Here are my observations from my own experience.

I have not done a deep dive into the details of the Vineyard’s history. Also, I have never been a visible leader in this movement, who spoke from the platform. I have never been on staff, nor attended a staff meeting. But I attended Vineyard churches in Southern California for about three decades, sitting in the audience, observing.

I was part of a few prayer teams over the years and learned how to pray for the sick. I did teach two classes on a Wednesday night Bible study, which were short-lived. I was also involved in a small group in the early to mid-1990s.

The historical range of this movement goes from my arrival in August 1985 to the year John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard, died in November 1997–and a little beyond. This is what I mean by “early” in the title.

So my perspective is limited. Take it for what it’s worth.

Now let’s begin.

Overview

John Wimber was the leader of the Vineyard Movement from the flagship church at Anaheim Vineyard. He was friendly, gentle, and witty. He came across as a winsome, nice guy. He was intelligent, but not an intellectual (and there’s nothing wrong with that). He moved with great power in healing the sick and expelling demons, but with humility and a low-key style.

Was it possible that all the wild side of the Charismatic Movement (mainly certain healing evangelists) in the 1970s could be balanced out with a humble man who taught his associates how to pray for the sick and expel demons, who in turn taught us how to do this? I certainly was drawn to it. My hopes were high. Finally! Some calm from the platform!

The Third Wave or the Neo-Charismatic Movement add up to two different labels for the same thing. As I recall things, C. Peter Wagner, who was a missionary, professor, and church growth consultant (d. 2016) is the one who came up with the term “Third Wave,” in referring to the Vineyard Movement, but other historians I’ve read prefer “Neo-Charismatic,” if they see the labels as valid to begin with. In my view, the Neo-Charismatic Movement, incidentally, goes far beyond the Vineyard.

I don’t know whether Wimber accepted the label Third Wave or Neo-Charismatic. He might have, but I can’t remember. … Now my memories are getting clearer, and I think he did. He was a church growth guy, after all, who prided himself on studying revivals and Christian movements throughout church history.

Honestly, for my part I don’t see the Vineyard as a Third Wave or Neo-Charismatic. Wagner got ahead of himself (again). The Vineyard was just a church planting movement within the Charismatic Movement. So labels don’t matter to me, but they may to church historians. I’ll let them figure this one out.

The Vineyard leaders sought to restore the gifts of the Spirit, in balance and without superstar, platform performers. “Everyone gets to play,” as Wimber wittily used to say.  Everyone who got training could pray for the sick and demonized.

And for the record, Wimber was never part of the New Apostolic Reformation. He was friends with C. Peter Wagner, but Wimber never considered himself an apostle.

See my observations here:

Observations on New Apostolic Reformation and Christian Nationalism

And Wimber was never part of the Word of Faith Movement, either, which I call the Word of Hyper-Faith. Nor did he believe in the prosperity gospel.

Go here and scroll down to a separate section for my opinion about the Word of Hyper-Faith Movement and Hyper-Prosperity:

Calling Leaders by Name to Repent

Newcomers

The Kansas City prophets, specifically Paul Cain, came to the Vineyard in the late 1980s, and the same for Bob Jones and John Paul Jackson. Mike Bickle came to the Vineyard around the same time. He was the one who introduced the prophets to the Vineyard (as I recall). It was a thrill at first, for many people.

But when I heard Bickle speak at Anaheim, he said his father had taught him to become a boxer. My honest first impression of him after he finished his sermon: “This man’s been punched in the head too many times!” I had just started my doctoral program, so I may have been a little snobbish, but with the recent revelations of a huge scandal with him and the whole IHOP KC Movement, a scandal which had been going on in the 1980s, maybe my first impression was right. Something was off.

Go here and scroll down to his own section for my further assessment of him:

Calling Leaders by Name to Repent

This was the time John MacArthur crashed his “Mack” truck through the “gates,” uninvited. Maybe he was partly right, now that I look back on things. But as a cessationist, he was not listened to. Many Vineyardites scoffed, turning up their noses. Hank Hannegraaf of the Bible Answer Man radio show also went on the attack around this time and later (if I recall). Wimber hired Jack Deere and Wayne Grudem (and some others whose names I don’t recall) to reply to MacArthur’s criticisms. I still have Deere’s and Grudem’s booklets on one of my bookshelves.

