About our Executive Director
Richard Long lives in Ottawa, the national capital of Canada. He was born in Malawi, the second of six children, and grew up in various parts of Ontario, since his dad was a Baptist pastor. He graduated from the University of Waterloo (history) and Central Baptist Seminary (theology) and has served in 4 congregations in southern Ontario over the last 40 years. The latest effort is a church planting team which birthed the Vineyard Ottawa church in 2017.
In 2001 his home congregation of Runnymede (Baptist) Community Church in Toronto, where he had served for almost 14 years, commissioned the Longs to full-time city transformation work in Canada under the banner of “Together Ministries”. They moved to Ottawa at the beginning of 2006 where for 5 years they served as Associate Directors at the newly established National House of Prayer.
Throughout these years Richard has also traveled from coast to coast working with other city-church efforts, providing counsel, encouragement, and prayer summits. From time to time he facilitates national city-reaching roundtables like CAPITALYZE.
In September 2012 Richard was appointed as the director of Love Ottawa -the collaborative mission arm of One Way Ministries. In 2023 he took on a new role with that city-wide ministry as the Pastoral Engagement officer. That just means he spends lots of time hanging out with pastors, hearing their stories and praying with them. He continues to be passionate about working out the practices of city-reaching in the nation’s capital. A forth-coming book will share his 40 years of insight into this life long assignment. Richard continues to travel or zoom across Canada, coaching and encouraging city-reaching efforts from coast to coast under the banner of Together Canada.