Oasis of Faith Christian Center
About Our Pastors
Pastor Darrell G. Harrelson, Born August 25, 1959 in the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas is the youngest of the five children of Horace and Janis Harrelson. His parents moved from Springdale, Arkansas to Ontario, California in June of 1965, where he became a product of the public school system. He attended Lincoln Elementary School, Imperial Junior High School, Chaffey High School and Chaffey Community College. In 1985, while working in the fast food industry, he met the former Miss Carla Denise Abrego. They later married on February 7, 1987. They have three children; Carleen, Sarah and Mark as well as three grandsons; Matthew, Michael and Shane.
After completing Bible School at their home church of Praise Christian Center in Pomona, California under their Pastor, Dr. John H. Woods Jr., Pastor Harrelson completed the Rhema Bible Training Center Correspondence School and has been an avid student (via Cassette Tapes and CD’s) for over twenty-five years of Dr. Frederick K.C. Price of Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles, California. It was Dr. Price and his teaching, he says, that changed his life as well as the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor Harrelson had known from the time he was a very small boy that God had placed a call on his life. Though not being raised in a Christian home, his parents had always taught them to believe in and to reverence the Lord. After accepting the Lord Jesus Christ on October 15, 1981, he returned to the Baptist Church that he and his family frequented during his early childhood years. During this time he hungered and thirsted for more of God and received the infilling of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking with other tongues; also known as “glossolalia.”
Soon after leaving the Baptist Church he started attending a Full-Gospel Pentecostal Church, where he began to teach Sunday School and come into a fuller knowledge and understanding of the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. It was at that time he was introduced to the teaching ministry of Dr. Frederick K.C. Price that changed his life. After over twenty years in the restaurant business, he and his wife Carla answered the call of God on their lives to enter into full time ministry. One day while working in the restaurant, the Lord spoke to him saying, “FEED MY SHEEP AND FEED MY LAMBS”, according to John 21:15-17. The Lord instructed him to teach and train God’s people in the Word of God, in the same manner that he taught and trained people in the restaurant business. “Don’t tell them to live a Christian life, but rather TEACH THEM HOW TO DO IT” were the Words the Lord spoke into his spirit.
On August 7, 1988, Hesperia Christian Center, Inc., held it’s first service at the Lime Street Community Center, located at 16292 Lime Street, in Hesperia, California. It was four and one half years later that they moved into their own facility where they have become one of the fastest growing churches in the High Desert of Southern California. Today Pastor Harrelson and his wife Carla are fulfilling the vision God has given them for the Church. Currently they have established Oasis of Faith Bible School, which is a three-year course, offered in correspondence studies. This is for those who wish to further their education in the Word of God. Pastor Harrelson is known by millions of people across America through the Oasis of Faith television broadcast via cable and satellite. The Church is constantly expanding for the overflow of people that have been coming to the services. Their ultimate goal is to bring all they can into the saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the Word of God so they can live a life of prosperity and victory in Jesus Christ.
On January 1, 2007, the ministry changed its name to Oasis of Faith Christian Center. Pastor Harrelson currently has over three hundred teaching CDs on various subjects from Angels to Prosperity. He has also authored a mini book entitled “Worthy of Wealth.” He enjoys spending time with his family as well as coaching baseball, fishing and traveling.