Richard A. Jackson was born August 3, 1938 in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of a Baptist minister. Upon graduation from Grapevine High School in Grapevine, Texas, he entered Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, from which he graduated in May 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then completed his graduate work at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, with a Master of Divinity degree. He also has had conferred upon him the Doctor of Divinity degree by both Grand Canyon University and his alma mater, Howard Payne University.

 Jackson has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Grapevine High School, Howard Payne University, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served as president of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention.

 Having been ordained to the Gospel ministry at the age of nineteen, he invested thirty-five years in pastoring local churches. His pastorates include Concord Baptist Church of Bangs, Texas; Calvary Baptist Church of May, Texas; Bluff Dale Baptist Church of Bluff Dale, Texas; Henderson Street Baptist Church of Cleburne, Texas; First Baptist Church of Sulphur Springs, Texas; and, for over twenty-five years, North Phoenix Baptist Church of Phoenix, Arizona, of which he is now the Pastor Emeritus.

 In the years that Richard Jackson was the pastor of North Phoenix Baptist Church, in an area of the country still referred to as “pioneer missions,” the membership grew from less than 500 to 22,000 with more than 20,000 people being baptized, the majority of whom were adults at the time of their conversion.

 Richard Jackson is retired from the active pastorate and now bases his ministry out of the Jackson Center for Evangelism and Encouragement, which is located in Brownwood, Texas. In addition to serving churches as Interim Pastor, he also preaches in churches, conferences, and crusades throughout the country and beyond. Dr. Jackson periodically teaches as an adjunct professor for the Christian Studies Department at Howard Payne University.

 The Jackson Center has a worldwide distribution of The Covenant of God’s Love, a soul-winning New Testament which contains notes and outlines written by Richard Jackson. More than 800,000 copies have been distributed, and testimonies received at the Jackson Center indicate that more people have come to Christ in the use of this Testament since its inception in 1999 than in all of Pastor Jackson's ministry prior to that time.

Richard Jackson and his wife, Wanda, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on August 29, 2007 and have three children and six grandchildren.