John Wimber (1934—1997)
Country of Origin
-
United States
Countries/Regions of Ministry
- United States
Traditions
- Charismatic
Ministries
- renewalist
- pastor
- church planter
- educator
Although John Wimber is now one of the most recognized charismatic ministers and church planters—known for a movement of healing and renewal churches, the Vineyard, as well as seminary courses on the miraculous—at one point he had said, "I wanted no part of being "charismatic."
Nothing about miracles and the charismatic understanding had come naturally to Wimber. He was raised in a nonreligious home, grew up to excel as a jazz musician, and came to Christ at age twenty-nine through the influence of his drummer’s home Bible study. He enrolled in Azusa Pacific College (now University) to earn a degree in biblical studies. He then joined the staff of a Friends (Quaker) church in Yorba Linda. The culture was pietistic, quiet, controlled. In 1974, Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena invited him to head a new Department of Church Growth. He later reflected:
As a church consultant, I had dealt constantly with schisms across the country wrought by so-called charismatics. So when God began dealing with me, I was very afraid of embarrassing myself, losing friends, constituents, and colleagues…But I couldn’t escape the fact that God did heal through Jesus, and I’d been called to be one of his disciples. I couldn’t dismiss that.
By 1978, John and his wife Carol were pastoring but driving home discouraged, even frustrated. He was preaching a sermon series from the gospel of Luke, where healing stories (some two dozen) were unavoidable. He noted that Jesus hadn’t done all the healing himself; sometimes the Twelve had, or the Seventy-Two. Every Sunday, John Wimber invited those needing prayer to stay behind for the laying on of hands. The results: Nothing. Zero.
After a particularly fruitless Sunday, his phone rang early the next morning. One of his newer members said he had just gotten a new job and had to go to work that day, despite the fact that his wife was sick with a fever. “I can’t stay home and take care of the kids, and we can’t find a babysitter. Can you come pray for her?” The pastor could hardly say no. But after hanging up the phone, he stared at the ceiling. He recounted:
“God,” he said, “look what you’ve gotten me into this time. This guy really believes this stuff. He’s going to lose his job, or I’m going to have to take care of his kids today.”
When I arrived at the house the husband led me into their bedroom. Her face was red and swollen with fever. Oh, no, I groaned inwardly, this looks like a hard one. I walked over and laid hands on her, mumbled a faithless prayer, and then I turned around and began explaining to her husband why some people do not get healed—a talk I had perfected during the previous ten months. I was well into my explanation when his eye caught something behind me. Then he started grinning. I turned around to see his wife out of bed, looking like a new person. “What’s happened to you?” I asked.
“I’m well,” she said. “You healed me. Would you like to stay for some coffee and breakfast?”
I could not believe it. She was well. I politely declined her offer of hospitality and left. Halfway back to my car, I fully realized what had happened. All the months of questioning and despair, excitement and disappointment, revelation and humiliation—the full force of these emotions and hopes washed over me. Then I became euphoric and giddy. And I yelled at the top of my lungs, “We got one!”
This breakthrough, in February 1978, launched the next two decades of healing and renewal ministry not only in Wimber’s congregation (eventually named Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim) but across a wide array of churches and classrooms at Fuller Seminary. He often pointed out that 38.5 percent of the four gospels’ narrative verses (484 out of 1,257) describe Jesus’ miracles, and that Jesus had commissioned his followers to do even greater things than he had time to do while on earth. Wimber said this didn’t need to be limited to special crusades or settings; it was entirely fitting for the local church meeting.
Wimber's experiences in evangelism and Bible study eventually led him back to the pastorate. More Vineyard congregations sprang up under his leadership. He suggested to his colleague at Fuller, C. Peter Wagner, that they might collaborate on a course to explore the miraculous and its connection to evangelism. After getting faculty approval, MC 510 was launched on a Monday night in the fall of 1982 under the title “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth.” Wimber did most of the three-hour lectures while Wagner watched approvingly. At the end of each session, students were invited to practice what they had heard, laying hands on one another for healing.
The undeniable results—and the surrounding publicity—catapulted both leaders into the national spotlight. A faculty panel convened to evaluate whether MC 510 belonged in a seminary curriculum or not. Magazines ran cover stories. Wimber declined to be pigeonholed as Pentecostal or Charismatic; he preferred to be labelled in the “radical middle” of Christianity. He never claimed that God would always heal in answer to believing prayer. But he taught that this should not dissuade believers from continuing to ask. In his 1987 book, Power Healing, he wrote:
I am convinced that sometimes Christians’ demands for exhaustive knowledge are excuses for not believing in and acting on what they know…. While acknowledging that I will never exhaustively understand divine healing, I am satisfied to act on what I know now, confident that I will know more fully in the future. To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, “I believe, therefore I will know … eventually.
When Christianity Today invited him to a panel on “Wonder-working Power,” he highlighted a speaking engagement in Melbourne, Australia. The Lord had impressed him with a word of knowledge for a certain woman in the audience who had undergone two less-than-helpful surgeries to resolve her cleft palate. He told her that God would heal her. A Christian surgeon had become very concerned about this declaration and explained ardently the nature of bones, including those in the cranium and the jaw. “Do you understand what a mature bone is like?” he asked. “You have to surgically break that bone in order for this palate to come together.”
Wimber responded, “All I can tell you is what God told me, and I believe that if you’ll go join the prayer group you’ll watch this woman get healed.” He said the surgeon looked at him like he was crazy, however, three days later, the woman’s palate closed. The surgeon quickly took her to his office for examination, and relayed the hard evidence authenticating that miracle.
The Vineyard expanded to more than 500 churches, and a sizable test came in the early 1990s, when revival broke out at the Toronto Airport Vineyard. Nightly meetings were full of healings, prophecies, deliverances—and controversial manifestations such as shaking, falling down, laughter, even roaring. Wimber kept a level bearing, noting that similar things had taken place in awakenings throughout church history. Eventually, however, he came to feel that the Toronto displays were dominating the attention, and withdrew the Vineyard endorsement.
A parallel issue arose the next year in Kansas City, where a group of prophetic ministers were espousing questionable doctrines. Wimber and the Vineyard attempted to bring counsel and guidance for awhile, but eventually the Kansas City group chose to disengage.
None of these things deterred John Wimber from seeking the open, sincere flow of the power of God—not for its own sake, but for its value in advancing God’s kingdom. Perhaps his heart shows best in this observation, from late in his life, that “God doesn’t revive people who have it all together. He revives people who are hungry, thirsty, weak, naked, blind, and less than spotless.”
Further Reading
- The Way Things Were