On Oct. 9, 1929, Wayman Mitchell was born into a world of economic depression and empty churches. He grew up in Prescott, Arizona, and in his youth he grew up in a broken home. After his military service, he married his wife, Nelda, and after their first child died of pneumonia, both took their first tentative steps toward God. This soon became a grind and it wasn't until Mitchell was attacked on his faith by a Mormon that he realized his own responsibility in knowing God's Word. When he subsequently began to study the Bible, he discovered the redemptive power of the blood of Jesus Christ.

During a church service in 1955, Mitchell was filled with the Holy Spirit after a conversion prayer and, like the apostles on the day of Pentecost, he began to speak in other tongues. This was an entirely new and overwhelming experience for him, for the fact that he knew almost nothing about the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues proved that God was at work with him. At that moment he received a prophecy about God moving "in the lands of the world and the islands of the sea."

After this service, Mitchell was not immediately the man of the great revival movement; he did not even quit smoking for the first few months. But God was at work with him. His calling to preach came shortly thereafter, and when he talked to his pastor about it, the pastor advised him to go to a Bible school.

When Mitchell entered Bible school, it turned out to be not at all what he had imagined. Instead of learning how to convert sinners, he was presented with all kinds of administrative theories and religious doctrines. In fact, it was so bad that many in the school's faculty looked down on divine healing, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and revival ministry. Eventually at the school he did gain a fundamental knowledge of God's word, but practically he was unprepared for the daily realities of life. After Bible school, Mitchell received his first ministry as youth pastor of a church in Phoenix. The only thing he accomplished there , was that the religious people became furious because he preached to the youth about sin. Not to mention in front of their boyfriends. Fortunately, an offer soon arrived to take over a church in the town of Wickenburg, a church with a troubled past. Here he learned many things from evangelists and other pastors about getting revival, and he discovered spiritual truths that proved to be keys to church growth.

After this church, Mitchell was sent from one "problem church" to the next, each time clearing the debris. The denomination's leadership saw him as a "peasant" they would never give a full-fledged church, but who was good enough to solve problems caused by others. And over time, Mitchell took a different view than the leadership. He felt absolutely no obligation to please the "established powers," and he came discovered that programs were not the way to win people. The leadership had always been focused on things like Sunday school and Christian camps, but Mitchell saw that these were nothing more than support for the church, not the center of the ministry. Mitchell also soon revised the principle of sending young men to Bible school. A few men who ardently desired to be able to do something for God came away exhausted and spiritually dead from Bible school. From then on, Mitchell decided to train the men himself in practical ministry.

Then Mitchell was offered another "problem church," and in 1970 Pastor Wayman Mitchell took over this small church in Prescott, Arizona. This church of 35 people had endured many problems before that, but Mitchell found people here who were useful and wanted to reach out to sinners.

At that time there was a great revival going on among the hippies and from this the 'Jesus People' movement was born. These 'Jesus People' began marching through the streets by the thousands, telling everyone that Jesus had changed and that He had set them free from drug addiction, emptiness and purposelessness. Even some major newspapers in the United States wrote about this. 'Time Magazine' declared, "Jesus is fully alive in the radical spiritual fire of a growing number of young Americans This is their message: the Bible is true, miracles happen" (Time Magazine, June 21, 1971). 'The Best' tells of meetings in Houston, Texas where 11,000 young people go forward to repent and live for Jesus (Reader's Digest, March 1972). Prescott was on a busy hippie trail at the time, and the church reached many hippies with the gospel.

Mitchell trained the people in the Prescott church based on his experience, and eventually the church in Prescott was able to send some of these men to other cities to start new churches there. Thus the groundwork had been laid for a movement that was growing in size. With time, the churches that had been sent out from Prescott became strong enough to send couples out again to other towns themselves. Mitchell regularly received open doors to work abroad as well, and soon men were going to Mexico, the Philippines and Australia, among other places, to plant churches.

The open door in the Netherlands existed in 1978 in the form of a small Bible study group in Steenwijk. The group consisted of about 30 people and longed for a pastor.

One of the disciples then took charge. Mitchell supported him in building the church and regularly persuaded him to attend the semi-annual Bible conferences held in Prescott. Thus, the vision of the CFM was implanted in the Dutch fellowship. The church then moved to Zwolle and began to grow there.

Eventually, this church too was strong enough to send men out to other cities. In addition, Evangelical Church De Deur in the Netherlands also assumed responsibility for a semi-annual European Bible conference.

CFM churches in the Netherlands bear the name "Evangelie Gemeente De Deur."

People often continue to come to The Door because they have been brought into personal contact with Jesus Christ through the preaching. And because The Door still holds to the vision and mission of proclaiming the gospel through discipleship, evangelism, music and drama and sending couples out into the mission field.

Currently, The Door has several churches both in the Netherlands and abroad.

In 2009, Seyle and Sajida Thorlu-Bangura were sent out from The Hague to start a church in Amsterdam Bijlmer.
They started the work in their living room. As the number of people grew, they had to move. The first location of De Deur Bijlmer was on the Bijlmerdreef. The church continued to grow and after 6 years the church moved the church to the Kromwijkdreef, this was in 2019. God is still moving and building His church.