John Stevens began preaching on his own in Gladwin, Iowa, in 1935, before his sixteenth birthday, under the auspices of the Four Square Gospel denomination.
After his high school graduation in 1937 he also traveled locally and regionally as an evangelist and was ordained in the Assembly of God in September 1937.
When Assemblies of God formally rejected the Latter Rain movement and withdrew from participating in the healing revivals, Stevens began to have a conflict with the denomination.
Around 1950 he was dismissed as pastor and separated from the Four Square Gospel and Assemblies of God denominations, claiming that they were rejecting divine revelation.
In 1951 he established his own church in South Gate, California, and by 1955 he had expanded his ministry into a new movement based largely on the teachings of Branham and the Latter Rain.