David Oyedepo was “born again” in 1969 through the influence of his former teacher, Ms. Betty Lasher, who took special interest in him during his high school days. He studied Architecture at Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin and worked briefly with the Federal Ministry of Housing in Ilorin before resigning to concentrate on missionary work.  David Oyedepo also earned a Ph.D. in Human Development from Honolulu University, Hawaii, United States of America.

David Oyedepo received a mandate from God in an 18 hour long vision in May 1981 to liberate the world from all oppression of the devil through the preaching of the word of faith. This is the inaugural vision that led to the founding of the Living Faith Church World Wide (LFCWW), first called Liberation Faith Hour Ministries, in 1981. Two years after, on September 17, 1983, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, ordained David Oyedepo and his wife, Florence Abiola Akano (now known as Faith Abiola Oyedepo) as pastors and also officially commissioned the newly started church. Five years after, David Oyedepo was ordained a Bishop.

Living Faith Church (AKA Winners Chapel) started in Kaduna, but David Oyedepo moved to Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria in September 1989, to start a new branch after receiving an instruction from God to reach out to the population in Lagos. This Church in Lagos grew to become the International headquarters of Living Faith Church, with a constantly increasing flow of crowds spilling over to adjacent roads, and on decks of uncompleted buildings nearby, compelling people to stand for hours to listen to his teachings. This led to the building of the renowned Faith Tabernacle, as instructed by God.

David Oyedepo is an acclaimed author and publisher who has written over 70 titles apart from periodicals.  He is also Chairman/Publisher of Dominion Publishing House (DPH), a publishing arm of his ministry.  DPH has over 4 million prints in circulation to date. Through God’s grace upon him, Covenant University, Landmark University, Faith Academy and Kingdom Heritage Model Schools have been established to equip the youth for impact.

Canaanland is in Ota, a suburb of Lagos and is a 10,500-acre (42 km2) campus that houses the 50,000-seat church building, the church secretariat, the church’s youth chapel, a primary school called Kingdom Heritage Model School, a full boarding mission secondary school called Faith Academy with over 1,500 students, and Covenant University which accommodates over 7,000 students, fully resident in ultra-modern hostel facilities, with fully equipped faculty buildings and numerous staff housing facilities.  Canaanland also houses the Canaancity estate, other establishments operated by the church such as a bakery, a bottled water processing plant, petrol stations, various restaurants and shopping stores, several residential houses that provide for the over 2,000 church employees, and guest houses. Four banks are also located in this estate, three of which are branches of external commercial banks and one which is a community and micro-finance bank operated by the Church.