John Wimber Remembered

                  

 
 

Bio of John Wimber by Dan Wooding, taken from the B.C. Christian News, December 1997

Senior Pastor of the Anaheim, California Vineyard for 17 years (1977-1994). An international conference speaker, worship songwriter, best selling author and spiritual leader to the worldwide Vineyard movement. John Wimber 'did the stuff' and left behind a worldwide legacy.

JOHN WIMBER, one of the most colorful and controversial leaders of the charismatic movement in the United States, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage the evening of November 16 in Western Medical Center, Santa Ana, California, and passed away peacefully the following morning in the presence of his family. He was 63 years old. Wimber had been a pastor with the Calvary Chapel movement (started by Chuck Smith); he left in 1977 over a theological disagreement and founded what has become the Association of Vineyard Churches, which now has 450 congregations in the United States and 250 congregations abroad.

Wimber took the name from another Calvary Chapel affiliate founded by Ken Gulliksen, whose church was then called Vineyard Christian Fellowship. When Gulliksen left the Calvary Chapels to join Wimber, he allowed the name to go with him. (Gulliksen, who was for a while, Bob Dylan's pastor, has since left the Vineyard Movement and now pastors an independent church in Los Angeles.)

John Wimber, who had been a keyboardist with The Righteous Brothers, went on to become an international conference speaker, worship songwriter, best-selling author and spiritual leader to the worldwide Vineyard movement. He was also the senior pastor of the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship for 17 years (1977 to 1994). Wimber was hardly ever out of the headlines, with his 'Signs and Wonders' classes at the School of World Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary and his Vineyard rallies around the world.

Southern California broadcaster, Rich Buhler, who was a close friend of John Wimber and also helped to produce his radio show, Equipping the Saints, for nearly a year, said, "I'm going to miss him. He was an inspiration to me as a very real and down to earth yet powerful and intelligent Christian. He inspired multitudes of people to serve Christ and to seek the kingdom and I will remember him also as a person who inspired those same multitudes to get very serious in ministry to the poor."

Buhler, who runs Branches Communications in Orange, California, added, "He was known for his 'Power Evangelism,' but the Vineyards had multiplied millions of dollars for the poor as he talked about 'doing the stuff.' This was one of his favorite phrases and he would say that this was what Jesus would do. He meant, of course, things like evangelism, casting out demons and feeding the poor. That was the Kingdom 'stuff' to John. Just a week or two before he died, the Anaheim Vineyard took an offering of $750,000 for the poor. That was something he didn't get as much publicity for.

"The other thing I liked about John was he was very candid and down to earth. He didn't like being a powerful person. He liked just being John. He was disarmingly honest in both private conversation and public discourse. He would talk about what was going on in his personal life. I can't tell you how many times we in the church sat in the congregation and learned about the struggles in his own life. He never held himself up as a standard for people to focus on. John Wimber just did 'the stuff!'"

A memorial service was held November 21,1997 at Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim, California.

Personal Tributes to John Wimber
Peter Wagner
Years and years of fellowship, ministry, hard knocks, and victories keep replaying in my mind. What a man he was, and what a stalwart servant of God! John is solidly on the list of the five individuals who have influenced me the most over 67 years!  John was one of those extremely rare people who will be remembered as a molder of an entire generation. Doris and I will forever thank our Lord for knowing and loving John as a colleague in the kingdom. We are fully aware that it is a privilege granted to a very few, and it is one of the enduring highlights of our lives.

Rich Buhler
I have never known a man who talked more about heaven than John Wimber. If you ran into him on the street and asked how he was doing, more often than not he would say, "I'm going to heaven!" One of the most common greetings he would initiate if he saw you first was, "Are you going to heaven?" He said it with a twinkle in his eye, but he meant it. He was looking forward to heaven and considered it the crowning achievement of his life to get there. The morning I heard that John had died, I said to myself, "Well, he's arrived."

Jack Hayford
I grieve the double loss of a dear brother in Christ and a great partner in the gospel. In the tough-to-navigate tides of revival blessings, John was always solid in his stance; contending without compromise for a balanced mix of the free-flowing of the power of the Spirit, joined to the good sense of Bible-centered teaching.  Whatever may be the abiding legacy of his life and ministry, one thing is certain: he embraced for himself and modeled for us all that the Book of Acts is still being lived in life and power.

