About Us
Our History
PHOCAL, The Potter’s House of Calgary, belongs to a worldwide family of churches whose story began in 1970 with one small congregation and a passion to reach people for Jesus.
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1970
A small church in Prescott
Pastor Wayman Mitchell and his wife, Nelda, took on a small, struggling congregation in Prescott, Arizona. Before long, young people from the hippie movement began getting saved. They were nothing like the existing members, but the church embraced them, and revival followed.
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1970s
Concerts, evangelism and impact teams
To reach young people, the church started holding coffee-house style concerts. Over 200 showed up to the first one, and many were saved. Soon there were concerts twice a week, with bands, testimonies and preaching, all run by young converts, which made them a training ground for future ministers. Sharing faith one-on-one became part of the church’s DNA, and impact teams carried the revival to neighbouring towns.
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1973
Discipleship and church planting
A pattern of discipleship took shape: young couples trained for ministry right inside the local church. In 1973 the first couple was sent out to pastor, and soon churches were being planted across the Southwest and then the rest of the United States, often in towns converts had been praying for.
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1978
To the nations
Australia became the first country outside the US to receive a church-planting couple, and the gospel took root there too. Mexico, the Netherlands and Germany came next, and in time churches were planted around the world.
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Today
A worldwide family of churches
There are now more than 4,000 churches across the United States and around the world, including PHOCAL Church here in Calgary.