David Berg's parents were both active Christian pastors and evangelists, and his early years were spent traveling with them in evangelistic work. In 1941 he nearly died of pneumonia, shortly after being drafted into the U.S. Army. After determining to rededicate his life to Christian service, he experienced a miraculous healing.

For most of the next 27 years he worked as a pastor and in various evangelistic endeavors until, in 1968, he received God's call to take the Gospel to the hippies of Southern California. There he and his then teen-aged children began a ministry to the youth that grew and was known as The Children of God, and eventually became known as The Family. Today, members of The Family engage in missionary and humanitarian work in about 90 countries worldwide.

David Berg called on his followers to devote their full time to spreading the message of Christ's love and salvation as far and wide as possible, unfettered by convention or tradition, and to teach others to do the same.

Berg also decried the de-Christianization and decay in moral values of Western society. He viewed the trend towards a New World Order as setting the stage for the rise of the Antichrist, a godless world dictator whom the Bible predicts will rule the world in the last days before Christ’s return.

David Berg's lively, down-to-earth, and sometimes unconventional approach to heavenly matters makes his writings a unique contribution to Christian literature. (They are usually referred to as the MO Letters, as he often used the pseudonym Moses David when writing.) He once said of his writings that his aim was to leave his readers feeling either "mad, sad or glad." Without a doubt, he succeeded in doing just that.

Though the world may know him as David Berg, to The Family he was known as Father David, Moses David, "MO," or as most Family members came to call him affectionately—Dad. He truly was a Father in the Lord to those who knew him, either personally or through his writings.

In November 1994, The Family commemorated his passing from this life into the next. Surely he has now heard his Savior's "Well done!" for his life of Christian service. In The Family's first 25 years, his leadership inspired The Family to personally share the Gospel with over 260 million people in over 100 countries, nearly 18 million of whom received Jesus and God's free gift of eternal life.