- January 7, 2026
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While many Americans were dragging their trees from their garage hibernation and clumsily climbing ladders to add some twinkling holiday cheer to their homes, West Orange resident and Christian evangelist Chris Mikkelson closed out 2025 with not one — but two — crusades.
The first was to Kampong Speu Province, Cambodia — a location that had never before hosted a Christian gospel crusade of any kind. The second was a five-night tour de force in Phuket, Thailand, where Mikkelson and his team met a woman named Nee.
Nee, a housekeeper for a local Thai Christian leader named GoParn, had been battling lupus and recently was diagnosed with breast cancer.
At the crusade’s Christmas event at Chai Stadium, Mikkelson led an altar call, inviting anyone who wanted to proclaim their faith in Jesus to come forward. Nee responded and prayed for healing.
“Two days after the crusade, Nee returned to the hospital for a follow-up examination,” Mikkelson said. “To the doctor’s amazement, the lump was gone — no cancer was found — and her autoimmune disease was also completely healed. Nee immediately praised Jesus in the hospital and called GoParn’s mother with a trembling voice, overflowing with joy and gratitude to God.”
As an evangelist, Mikkelson has spend more than a decade sharing his Christian faith with millions of people living in the most remote — and non-Christian — areas on the planet. And through this work, he has seen hundreds of miracles just like Nee. He’s seen the blind healed, the lame walk again.
And in a time fraught with technologies and products that can blur or even erase the line between what is true and what is a lie, Mikkelson has placed himself on the front lines of what he believes is a second great awakening.
“I do believe that God is doing something very, very special right now,” Mikkelson said. “Jesus said the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. And I think that I believe that as we get closer to the return of Christ … that He’s coming back for a harvest. … I believe that there’s going to be an end-time harvest of souls — people that get saved right before His return. And I believe that we’re coming into that.
“Bible sales are way up right now,” he said. “You look at church attendance — way up. Gen Z is attending church now more than previous generations.”
Locally, two West Orange and Southwest Orange churches — Lakeside Church in Oakland and Quay (formerly Lifebridge) Church in Horizon West — made Outreach magazine’s 2025 list of the 20 fastest-growing churches in America.
Further evidence of this shift can be found in pop culture. In 2025, two Christian songs (Brandon Lake’s “Hard Fought Hallelujah” and Forrest Frank’s “Your Way’s Better”) appeared simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 — a feat that hadn’t happened in more than a decade.
On TV, season 23 of “American Idol” included a three-hour Easter Sunday special that featured songs of faith.
And on the silver screen, Angel Studios’ “David” enjoyed a $22 million opening weekend — the highest-grossing faith-based animated film opening in movie history. For the week before Christmas, “David” ranked No. 2 in domestic box office sales, behind only “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
“There are a lot of things that are happening that I think people are looking at and going like, ‘God is up to something here,’” Mikkelson said. “We’re seeing a shift — a spiritual shift in America.’”
But why? If you ask Mikkelson, it’s a direct response to presence of evil in our world.
“When I first got saved, I used to hear this quote that one of the greatest tricks the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” he said. “Today, I don’t think the devil can get away with that trick anymore. The world sees there is a devil. … I believe the devil shot himself in the foot. I think he overplayed his hand.”
Some might balk at Mikkelson’s perspective. But, they haven’t seen what he’s seen.
DOWNWARD SPIRAL
Mikkelson’s story begins in Osakis, Minnesota.
Population: 1,256.
“Every day I would drive to town to go to school, I would see the population sign,” Mikkelson said, laughing. “It is seared into my mind.”
With the closest gas station 7 miles away, life in Osakis was simple. Mikkelson grew up on a dairy farm. His great-grandfather — a carpenter who had immigrated from Norway — had built one of the several Lutheran churches in town. At home, Mikkelson’s mom always had the TV tuned to Christian televangelists such as Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggart.
It was an uncomplicated, isolated, hardworking life — 30 miles from anywhere else.
But that didn’t mean evil didn’t find Mikkelson. He started drinking in high school and then enrolled in a nearby community college after graduation. The drinking continued and eventually spiraled into drugs.
“I was doing horribly in all my classes because I was hungover constantly,” he said.
In an attempt to change the trajectory of his life, he dropped out of college and applied for a police academy in Alexandria, Minnesota.
