John Wimber

John Wimber (1934—1997)

Country of Origin

United States

Countries/Regions of Ministry

United States
United Kingdom

Traditions

Charismatic
Third Wave

Ministries

renewalist
pastor
church planter
educator

John Richard Wimber (1934–1997) was an influential evangelical pastor, teacher, church growth consultant, and founder of the Vineyard movement who became a major figure in the late twentieth-century renewal movements. C. Peter Wagner famously identified Wimber as the “fountainhead” of the Third Wave—the first wave being Pentecostalism and the second the charismatic renewal movement. The Third Wave was a stream of Spirit-empowered Christianity that emerged from evangelicalism. It embraced the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit in signs, wonders, healing, prophecy, and deliverance. Wimber’s ministry profoundly influenced evangelicals, charismatics, Pentecostals, Anglicans, and independent churches around the world, helping normalize Spirit-empowered ministry within contemporary Christianity.

Wimber was born on February 25, 1934, in Kirksville, Missouri, and often described himself as “a fourth-generation pagan who only knew Jesus as a cuss word.”¹ Raised with virtually no church background, he later joked that after his conversion he “didn’t even know God had a book out.” This absence of religious conditioning shaped his ministry. When Wimber began reading the Bible as a new believer, he approached the Gospels with childlike expectation. Seeing Jesus heal the sick, cast out demons, proclaim the kingdom, and empower His disciples to do the same, Wimber famously asked, “When do we get to do the stuff?” The answer he received—that Christians no longer practiced such ministry—deeply troubled him and eventually launched a lifelong pursuit to recover the ministry model of Jesus in the contemporary church.

While still a young musician playing in small clubs, Wimber married Carol, who became his lifelong ministry partner, and together they raised four children. In the years that followed, Wimber’s music career expanded and he eventually became associated with the formation of the Righteous Brothers. Despite professional success, his marriage and personal life deteriorated. In desperation, he experienced a dramatic conversion to Christ through a small Bible study led by Gunner Payne. Following his conversion, Wimber quickly developed a passion for evangelism and reportedly led hundreds to Christ within his first years as a believer. He eventually became a pastor in the Quaker tradition, where quiet waiting before God shaped his low-key ministry style.

Wimber later studied at Fuller Theological Seminary, where his unusual combination of practical church growth insight and ministry effectiveness drew the attention of Wagner. Recognizing Wimber’s gifts, Wagner invited him to help direct the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth. Wagner often described himself as the theoretician and Wimber as the practitioner. Together they traveled across denominational lines, consulting with churches and shaping the church growth movement.

Despite outward success, Wimber experienced profound spiritual dissatisfaction and burnout. During this season, he sensed the Lord speaking to him: “I’ve seen your ministry; now let me show you Mine.” Returning to California, Wimber began leading a small Bible study that would eventually become the Vineyard movement. Teaching through the Gospel of Luke, he became increasingly convinced that Jesus intended His followers not merely to preach but to demonstrate the kingdom through healing, deliverance, and the gifts of the Spirit. Wimber described the ministry of Jesus as a model of both proclamation and demonstration.

The development of Wimber’s healing ministry came slowly and painfully. For months he prayed for the sick with no visible results. Discouraged, he considered abandoning healing ministry altogether. Yet Wimber believed the Lord instructed him to “preach My word and not your experience.” Eventually reports of healing began to emerge, shaping his confidence in healing ministry. Unlike many earlier healing evangelists who centered ministry around a single anointed personality, Wimber became convinced that ordinary believers could minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. His sayings—"Everybody gets to play" and "Build an army, not an audience"—captured this ministry vision.

His philosophy reached an international audience through Wimber’s MC510 course, “Signs, Wonders, and Church Growth,” taught at Fuller Theological Seminary with Wagner serving as the professor of record. The class became one of the most famous seminary courses in evangelicalism. Enrollment exploded from approximately eighty students in its first semester to nearly three hundred in the second, becoming the largest class at Fuller at that time. Wimber lectured on biblical and historical foundations for signs and wonders ministry and then conducted optional “clinics” where students learned to pray for the sick and minister in spiritual gifts. Christian Life magazine devoted an entire issue to MC510 entitled, “Could This Number Affect Your Faith?” The class propelled Wimber into international prominence, while his conferences and seminars trained thousands to do the works of Jesus—or, as Wimber famously called it, “doing the stuff.”

