The Life Action Story

In 1971 a young youth pastor named Del Fehsenfeld Jr. took his first church out of college, passionate to see an army of Christlike teens change the culture. What he found when he arrived at the church appalled him: almost total accommodation by his teens to the pagan conditions around them. He began to network with other area youth pastors to find out if he was alone in his discovery. Tragically, he wasn't.

Then came the "eureka" moment—he realized that most of his teens had parents in the church! Could it be that the root of the problem with the teens was a lukewarm church culture? If so, to meaningfully address the problem was going to take more than changing youth groups—it would take the revival of the church!

Del had put his finger on the heart of the problem still facing evangelical culture today. We call it the credibility gap. Simply put, there is generally a huge chasm between the things Christians know and profess to believe, and the quality of their actual experience. That gap is what is disillusioning our children, turning off the lost, and draining our spiritual vitality.

Sensing the urgency of this spiritual condition, and believing that God is a reviving God for whom nothing is impossible, Del founded Life Action Ministries to be the catalyst for movements of authentic Christianity that would revitalize believers in North America and transform the culture. He was only 23, but his vision for Life Action Ministries would last far beyond his death in 1989 at age 42.

Since its inception in 1971, Life Action has gone through many growth stages. The original ministry models were youth-focused: short revival meetings in churches, combined with high school assemblies.

But as the years passed, there was a natural growth of the ministry message and constituency, and the meetings morphed into extended stays in churches, with teaching on family issues in addition to core revival principles. This unique local church ministry grew to include multiple teams, complete with youth and children's ministries, traversing the country to minister in thousands of local churches across America.

In 1980, the ministry was almost ten years old and had become an established and growing force. But there was still a burning urgency to reach more of America with the revival message. To help accomplish this, Life Action conceived and produced a major multi-media program called America, You're Too Young to Die!

For one year, everything else was put on hold to get this message to as many people as possible; and in the next decade, this program was seen live by more than four million people, as well being turned into a national television special.

The one-night multi-media format was so effective that other major media productions followed: The Family: Holding On for Life! and Bring Back the Glory, which told the story of America's Great Awakenings.

In 1981, sensing an opportunity to penetrate further with the revival message, the ministry launched the Spirit of Revival magazine (now called Revive), which is distributed to tens of thousands of laypeople and pastors. It quickly became one of the nation’s most influential voices on revival and spiritual renewal.

In the last 15 years, Life Action Ministries has experienced explosive growth, both in size and scope of influence, tripling in staff, income, and outreach. Today, Life Action is a multi-faceted ministry of more than 250 staff. We still have one mission, but our vision is now expressed through multiple outreaches.

God has expanded our touch-points for impact to include not only the original local church ministry teams but also Revive Our Hearts (radio and women's ministry), The Lodge (pastors and Christian leaders), Family Camp (marriage and family retreats), Collegiate Impact (universities), and a host of Internet, media, and print publications.

We are profoundly grateful to God for our heritage, fully engaged in present ministry, and eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of our mission to ignite movements of authentic Christianity that advance the kingdom of God throughout the world.


Download a copy of "A Testimony of Faith, a Vision for America," an inteview with our founder about Life Action's early days.