One day a resurrected rabbi from Galilee looked at 11 nervous young men and said, “Go...” 2,000 or so years later we carry the same command to preach the same message and make same disciples. Many movements and revivals have come and gone. And they’ve all paved the way for Christians in the 21st century do a new thing and an ancient way.

Time and space won’t allow us to tell how this great commission passed through history and into our feeble hands. So here’s a short glimpse into our heritage...

In the late 1970’s, a young couple named Mike and Donna Neville went to pastor a small church in South East, Los Angeles. In a few short years, the Lord was healing and helping people from all walks of life. Families, drug dealers, gang members and every kind of person you could think of was getting saved by the power of God. People with tattoos on their neck and track marks on their arm were soon sent out to plant churches. Pastor Mike believed that everyone had a call, no matter what they’ve been through. It was a time of revival.

Across the desert in Kingman Arizona a

young and wealthy business man named Carl Friedrich was alone at home, bowing his knee during his lunch hour. He asked God to show him if He was real.

God showed up. And Carl Friedrich was never the same.

Carl began to preach on the streets with his pastor Allan Kates. He was ridiculed by his business buddies for always having his bible out on his desk and being so generous with his profits by giving towards the ‘Kingdom of God’. This would prove to be much more than a faze.

A few years later the Lord called Carl out of 2 Timothy 2:22. It was time to ‘go’ and plant a church, but where? And how?

After selling all his businesses, (including a Ford car dealership let go for $1) Carl headed out west to California with his wife Bonnie and young son Adam. They settled in Buena Park, Orange County in May, 1985 and began to build Praise Chapel Orange County. They simply knocked on doors and talked to people where ever they went. Sometimes Carl would be sharing about Christ in people’s apartments while they