Dallas Elder was born and raised in St. Joseph, Missouri.  He grew up as an unbeliever. After searching out and discovering all the emptiness and brokenness that the drug and party culture of the early 1970s had to offer, he was wonderfully saved in 1974.  He was just shy of 21 years old.  God set his life in order and miraculously healed his marriage. He became part of an evangelical, spirit-filled United Methodist church where he was later called into fulltime ministry at age 23.  While going to college, Dallas pastored three small United Methodist churches over three years.  After graduating from Missouri Western State University with a degree in Psychology, he attended Asbury Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1983.  The following year, Dallas planted a church in his home town in of St. Joseph, Missouri where he served for 13.5 years.  The church grew from 40 to 500 people during that time.  In 1997, Dallas left the pastoral ministry to become the Director of Grace Covenant, an apostolic network of churches and ministries in the United States and in six foreign countries.  He is actively involved in church planting, missions and ministry development, and leadership training.

He has a passion to spiritually invest in people for them to discover their ordained value, purpose and destiny in Jesus Christ. His heart is to see people discipled, filled with the Holy Spirit and serving faithfully in their gifting.  He is truly engaged in helping believers to be equipped in order to maximize their full potential in Christ Jesus.  He has strong teaching and prophetic gifts.  His heart's desire is to raise up a Jesus-centered, faith-filled, Spirit-empowered, holy army to advance the Kingdom of God in this generation.  He ministers with a focus toward spiritual renewal, stirring up believers for deeper intimacy with the Father, and infusing them with faith and fire (passion and power) to transform the world for Christ.

Dallas lives in the Kansas City, Missouri area. He and his wife, Connie, have three adult children (Staci, Anna and Nathan) and two grandchildren.  Anna is married to Adam Teale and they have a son and daughter.