Faithful Five did not start in Idaho. It started on a swing in Copenhagen, in a revival in Scandinavia, and in a living room in Tacoma. It arrived in Post Falls by way of a long obedience.

The calling. Copenhagen to Sweden.

Dan Hegelund, Faithful Five's founder, was born in 1977 in Christiania, an abandoned military base in Copenhagen that had been occupied by hippies. His mother, Linda Meissner, was a leader in the Jesus People Movement, the revival that brought tens of thousands of young people to faith in the 1960s and 70s. Having an evangelist for a mother explains the thirst for God that was there from the start. Dan was baptized in the Holy Spirit at twelve, and stepped into ministry in his hometown at thirteen.

Through his teens and twenties the calling expressed itself in music. He directed choirs and led worship across Copenhagen, founded the Young Copenhagen Gospel Festival, training worship teams in Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic nations in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2008, Dan and his wife Marija moved to Nykroppa, Sweden, and bought a former mission church. It was there, in 2009, that the first seed of a Christian school was planted. The school did not open in Sweden. The vision never left.

It was during those years in Sweden that I first received the calling to plant a church. That call was confirmed many times, in many different ways, over the years that followed. Dan Hegelund, Founding Narrative

The obedience. America, and a church plant.

In 2011, after a prophetic word that it was time to return to America, Dan and Marija left everything and crossed the ocean. They settled first in Issaquah, Washington, where Dan started a music school and co-founded Trail Youth, a ministry to the homeless and drug-addicted that was later featured on Mike Rowe's Returning the Favor. Helping the homeless has been a red thread through the work ever since. Issaquah, Seattle, Tacoma, and now Spokane.

In April 2019, the calling Dan had carried for twenty-five years finally found its moment. Tacoma Faith launched in the family's living room. By September the congregation had moved into a church building near Titlow Park, and through the fall and winter it grew rapidly. Then, in 2020, Washington's governor ordered churches closed. Houses of worship were deemed non-essential. In September 2020 the family and the ministry moved across the state line to Post Falls, Idaho.

The work today. Post Falls, Idaho.

On September 2, 2024, Faithful Five Inc. was incorporated in the State of Idaho, bringing the work that had begun in Tacoma into its permanent home. The following day, the IRS issued its Employer Identification Number. Today, Faithful Five carries two active ministries:

Jesus People Coffee House is our weekly homeless outreach in Spokane. About a hundred people gather each week for worship, food, clothes, and prayer. Through the week, teams engage in street evangelism across the city, and many who come through the doors go on to rehab and a new start.

River Tech School is our K–12 school in Post Falls, approximately seventy-five students strong. Performing arts, technology, and academics on a Christian foundation. The school operates under a concept license from River Tech LLC, which holds the model and the brand.

Our mandate.

The mandate Faithful Five carries is threefold, and it has not changed since the beginning.

Key dates.