John Wimber

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Wimber

John Wimber (born February 25, 1934 in Kirksville, Missouri, died November 17, 1997) was a charismatic pastor and one of the founding leaders of the Vineyard Movement.

He was raised in a non-religious family but converted to Christianity in May 1963. He had previously been the keyboard player in the band The Righteous Brothers. Some have attributed the formation of the band to Wimber (then as Johnny Wimber) since he was the one who brought Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley together for the band the Paramours in 1962. In the following years he attended a Quaker church in Yorba Linda ,CA. During this time, he led hundreds of others to convert to Christianity. By 1970, he was leading 11 different Bible study groups that involved more than 500 people.^[1]

In 1974 he became the Founding Director of the Department of Church Growth at the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth, which was founded by the Fuller Theological Seminary and the Fuller Evangelistic Association. He directed the department until 1978. In this time a House Church began to form in his home. This group began to embrace some of the beliefs of the Charismatic movement. This resulted in a split with the Quaker church that this group belonged to.

Wimber pastored this new church, which would later become known as the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship, from 1977 to 1994. Eventually, it out grew his home and began to meet elsewhere. After initially joining Calvary Chapel, the church had some differences with the Calvary Chapel leadership, relating mainly to the practice of spiritual gifts. As a result, they left Calvary Chapel to join a small group of churches started by Kenn Gulliksen, known as Vineyard Christian Fellowships.

A particular emphasis of the Vineyard Movement was church planting. One of Wimber's many catchphrases - intended to capture theological and practical ideas in easy to remember soundbytes - was that 'church planting is the best form of evangelism'. Indeed both during his lifetime and since his death the Vineyard Movement Movement has planted thousands of churches across the US and the globe.

John Wimber became a well-known speaker at international charismatic conferences with a focus on what he called "Power Evangelism" and healing through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is important to note that, while considered by many to be a charismatic teacher, Wimber himself (along with the leaders of the Vineyard Movement) repeatedly rejected the charismatic label as applying to their teachings.

Wimber took an approach to the Charismatic which was somewhat different from that of peers and predecessors. This new approach led a friend, C. Peter Wagner, to coin the phrase, "The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit" to describe the concept he taught (and to some current labels with their pre-set negative connotations). The Third Wave differed from classic Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement, foremost, in their approach to speaking in tongues. Whereas the previous groups had emphasized the gift of tongues as the only evidence for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Wimber and those he influenced emphasized that it was just one of the many spiritual gifts taught in the Bible. This teaching revolutionized what was a major theological stumbling block to some mainstream evangelicals (the idea of "spiritual gifts" in our present-day world), and Wimber held influence with a number of them, most famously Jack Deere, C. Peter Wagner, and Wayne Grudem. Gordon-Conwell Missiologist J. Christy Wilson also mentions Wimber in his book "More to be Desired Than Gold".

Wimber also differed from contemporaries in his rejection of the Word of Faith movement, and the associated doctrines and showiness. The pursuit of authenticity was core to Wimber's idea of church, and this was reflected in the worship as well.

John Wimber died of a brain hemorrhage on November 17, 1997, following a fall and recent coronary bypass surgery.^[2]