John Wimber

Life

Wimber was born in 1934 in Kirksville, Missouri, and grew up in a family with little connection to religious faith. As a young man he worked as a pop musician and producer, and he also performed with The Righteous Brothers. He was converted at about the age of 29; sources differ on the year, giving either 1962 or 1963. He was later ordained as a pastor in a Quaker church. During the 1970s he worked at Fuller Theological Seminary's institute for evangelism and church growth, where he associated with missiologists such as Donald McGavran and C. Peter Wagner.

The church he started in Southern California in 1977 was initially affiliated with Calvary Chapel. In 1982 he left Calvary Chapel and joined the newly emerging Vineyard fellowship, and the congregation became the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim. In 1985 he incorporated the Association of Vineyard Churches. He suffered a heart attack in 1986 and was diagnosed with cancer in 1993. He died of a brain hemorrhage in 1997 at the age of 63.

Ministry and Contributions

• Fuller Theological Seminary course MC510: From 1982 to 1985, Wimber co-taught the course "Signs, Wonders, and Church Growth" (MC510) with C. Peter Wagner. Because the class included practical sessions of prayer for the sick, it attracted considerable attention and controversy both inside and outside the seminary.
• Kingdom theology: Drawing on the kingdom of God theology of George Eldon Ladd, Wimber taught that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit described in Scripture should be manifested in the church today. The movement in which evangelical churches outside Pentecostal denominations embraced charismatic experience is commonly called the Third Wave, and Wimber is regarded as one of its leading figures.
• Writings: His best-known works include Power Evangelism (1986) and Power Healing (1987). Wimber described "power evangelism" as proclaiming the gospel accompanied by manifestations of God's supernatural power, and he distinguished it from "programmatic evangelism," which relies chiefly on rational argument.
• Worship: He led intimate, contemporary, praise-centered worship. Worship songs from the Vineyard spread widely across denominational lines.

Influence on the Korean Church

Wimber became known in Korea as his books were translated, including Power Healing, published in Korean in 1991 by Nathan Publishing in a translation by Lee Jae-beom. This contributed to growing interest in healing ministry and spiritual gifts. Critics also attribute movements such as seeker-sensitive worship, the Alpha Course, and the inner healing movement to the influence of the Vineyard Movement. Some Presbyterian denominations are reported to have issued study reports on the Vineyard Movement and cautioned their members against participating in it.

Assessment

Supporters credit Wimber with helping evangelical churches embrace the gifts of the Holy Spirit and healing as part of ordinary Christian life, with renewing worship, and with practicing a ministry attuned to people outside the church.

Critics, especially Reformed theologians who hold to cessationism, contend that his teaching places experience and pragmatism ahead of gospel doctrine. They also criticize him for subjectivizing faith by treating inner voices or intuitions as the voice of God, and for accepting physical phenomena such as falling down or laughter as spiritual experiences. Some trace the roots of these tendencies to his Quaker background. In the late 1980s his close association with the so-called "Kansas City Prophets" became controversial. In 1988 Wimber wrote a piece explaining why he did not respond to his critics.

When the Toronto Blessing became highly controversial in the mid-1990s, the Association of Vineyard Churches severed its relationship with the Toronto Airport Vineyard in December 1995. Wimber traveled to Toronto in person to deliver the decision. Supporters see this as evidence that Wimber sought to remain within the framework of evangelical theology, while critics view it as an event that exposed the limitations of the movement itself. Some Korean critics name Wimber as one of the roots of the New Apostolic Reformation.