Central to Wimber’s theology was the conviction that the church must rediscover Jesus as the model for ministry. Wimber described himself as “an evangelical with a Pentecostal experience.” While committed to biblical authority and evangelical theology, he challenged cessationist assumptions that miracles had ceased after the apostolic age. Influenced by George Eldon Ladd’s inaugurated eschatology, Wimber taught that the kingdom of God had already broken into history through the incarnation and ministry of Jesus, yet the fullness of the kingdom awaited Christ’s second coming. Believers therefore live in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet” of the kingdom.

This framework shaped Wimber’s understanding of healing and suffering. He taught that divine healing was available through the atoning work of Christ, yet because the kingdom had not yet fully come, not every person would experience healing. This perspective provided a compassionate theological framework for suffering and unanswered prayer while maintaining expectancy for the miraculous.

Wimber also developed a distinctive understanding of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit that made charismatic experience more accessible to evangelicals. Rather than emphasizing a sharply defined post-conversion experience evidenced by speaking in tongues, Wimber taught that believers receive the Holy Spirit at conversion and subsequently experience many fillings of the Spirit throughout life. This approach helped bridge evangelical and Pentecostal theology and became characteristic of the emerging Third Wave movement.

Another dimension of Wimber’s legacy was worship. A gifted musician himself, Wimber helped shape a new style of intimate worship centered on singing directly to God rather than merely singing about God. Vineyard worship emphasized intimacy and extended times of waiting in God’s presence, a quality formed in his days as a Quaker. This worship style profoundly influenced contemporary worship culture across church traditions.

Wimber’s influence extended far beyond North America, but perhaps nowhere more significantly than within the Anglican Church in England. Through leaders such as David Pytches and Sandy Millar, and in places like Holy Trinity Brompton in London, Wimber’s theology of the kingdom, healing ministry, worship, and Spirit-empowered evangelism spread deeply into Anglican renewal circles. Pytches remarked that no one had influenced the Church in England more since John Wesley, while others described segments of the Anglican renewal movement as having been “Wimberized.” His no-hype ministry style made charismatic experience more approachable for many traditional church leaders who had previously resisted Pentecostalism.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Wimber also became associated with broader prophetic and renewal movements connected to Kansas City and Toronto. While he believed these were genuine moves of God, tensions eventually emerged within the Vineyard movement regarding manifestations, leadership, and identity. When the Toronto Airport Vineyard became internationally associated with unusual spiritual manifestations during the Toronto Blessing revival, many Vineyard pastors feared the renewal was redefining Vineyard identity. During this period Wimber himself was battling severe health problems, including inoperable nasopharyngeal cancer. The physical toll of illness, organizational pressures, and controversy created enormous strain during the final years of his leadership.

Despite declining health, Wimber continued ministering throughout this season. Although tensions surrounding the Toronto revival eventually resulted in separation from the Vineyard movement, Wimber never denied that genuine spiritual renewal occurred there. Amid controversy, he remained deeply committed to the work of the Holy Spirit and the advancement of the kingdom of God.

Wimber died on November 17, 1997, at the age of sixty-three. His influence continues today through the Vineyard movement, contemporary worship culture, continuationist theology, healing ministries, and global Spirit-empowered Christianity. More importantly, Wimber helped call the modern church back to the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels. He challenged believers to move beyond passive spectatorship to active participation in the works of the kingdom of God. For Wimber, the Christian life was never intended to be merely discussed, studied, or admired. It was meant to be lived.

Connie Dawson

For Further Reading

Dawson, Connie. John Wimber: His Life and Ministry (2020)
Jackson, Bill. The Quest for the Radical Middle: A History of the Vineyard (1999)
Morphew, Derek. Demonstrating the Kingdom: Tools for Christian Discipleship (2019)
Morphew, Derek. John Wimber’s Teaching on the Gift and Gifts of the Holy Spirit (2020)
Pytches, David, ed. John Wimber: His Influence and Legacy by Carol Wimber and Church Leaders (1998)
Wagner, C. Peter. The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit (1988)
Wimber, Carol. The Way It Was (1999)
Wimber, John. Kingdom Come (1988)
Wimber, John. The Way In is the Way On (2006)
Wimber, John, and Kevin Springer. Power Evangelism (2009)