THE VINEYARD^TM CHURCH MOVEMENT.
Our primary aim is to love and glorify God and expand His Kingdom in relevant ways in the time allotted us. As communities of the King, Vineyard churches should model what the Kingdom looks like when God has His way with a group of people. John Wimber

The Vineyard is a community of churches sharing the same values and vision. We want our Christianity to be simple, relevant, practical and supernatural...No hype...No manipulation. We want to say "yes" to Jesus while saying "no" to religion. The Association of Vineyard Churches is one of the fastest growing church-planting movements in the world. The Vineyard story is about ordinary people who worship and serve an extraordinary God. The Vineyard is simply one thread in the rich tapestry of the historic and global Church of Jesus Christ. But it is a thread of God's weaving.

From the beginning, Vineyard pastors and leaders have sought to hold in tension the biblical doctrines of the Christian faith with an ardent pursuit of the present day work of the Spirit of God. Maintaining that balance is never easy in the midst of rapid growth and renewal.

John Wimber was a founding leader of the Vineyard. His influence profoundly shaped the theology and practice of Vineyard churches from their earliest days until his death in November 1997. When John was conscripted by God he was, in the words of Christianity Today, a "beer-guzzling, drug-abusing pop musician, who was converted at the age of 29 while chain-smoking his way through a Quaker-led Bible study" (Christianity Today, editorial, Feb. 9 1998).

In John's first decade as a Christian he led hundreds of people to Christ. By 1970 he was leading 11 Bible studies that involved more than 500 people. Under God's grace, John became so fruitful as an evangelical pastor he was asked to lead the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth. He also later became an adjunct instructor at Fuller Theological Seminary where his classes set attendance records. In 1977, John reentered pastoral ministry to plant Calvary Chapel of Yorba Linda.

Throughout this time, John's conservative evangelical paradigm for understanding the ministry of the church began to grow. George Eldon Ladd's theological writings on the Kingdom of God convinced John intellectually that the all the biblical gifts of the Holy Spirit should be active in the church. Encounters with Fuller missiologists Donald McGavaran and C. Peter Wagner and seasoned with missionaries and with international students gave him credible evidence for combining evangelism with healing and prophecy. As he became more convinced of God's desire to be active in the world through all the biblical gifts of the Spirit, John began to teach and train his church to imitate Jesus' full-orbed Kingdom ministry. He began to 'do the stuff' of the Bible that he had formerly only read about.

As John and his congregation sought God in intimate worship, they experienced empowerment by the Holy Spirit, significant renewal in the gifts and conversion growth. It became clear that the church's emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit was not shared by some leaders in the Calvary Chapel movement. In 1982, John's church left Calvary Chapel and joined a small group of Vineyard churches. Vineyard was a name chosen by Kenn Gulliksen, a prolific church planter affiliated with Calvary Chapel, for a church he planted in Los Angeles in 1974. Pastors and leaders from the handful of Vineyard churches began looking to John for direction. And the Vineyard movement was born.

In 1985, the various Vineyard churches formed a formal church association called the Association of Vineyard Churches. The churches are self-governing, but overseen and encouraged on a voluntary basis by mature pastors who serve as Regional Coordinators, and in each region, Area Pastoral Overseers. Until his death in November of 1997, John Wimber served as International Director of the Vineyard. Bert Waggoner presently serves as the National Vineyard Coordinator in the USA, while Bob Fulton serves as the International Vineyard Coordinator.

Today, there are 650 Vineyard churches in the USA (twelve in Iowa), and more than 1,200 Vineyard churches worldwide, an international church planting movement, a publishing house and a music production company. Vineyard worship songs have helped thousands of churches experience intimacy with God. Many churches have been equipped to continue Jesus' ministry of proclaiming the Kingdom, healing the sick, casting out demons and training disciples.