I recall that Cain was still speaking at Anaheim in 1994. I even got a prophetic word from him. He called me out of a large audience. This was before the web, I was certainly not famous, and I never met the man. So he could not data-mine for my private info through social media or through a phone book. The word was right and edifying. (It was personal and short-lived, so no need to share it in public.) In Jack Deere’s book, in a chapter available online, he said Cain could be very accurate sometimes, but manipulative at other times. In my case, he was accurate.

By my recollection, Wimber and other Vineyard leaders tried to move beyond all the excesses in the Charismatic Movement, by simply planting low-key, laid-back Vineyard churches. However, in around 1994, he allowed the excesses to come in at Anaheim Vineyard, like barking and roaring and howling. The laughing fits entered into the church. Even some pastors got into it.

At another Vineyard, at a later date, an older woman ran around the church. Give her credit: she ran like the wind! But it was a distraction. A Vineyard pastor from a foreign land used to yank one knee up waist high and yell “more!” in the middle of his sermons, as if it was an involuntary spasm. (I don’t know if he still does this today.)

None of these manifestation should be out of the control of the human who does them.

³² The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.  (1 Cor. 14:32)

But these persons acted like the displays were outside of human control but Spirit-led. However, if anyone thinks these manifestations are or were legitimate (= biblical), then he is wrong. Behind the scenes, some leaders tried to stop all of this (one of the pastors told me), but Wimber allowed it at Anaheim, presumably just to experiment. I was there and witnessed it. I was in the middle of it, but I never did the out-of-control displays.

I recall that Wimber and Bickle and Metro Vineyard Fellowship in Kansas City (where Bickle pastored and later changed the name of the church) and Cain and John Arnott of the Toronto Blessing fame, eventually went their separate ways in the mid-1990s.The prophets had taken over, but John Wimber was a simple man and a church planter. A split was inevitable.

Cain no longer ministered at Anaheim Vineyard. As someone sitting in the audience, I observed that he seemed to have just disappeared. Without the web I could not find out why he had gone, but a home fellowship leader told me at the time that the pastoral staff had asked him to leave.

Lessons to Be Learned

There are lessons to be learned from the newcomers. The gifts of the Spirit are biblical and wonderful, but hyper-charismatics confuse people.

Speaking only for myself, I could never abandon the gifts. They are biblical. When they are done right (i.e. biblically), they are a true blessing. I don’t allow the abuse of them to dissuade me from their biblical validity.

Come to think of it, studying revivals throughout history may be part of the problem. Some aspects were of God, of course. But warning! After careful consideration and study of Scripture, I conclude that the revivals may have been infiltrated by demonic spirits that influenced neurotic people who in turn scared visitors away with wild displays.

Recall that in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul did not allow uninterpreted tongues in the Corinthian assembly. If everyone spoke in tongues at the same time, then an inquirer or learner would walk out and exclaim that they were all crazy. Since there was no other church in Corinth, the man was lost and doomed. How sad!

If Paul did not allow uninterpreted tongues in church, would he allow barking and meowing and howling? No! Would he allow the laughing fits and writhing on the floor? No! People who could be blessed by the revival would get scared off. Let’s call this principle “from bad to worse” argument. That is, uncontrolled tongues is bad, but barking and meowing and howling are worse.

Therefore, these displays need to stop wherever they may still be going on. They are not signs of revival. Show me where they can be found in the four Gospels, where Jesus was anointed with the Spirit without limit (John 3:34). Show me where they are found in Acts. The uncontrolled, wild displays are not there.

Three Sources of Prophecy

All prophecies need to be judged, whether from Paul Cain or anyone else.

They are not the “greater things” Jesus predicted:

What Does ‘Greater Things’ Mean in John 14:12?

Positive and Negative Assessment

Looking back on the whole thing, I believe Wimber made some wise decisions, but he also miscalculated in some areas. Let me see if I can clarify things. I often like to number my points, just to keep things clear for me.

Miscalculations:

1. He was a church growth consultant who experimented too much, like allowing those strange manifestations for a short time. But they disappeared, probably by fatigue in the people, a short time later. But I trace his permission given to these wild displays to his idea about “bibliolatry” (see the next numbered point).

