About Us

This website/blog is truly about you. We’re dedicated to helping you seek, embrace and fulfill your highest calling in Christ – as a genuine child of God and member of God’s miraculous family.

From that place of spiritual health and security you’ll learn to advance the heavenly revolution begun by Jesus over twenty centuries ago, to expand his kingdom with grace, truth, healing and redemption. Freely you’ve received, and freely you will give.

My name is John Nicholas Prassas and I’m an author, speaker and publisher dedicating to building up followers of Christ. My first name John means ‘God has been graceful,’ and that’s the truth of my life. In Greek, my middle name Nicholas means ‘overcomer’ and/or ‘victory for the people,’ both of which speak again to my experience and to my desire to serve and inspire you toward nobility and greatness.

I’m the author of Royal Family and God’s Spirit of Adoption and am working on several other books designed to ignite a flame in you that changes you and the world. I’m a longtime speaker, both inside and outside the church, and a former local church pastor who always sensed my personal calling was somewhere ‘outside the box.’

Thankfully I’ve felt tremendous liberty over the years to explore God’s calling and see where it would lead, in part because of what my friend and mentor Leighton Ford once told me about his brother-in-law Billy Graham. Graham had felt called to do something beyond his role as a local church pastor, and that worked out pretty well for everyone.

More officially, I’m a Brown University, Fuller Seminary and Arrow Leadership Program graduate and a former pro football player, magazine publisher, pastor and real estate executive. My family and I are California natives now based in Dallas, TX.

If you’re interested in more about my story, keep reading. But let me encourage you to poke around the site and be sure to sign up below to receive my blog posts via email. Or check out previous blog posts on our Blog page. To explore ministry opportunities/events go to our Events page.

JOHN’S STORY

To put it bluntly, I thought Jesus was a ‘crutch’ for weak, dumb or poor people and I believed religion was ‘an opiate of the masses.’ As an Ivy League college graduate heading off to play professional football, I was much too strong and way too smart for any of that.

I had gone to church with my family growing up but was unimpressed with the candles, robes, routines and repetition. I actually snuck a cheat-sheet into my confirmation class exam when I was twelve, that was my only prayer of passing the test.

That should tell you what you need to know about me. I could tell you plenty more, of course, about my high speed car chase with cops one Halloween night (and the crash that ended it), about getting thrown in jail – and kicked off my high school football team – but I’ll spare you the all-too-familiar saga of yet another lost, foolish and wayward young knuckle-head.

When I reported to my pro football team (after cleaning up my act long enough to survive college) I met several ‘born again Christian’ players — including my first roommate, Franklin King — and hit an invisible wall.

I was like one of those birds you see flapping and flying a hundred miles an hour — smack into a window. Bam! I didn’t see it coming.

The powerful faith, passion and purity of heart I witnessed in Franklin and my other Christian teammates didn’t win me over immediately, but it left a mark. I could tell they had a ‘different spirit’ about them; a genuinely loving spirit, even though they were fierce competitors. They were not selfish like everyone else; you knew they sincerely cared about you and would be there if you ever needed help.

But they weren’t the only ones. For several years my wife Suzi and I kept running into these ‘born again’ people. Even at home during off-seasons, we met believers with a supernatural quality about them — we joked they might be aliens!

After feeling drawn to visit local churches, we finally attended a friend’s church that met in a high school gym and played rock ‘n roll worship music. My friend, Wayne Coombs, was the pastor along with world-renowned author Hal Lindsey, who preached the good news of Jesus Christ that drew us out of the bleachers that day in tears of repentance and surrender.

Suzi went forward first, and I sensed I might lose her if I didn’t get on the same ‘train’ she was boarding. But still I resisted, unwilling to lay down my grand plans and give up control over my life. I just couldn’t let go of my throne!

Then I caught a glimpse of Jesus and was stunned by his magnetic power and love — he was calling me to come join him and his kingdom adventure, something I suddenly knew was far greater than anything I had planned. So I went forward in repentance and wept for twenty minutes as forgiveness and renewal washed over and through me.

We grew quickly as new believers, soon had our first child and seemed gifted and called to leadership. Our friend Wayne started a new church as part of the Vineyard movement that was sweeping the globe with Spirit-led ministry and contemporary worship songs, birthed at least partially out of Vineyard leader John Wimber’s former life as a hell-raising founder of The Righteous Brothers singing group – an ironic twist of fate (and pop music) if ever there was one.

A few years later, after launching a popular sports publication and experiencing more of God’s love, we felt compelled to leave our hometown and business affairs behind to attend Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA, where we became friends with international evangelist and leader Leighton Ford, World Vision president Bob Seiple, gifted young pastor Che Ahn and prophetic prayer warrior Lou Engle, among many others.

It was during this season that Suzi’s great compassion for neglected children led us to provide foster care for a baby abandoned by his drug-addicted mother at a nearby hospital – and watch God touch him with dramatic healing and loving acceptance within our young family. About this same time I was inspired to write Royal Family, something I toiled to finish late each night, often between midnight bottle feedings, in the sweltering heat of my (non-air-conditioned) ‘office’ porch.

I was convinced the book presented a simple yet long-overdue introduction to Christian identity, purpose and Spirit-led living and I couldn’t wait to get it published. After several large publishers expressed interest and then balked at my lack of public platform or fame, I eventually published and distributed the book myself, selling several thousand copies to bookstores across America.

A year later, we were back in our home town launching a new church with weekly services held in the facility of a popular nightclub on Pacific Coast Highway just two blocks from the beach — a perfect location if you didn’t mind passing a 50-foot long wet bar and the fragrance that came with it on Sunday mornings!

We soon moved services to the hotel next door and geared our ministry toward contemporary worship, hands-on ministry and helping orphans locally and around the world and homeless folks on skid row near the L.A. Harbor in San Pedro.

During this period we attended a leadership conference in Arizona where prophetic minister Kim Clement (who didn’t know me from Adam) called me out of the crowd and proclaimed that God had given me a message of understanding for this generation and a unique ability to ‘set alight the people of God.’ I got the distinct impression he was referring to the message of Royal Family, but I became too preoccupied to promote the book and was in no position to spread the message beyond my local congregation and a few related churches.

Now twenty years later, after a variety of detours and distractions, I believe God has re-called me to share the Royal Family message – and believe it’s needed more desperately today than ever as we struggle with shifting moral and political landscapes and confusion over how to engage our culture as it grows more hostile to the faith. It’s time for the children of God to arise!

I’m truly excited about the adventure set before us and believe we (and that means you, too) were born ‘for a time such as this.’ God’s Spirit has re-ignited our faith and rekindled our calling to serve and empower others during this season and we are seeing his ‘kingdom come’ in amazing ways once again. In divine appointments with people needing his word or touch. In the miraculous provision of faith, money, opportunity, healings and restoration. It’s not all sunshine and daffodils, but it’s pretty awesome!

I can’t wait to share these and other things with you each week as we’re reminded who we are in Christ and how all things are possible with God. Please be sure to sign up below to receive my blog posts via email so we can stay in touch and keep you encouraged to seek, embrace and fulfill your royal calling.