But, the problem wasn’t the environment.
“I got accepted into the program, but my life was continuing to spiral out of control,” he said. “My drug habit had exceeded what I could afford financially. Somebody gave me a lot of drugs to sell to my friends to make money. I started dealing drugs while I was in the police academy. And so obviously, you can imagine after a year of police academy and dealing drugs at the same time, I realized these two careers aren’t going to work out very well together. I made the unwise decision of dropping out of school.”
Mikkelson eventually moved to the Twin Cities area. That’s where he met Amanda, the woman who would become the love of his life.
COME TO JESUS
Amanda wasn’t a Christian and didn’t grow up in a Christian home. And Mikkelson didn’t dare tell her about his background.
“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said. “At this point in my life, I had totally distanced myself from that upbringing.”
However, Amanda’s sister had become a Christian; she was the first in her family to be saved. She began inviting Amanda to come to church with her.
“So, we went to church,” Mikkelson said. “We didn’t get saved that first Sunday. … But we heard the pastor make an announcement that on Wednesday, (the church was) going to have a special service. … All I heard was ‘Special service Wednesday. Come to church.’”
They went again. But much to their embarrassment, the service wasn’t for everyone. Rather, it was for parents whose teenage children were involved in drugs and alcohol.
“We were at the wrong service, but it was a total set-up from God,” Mikkelson said with a smile. “So we decided (we’d) sit in the very back of this mega church. The parents will sit all up in the front. We won’t be rude and leave right away, but we’ll sit through the service, and we’ll sneak out at the end. And while that pastor was ministering to those parents whose teenage children were doing the same sinful behaviors that we were currently living in, God was ministering to us in the back of the church.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” he said. “And I just knew God had a better plan for my life than the one that I’d been living. … We went out to the car and basically that night we made a decision. We were going to start following Jesus. That was the beginning of really us like encountering Jesus and beginning to live for Him. That put us on a whole new course of just pursuing the Lord.”
Mikkelson started studying the Bible. He bought Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias, and devoured many other books about world religions, too.
“I started studying theology and apologetics without even realizing I was studying apologetics,” Mikkelson said.
Eventually, a mentor in his life told Mikkelson he believed God was calling him into ministry.
“And I thought, ‘I don’t know about all of that,’” he said. “I’m just a nobody college dropout, ex-drunk, ex-druggie. But … that’s what Jesus is like. He specializes in using screw-ups like Peter, right?”
Mikkelson married Amanda in 2007. By the end of 2008, they were on their way to Dallas, Texas, to attend Christ For The Nations — an interdenominational Bible college.
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
Chris Mikkelson always has loved the rush.
“I’m just kind of a radical guy,” he said. “I mean, I used to sell drugs. I used to ride motorcycles at 165 mph. I used to do wheelies over 100 mph with my wife on the back. … I gravitate to adrenaline, extreme things — the (things) most people ran from.”
And so at CFTN, Chris Mikkelson signed himself up for the street evangelism — perhaps one of the most awkward and difficult ministries on campus.
“That intrigued me; I don’t know why,” he said. “I had always wanted to tell people about Jesus but was horrible at it. And I just wanted to learn how to do it. … So I signed up for that just to learn how to talk to people about Jesus and immediately started leading people to the Lord on the streets of Dallas. I mean, immediately. The first person I had a real full conversation with about the Lord, I led to the Lord on the streets. He was crying, repenting right in front of me. It was incredible. And after that first encounter, I said, ‘This is all I want to do.’
“You couldn’t take me to the grocery store and be in and out in 30 minutes,” Chris Mikkelson said. “It would be two hours, no problem, because I’d be talking to somebody about the Lord. We would go to the Redbox (the DVD rental kiosk). I (helped) so many people (get) saved at Redbox.”
Those grocery store and Redbox encounters eventually led Chris Mikkelson to a Reinhard Bonnke conference. Bonnke, a German evangelist and founder of Christ for All Nations, spent his life leading massive crusades throughout Africa.
At that conference, Chris Mikkelson saw Daniel Kolenda, who eventually succeeded Bonnke as president and CEO of the Orlando-headquartered Christ for All Nations, preach.
During his sermon, Chris Mikkelson’s friend leaned over and said: “Chris, one day you’re going to work for Daniel Kolenda.”
