and his wife Gail became Catholic, and founded Emmaus Journey; a ministry of Catholic evangelization and discipleship. Rich served as the director of Small Christian Communities at Holy Apostles Parish in Colorado Springs, where they continue as members.  

Through Emmaus Journey and The Word Among Us, Rich and Gail have published several Scripture-based Catholic small group studies; two of which were publisher’s best sellers. Additionally, Rich provides Reflecting on Sunday’s Readings, a small group study based on each Sunday’s Mass readings, which can be downloaded for free. Rich has served as speaker and seminar leader at numerous national Christian conferences and conventions, including the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Men’s Conference, the National Council of Catholic Evangelization, and St. Paul’s Institute of Evangelical Catholic Ministry. The other bible studies and discipling resources authored by Rich may be seen at emmausjourney.org.

Rich and Gail are in their eighties and, though officially retired, continue to minister to people God brings into their life. In 2005 Rich wrote:

"I can’t imagine doing anything other than what I am doing, or anything that could be more fun or rewarding. I think that’s the way it is supposed to be, for the psalmist speaks of continued usefulness and productivity even in old age: “They still bring forth fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green.”

“As I read about the lives of the great saints over the centuries, each had a common goal to move deeper and closer into a holiness of total abandonment to Jesus. To the great saints, retirement was never an issue, No one more epitomized these concepts than did the late, beloved, Pope John Paul II. As one reads various biographies of his life, it is obvious that though he had a productive ministry all along in his vocation of serving Christ it was in those latter years as Pope that his life brought forth abundant fruit. Though his frail body was wracked with pain and disease, and though many in pity looked at his stooped form and difficult speech suggesting that he should retire, his mind and spirit were  'full of sap and green' burning with a passion for Christ, for the Church, and for the world."