The origin

The Royal Rangers came into being through an initiative of the Assemblies of God in America. 1961 the Assemblies of God´s eldest decided to start a new ministry for boys. The ministry was meant to get the boys excited, animated and fascinated and at the same time to teach them biblical values. Soon John Henry Barnes (Johnnie), a youth pastor from Texas, was found and entrusted with the development of the ministry. 

Johnnie Barnes was born as the sixth of seven children on August 16th 1927 in Alvord, Texas. At the age of 19 he gave his heart to Jesus during an evangelisation held by methodists.  He started to work as a scout leader in his hometown. Johnnie went to the Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth, became a pastor and gained many practical experiences in the handling of young people. / in respect

When he was invited to the Assemblies of God´s central office in Springfield in order to build up a ministry for boys he was very excited. However, due to huge doubts he kept praying for many days. One night he felt how God told him that this was the task God had been preparing him for all his life. After that Jonnie and his family moved filled with excitement to Springfield for building up a well-structured Royal Rangers ministry. 

Out of all the different approaches of youth ministry in these days Johnnie considered the scouting with its experiential education concept to be the best to meet the boys needs. At first he worked on the basic principles and the structure of the ministry. After a long time of consideration in a team Charles W.H. Scott came up with the name for the scout ministry: "Royal Rangers". The emblem seemed to come directly from God for Johnnie woke up in the middle of the night and had an idea. Within a few minutes he drew the whole emblem with all its colors and their individual meaning. With the program´s development they also decided for having a gear. It was considered as being an important element because it would show a group´s unity and, apart from that, it is robust enough for outdoor activities. 

In September 1962 the ministry could be launched officially, at first with the age groups of the "pioneers" (9-11 years) and the "trailblazers" (12-14 years). The boys welcomed the program with great enthusiasm, so that already in 1966 the ministry could be started in Australia, too. And many other countries should follow.

Germany

After the Royal Rangers kept on expanding within the States and all over the world they were brought to Germany through the american pastor Paul Williscroft. In 1979 he invited Johnnie Barnes to Germany. He should introduce the Royal Rangers ministry at BFP´s ("Bund Freikirchlicher Pfingstgemeinden"(union of the free pentecostal churches)) conference for pastors..

Hereupon the youth pastor Hans Reimann started a Royal Rangers project group in the Free Christian Church in Bremen in 1980 in order to get to know the ministry and to give it a try. Next to some boy groups a girl group was put together soon. 1981 the pastor Richard Breite from Bremen became first national commander. This way the Royal Rangers ministry could officially start out with the first trainings camp for leaders, the NTC, hold from the 17th-20th of September 1981. Nine of the participants there were Swiss. They became the founders of the Royal Rangers in Switzerland.

The first Whitsun camp could be carried out with 100 participants in the Lüneburger Heide nearby Schneverdingen already in May 1982. From the 16th-20th of May 1986 the first "Bundescamp" (national camp) for kids of the age of 12 or older was held as a part of the BFP´s "Jugendforum" (youth conference) in Hameln. 120 Rangers out of the 12 participating outposts came. The ministry grew rapidly. Because of that Germany could be divided into two districts already in 1989. 1993 the outpost number 100 could be given away to Berlin 1. In May 1995 Gerd Ersfeld from Moers became the new national leader, just right before the Eurocamp in Denmark took place. Two more national camps succeed: one in 1997 with 3000 participants and one in 2005 with incredible 10.000 participants. In March 2008 Peter Lehmann was elected new national commander and by now there are over 330 active outposts with a total of 15.700 scouts.