The Family traces its origins to 1968 and Huntington Beach, California. It was there that our founder, David Berg, also known as Father David or Moses David, together with his wife and teenage children, began a ministry to the counterculture youth who flocked to that seaside town. Many of these experienced dramatic changes in their lives as they came to understand that there is a God and that they could have a personal relationship with him through Jesus Christ, God's gift of Love.

Some of them chose to work with Father David, dedicating their lives to the service of God and others. Thus, The Family was born, although it was not to become known by that name for many years. At the end of 1969, when the group had grown to about 100 members, it was dubbed The Children of God by the news media. By 1972, there were 130 Children of God communities scattered throughout the world.

In early 1978, The Children of God was formally dissolved and a new group, The Family of Love, with a new organizational structure, was formed. In recent years, we have become known simply as The Family.

The Family sees its prime task as that of bringing the message of God's love to all. How successful have we been at this? As of yet we have personally shared the Gospel message with over 237 million individuals, while billions have heard our message through the mass media. As a result, over 23.3 million people have personally prayed with our members to receive God's love, forgiveness and salvation. We have distributed over 850 million pieces of Gospel literature in 61 languages. A total of over 1.4 million videos and eight million audio tapes in more than 20 languages have also been distributed.