“I thought, ‘Well, I don’t know,’” Chris Mikkelson said. “I just put it in my heart. If it comes to pass, it comes to pass. I went all the way through Bible school, never had any connection with them, didn’t try to connect with them.”
But wouldn’t you know it: As Chris Mikkelson was in his final semester at CFTN, Kolenda was in need of an executive assistant. He got the gig, and the Mikkelsons left Dallas for Orlando.
THE EVANGELIST
With CFAN, Chris Mikkelson traveled all over the world and saw how that ministry organized and produced large crusades, particularly in Africa.
That experience gave the Mikkelsons the tools and knowledge to launch their own ministry in 2015. But knowing how to share the gospel and being able to fund that work are two completely different beasts. And the latter required complete faith in the calling.
“We just started doing this by faith and trying to raise the funds,” Chris Mikkelson said. “The hardest part of being an evangelist is raising money, because you have to do it totally by faith. You can’t become a pastor of a church, because then you’re in competition with other pastors. When we do a crusade, we work with all the pastors. So we’ll go into a town and we want every single church to participate in the crusade. So if I’m a pastor, I become a threat to them. So I have to be totally separate from them. And so it’s very challenging to raise the funds, but it’s incredible.”
In the last decade, the Mikkelsons have helped lead more than 2.5 million people to the Christian faith. They have worked specifically in some of the most non-Christian places on the planet — India, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Cambodia.
But some of the most difficult and rewarding work was done in Pakistan — a country Chris Mikkelson has visited nearly 30 times in the last seven years.
“We just want to obey the call of God that’s on our life,” Chris Mikkelson said. “I didn’t want to go to Pakistan, honestly. I had no desire to go there. We were doing crusades in India and also in Sri Lanka. And when God called us to Pakistan, and I went the first time, I was like, ‘This is incredible. There is a major harvest here.’ I grew up on a farm, so you have to harvest the field when it’s ripe.”
In 2022, the Mikkelsons found themselves in the middle of political upheaval when former prime minister Imran Khan was protesting his removal from office. The day before the crusade, Khan was shot in an assassination attempt.
“I’ve got guys on stage with AK-47s while I’m preaching,” Chris Mikkelson said. “Everywhere I go, I have police escorts and bodyguards with AK-47s all over Pakistan. I’m very much used to knowing that preaching this gospel could result in a lot of hate and negativity and evil. But, it didn’t stop Jesus or his disciples from preaching it.”
Mikkelson also knows those Pakistanis who do come to Christ face consequences, too.
“This one woman said, ‘I came; I received Christ at your meeting,’” Chris Mikkelson said. “‘I went home, and my son and daughter-in-law came home one day and saw me reading the Bible, and they almost beat me to death.’ She said, ‘But don’t worry; I’m still following Jesus.’
“Pakistan obviously is a very Muslim nation,” he said. “Christianity is less than 2%, Islam is like 96%. But there’s a shift even happening in Pakistan, where Muslims are turning away from the Muslim religion and shifting to Christianity.”
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in 2025, the Mikkelsons turned their focus on home. They led a candlelight vigil for Kirk on the steps of Winter Garden City Hall. Then, a few weeks later, they hosted a Salvation USA Rally at Orlando City Hall. And the Mikkelsons plan to host a similar rally this month at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee.
“Eternity doesn’t happen when we go to heaven; it’s right now,” Chris Mikkelson said. “And so how could I take this time that I have ... on this side of eternity and not do everything I can for the next side of eternity?
“(After) Amanda and I were (saved) in the car that Wednesday night, for a few months, I was kind of like, ‘Well, now that I’m a Christian, I probably shouldn’t smoke as much weed as I used to. Now that I’m a Christian, I probably shouldn’t get as drunk as I used to get. So I’ll just get a little drunk and just get a little high,’” Chris Mikkelson said. “But there came a moment after a few months where I was just like, ‘God, I’m done. I’m done with all of this lifestyle. I’m done with all this sin.’ I have one life to live. I could die tomorrow on my motorcycle. But I’m going to give this life everything I can for You — no matter what that looks like. And I think that’s kind of our attitude. It … doesn’t matter how dangerous or difficult it is. Let’s give it all to Jesus.”