One example of experimentation (though it’s not a big thing): back in the 1980s our small groups were called “kinship” groups, which sounds anthropological (to me). Then the name suddenly changed to “home fellowships.” I don’t know why. Probably a church growth consultant wrote a book or article in a church growth journal and concluded that small groups should now be called home fellowships, with all sorts of facts and stats. “Studies show ….”

The longer I live and watch things, the more convinced I am that church growth consultants are more trouble than they are worth, though they may mean well (or so I hope). They’re too permissive and experimental. They must not play around and experiment with the Son of God’s church, like it’s an anthropological study of a tribe.

2. In a conference in the summer of 1984 or 1985, which I saw a few years ago on youtube (I got there a just a little later), Wimber said he did not want the Bible to become an idol. He called it “bibliolatry.” Yes, it reveals who God is, true, but we have a relationship with him, a living person, not the Bible. He said that he did not want to turn so doctrinally pure that he forgot about love. (I got the impression this was a shot at the Bible Answer Man and possibly Calvary Chapel, but I have no proof.)

I believe Wimber’s Bible teaching suffered. Eventually he turned the Sunday morning teaching time over to a few associates. One of them was so biblically illiterate that he turned into a story teller and offered home-spun wisdom, from grandma’s knees (sort of thing). Wimber influenced Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, and I wonder whether Wimber’s step back from “bibliolatry” led Johnson to become not as Bible-based as he needs to be, even to this day.

Just a thought.

Friendly, winsome Wimber was such an imprecise speaker that I could not discern where to draw the line between bibliolatry and serious respect for and study of the Bible. I got caught up in the bibliolatry idea for a long time. But I inched my way out.

To their credit, some Vineyard pastors remained “Bible guys,” so this dubious idea did not totally win out. But from my limited point of view, the majority of pastors treated the Scriptures lightly, and this is wrong. From what little I know, since I have not taken a survey of all Vineyards, I believe many Vineyard pastors today should go back to the Bible and study it with commentaries and Study Bibles. It takes hard work, but they too should become “Bible guys.”

3. He allowed mixed prayer time. Men prayed for women during ministry, and I observed that some strange things happened, like intimate touching. I cringe when I see old videos.

But John also had his positive ministry.

1. He prayed for the sick and demonized with great power but also humility. He kept things simple, because he was a simple man. He focused on healing and deliverance, which is what Jesus emphasized in the four Gospels and the apostolic community did in Acts. I said he ministered with humility, and that’s true overall, but sometimes he got a little boastful. He became a “Holy Ghost” story teller, punning on “ghost stories.” His wit again. He encouraged his main prayer team to become “Holy Ghost story tellers.” I was never part of this A-team. I did not have enough prestige.

2. Vineyard music was refreshing and devout because the leaders were not platform show offs. They focused on Christ. As John used to say, “We sing to God, not about him.” This devout style was in contrast to much of the American church from the time of the media (TV and radio) to even today with social media. The Vineyard was a corrective to all that went before. To this day, when you see a worship team appear devout and go from song to song without stopping, you can thank the Vineyard from the late 1970s through the 1980s, and even today. (Or if you don’t like the extra-devout style, then you can blame the Vineyard!). Mercy Music publishing produced some mighty fine cassette tapes and later CDs. That’s my assessment.

3. The pastors were cool and relaxed and refreshing, compared to what we experienced in the wild side of the Charismatic Movement (mainly certain leaders) in the 1970s. The Vineyard must be placed in its historical context, and it was a much-needed correction. In that light, it was beneficial and brought clarity (early on) to the body of Christ, for those who listened.

Conclusion

The Vineyard Movement, in its early days, as I see things, greatly contributed to the growth of the body of Christ. But when things got wild with the arrival of the Kansas City prophets and Mike Bickle, the Vineyard got off balance.

I don’t know in detail what the Vineyard denomination is doing nowadays, for I no longer go there. I hear from Vineyard leaders on youtube and elsewhere that things are extra calm, and prayer for the sick and demonized don’t happen too often, except in a few Vineyards, here and there.

But overall, speaking only for myself, I liked my many years there. I am not disgruntled (with only a few excepted episodes, common to church life everywhere). I still believe in the gifts of the Spirit, despite the church’s wanderings from them or its abuse of them.

Such is my opinion. If you want more information, various websites have more details of the history of the Vineyard Movement. You can research things on your own, if you’re curious.

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