J. Christy Wilson, Jr., Missionary to Muslims
"He killed many more when he died than when he lived" (Judges 16:30b) In July of 1991, John Wimber ministered at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In the last service he asked all to pray silently and to ask the Lord to glorify Himself through us. I prayed that God would use my wife and me to reach Muslims with signs and wonders.  As the meeting ended, I thanked John for coming. He told me the Holy Spirit had shown him my request. "You were asking God to use you with signs and wonders to reach Muslims, weren't you?" "Yes, exactly," I replied. The Lord had heard, he said, and was going to answer my prayer.

Donald E. Miller, University of Southern California
John Wimber is one of the major religious innovators of this century. I clearly remember my last interview with him, a five hour discussion of the history of the Vineyard. The conversation was punctuated by John's humility, his acknowledgment that the sacred and profane often exist side-by-side, and his insightful reflections on the need to continually reinvent the envelope in which the message of Christianity is placed. I feel very privileged to have been trusted to spend three years researching the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

Kenn Gulliksen
I've had a photo of John for years taken during a trip to Israel, and when I heard of his death the image immediately came to mind. John was standing next to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He was significantly overweight, and all of his clothes were too tight, accentuating the fact. He was wearing a brown sweater buttoned only in the middle, and as part of the tour group, a ridiculous orange hat that looked exactly like a dunce cap. Looking at the man, one would see an odd, weak man - a fool. But in the photo and forever in my memory John is weeping. His hand on the Wall, his heart on the mercy of God, his eyes on the brokenness of the people; John was sobbing. As he often said, "I'm a fool for Christ; whose fool are you?"

J. I. Packer
John Wimber was one of the outstanding Christian leaders of our time. He fused in a unique way the rational substance of historic Reformed theology with the Pentecostal biblicism that looks for wonders of New Testament church life to reappear today, and his great gift to the Christian world, wider spread already than he could know, was and remains a mindset of heightened expectancy. John Wimber's modeling of eager, joyous, almost happy-go-lucky expectations in ministry must be rated a true pointer to true renewal, and something ever to be grateful for.  John was honest, humble and warmhearted, and he may never have known that he had a first-class brain. His openness to God may have led to some slips along the way, but it was undoubtedly the supreme strength of his ministry. Constantly articulate and magnetic in public, sometimes anxious and depressed in private (Spurgeon was the same), he was totally committed to advancing the kingdom of God and totally unshaken by the criticism he encountered. He was a hands-on leader who kept learning, and the five hundred Vineyard churches that have sprung up embodying his ethos have matured steadily in matters of accountability, outreach, and Bible-centeredness. They stand as his memorial, now he is gone. With many more, I thank God for John, and rejoice in the thought of the trumpets sounding for him (jazz licks, perhaps?) on the other side.

Jack Deere
Who would have ever thought that a fatherless boy from Missouri would father hundreds of spiritual sons all over the world? I was privileged to be one of those sons. So many young men in my generation found in John a father who delighted in us, believed in us, and brought out the best in us. I learned watching John how to be kind to my enemies, care for the poor, be willing to risk, and suffer humiliation in trying to follow the Lord. But most of all, I learned what it feels like to be a son loved by a proud father. I never had that before I met John. Now I'll never lose it. But still, I would give anything to have him back.

Winn Griffin
I remember John calling me into his office and saying with a certain twinkle in his eye, "Winn, I want a monthly magazine. Make sure that I have one article in it. By the way, I would like to have the first issue next month." "John," I replied, I've never edited a magazine before." He said, "I know, but you'll learn how quickly." The first Vineyard magazine, First Fruits, was born the next month.

Rick Warren
I will remember John Wimber as a man who truly loved Jesus more than anything else. I always enjoyed our conversations because that love for Christ produced an uncommon passion in his life that was contagious. I will miss that. A hundred years from today, people will still be singing "Spirit Song" because it verbalizes that deep love for Jesus.