Rich Nathan has been serving as the first senior pastor of the Vineyard Columbus from 1987 until 2021. Prior to pastoring, Rich taught business law at The Ohio State University for five years.
He is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his Juris Doctorate with honors from The Ohio State University College of Law in 1980. Rich has served on the National Board for Vineyard: A Community of Churches for nearly two decades and is currently serving as the Large Church Task Force leader for the Vineyard. He is a popular national and international conference speaker.
Rich wrote Who is My Enemy? Welcoming People the Church Rejects (Zondervan, 2002), co-authored the book, Empowered Evangelicals (Ampelon Revised 2009) with Ken Wilson, and co-authored the book, Both-And: Living the Christ-Centered Life in an Either-Or World (Intervarsity Press, 2013) with Insoo Kim.
Rich was born and raised in New York City. He and his wife, Marlene, have two adult children and six grandchildren.
David Parker, his wife Nancy and their young family moved to Lancaster from London, England to Lancaster, CA in July 1993 to assume the leadership of the Desert Vineyard Christian Fellowship, in Lancaster, CA as its senior pastor. David currently serves as lead pastor for the outward-focused, multi-ethnic, multi-site congregation that has grown from 800 to over 5000 in the past 17 years. David holds a Master of Christian Studies from Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.