Retired police officer creates prayer site

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A retired Van Wert police officer has turned his empathy for those who are struggling, coupled with an interest in prayer and its ability to change lives, into an online Christian ministry that now reaches people in a number of foreign countries, with translations in several languages.

Terry Dietsch was a junior in high school when he first turned to God without an agenda to seek His will on what he should do with his life. He later earned an associate’s degree and became an officer with the Van Wert Police Department, retiring in 2010.

During his police career, Dietsch said his specialization in crime scene investigation brought him face to face with the seamier side of life, as well as community members who were struggling just to survive.

“After a career in law enforcement, you step back when you see multiple generations in the same families struggling,” Dietsch said, noting that those he encountered during his career left him with a desire to provide an effective approach to a better life for people who are hurting.

That desire also resulted in an extensive six-month regimen of prayer in 2017 with no agenda other than to seek direction on how he could best help others.

The “Real Prayer” booklet is the result of that search for a better way, which is now available to people in 50 countries around the world in four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian at www.realprayer.org.

The booklet consists of an introduction and 10 chapters whose collective goal is to provide a primer to how to find God — and themselves — through the vehicle of prayer. The chapters include the following and are based on Dietsch’s own life experiences:

• Priorities & Heaven
• Does God exist?
• Experiencing God
• Seeking God’s will
• Forgiving & praying for others
• Forgiveness of oneself
• Learning how to pray
• An opportunity to believe
• Faith in God
• Fulfilling God’s will

While many people read the entire booklet, which Dietsch recommends, others go immediately to the chapter on learning how to pray. 

That chapter notes that praying to God on how a person wants things to be is similar to “a barking puppy telling his master what needs done, despite the puppy’s lack of experience and wisdom.”

Dietsch said those praying should emulate Jesus’ own method by:

• Expressing a concern to God
• Completely placing the concern in God’s hands without expectation
• Asking for God’s will to be done

In addition to the prayer booklet, there are also blogs on raising children and sharing Jesus with others on the website.

A volunteer board is involved in funding and maintaining the site, which has undergone some changes, as has the booklet, as Dietsch finds better ways of communicating his views on the subject of prayer. Activity has grown substantially over the past few months, with the number of people accessing the site increasing 250 percent since November 2020.

The booklet and its journey toward spiritual belief are something the former police officer said is needed in the U.S. today, adding that the percentage of Americans expressing a belief in God has dropped significantly over several generations.

It’s a trip well worth taking, in the former police officer’s mind.

“Faith can be an amazing adventure in learning for those willing to take the journey,” Dietsch said.