History

Our Beginnings

Preface

God has shown us that His desire for us is not to just build what has become known as the “Vineyard Movement”, but that we should promote the advance of His kingdom, the reign and rule of His love in Christ on earth; and, to love, encourage, exhort, and build up the whole church.

The Vineyard movement however does have a significant part to play with the church in the world. God has made it clear that He has given us a passion and purpose for who we are and what He has called us to do.  We need to be true to this calling while remaining open and teachable so that God can add to and enhance us from other parts of His church…without giving up who He wants us to be and what He wants us to do.

The Birth Of A Movement Of God

God works in and through men who love Him to reach out to the world in every generation. It is amazing how people, who are unrelated to one another, can be touched by God in the same way, given similar values, in the same season of time, and then later be brought together by the Lord as parts of a whole for a prophetic and profound purpose. Such is what happened with the Vineyard.

Literally, hundreds of men and women were being moved by the Spirit in similar ways who would later come together in what became and is the Vineyard.

In October 1976, leaders from a Friends Church in Southern California started to meet in a home to encourage one another. From the outset, God took over the agenda and revealed to them their true heartfelt longing for Him. “God was undoing the self sufficiency of the leaders, they were becoming learners again – students with a hunger for God” (Carol Wimber, The Vineyard Newsletter, “Hunger For God”, Fall 1987). A new worship of God was birthed where songs would be sung to God (not about God) for hours and the experience of His presence and voice was in their midst. God was moving among them in a real way and a desperation for the real presence and power of God grew. By March 1977 the house was filled to overflowing. In January of that year, John Wimber began to come to the group.

John (an accomplished musician and song writer, arranger and manager of the Righteous Brothers, and former pastor) was at this time an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, was heading up the Church Growth Institute there,  surveying several thousand churches, and church consulting. During his church growth research, he noticed the dynamic growth of churches in the two thirds world who had the manifest presence of God in their midst as the Holy Spirit was moving among them releasing signs and wonders, the works of Jesus of word of wisdom, word of knowledge, prophecy, discerning of spirits, deliverance, healing, miracles, speaking in tongues, and the like. This added to his conviction that the work’s of Jesus were for today. John began to preach and minister and test the Word concerning the works of Jesus both with the group meeting in the home in Yorba Linda and with in a now famous  experimental class at Fuller Seminary called “MC510 Signs and Wonders.”

The home group was growing and needed a pastor which John reluctantly agreed to do. God was undeniably doing something supernatural in worship and ministering in the giftings of the Spirit. Realizing this, the Friends Church blessed them, sending them forth to go do what God was encouraging them to do. Unexpectedly the spiritual blessing that had given the Friends the name “Quakers” began to appear in the group…with the power of God moving so intensely on people sometimes they were visibly shaken as they worshipped, prayed, were ministered to. Hard to understand at first and was wrestled with biblically and historically.

Mother’s Day, May 8, 1977, the group held its first Sunday service. During this time of spiritual renewal of learning about healing, other gifts of the Spirit, laying on of hands and giving away ministry to others, the church became affiliated with the Calvary Chapel movement started by Chuck Smith which was born out of the “Jesus People” movement in Southern California during the 1960’s. Eventually the church moved its services to the Canyon High School gymnasium    

Again, on Mother’s Day 1981 a young man who had been attending the church was asked to minister one Sunday evening. He called the young generation forward and prayed, “Come Holy Spirit”…and He did !!! Immediately signs and wonders and the “signs that make you wonder” powerfully and visibly broke out all over the group. God was engaging and encountering people ministering to sin, hurts, darkness, releasing people in the giftings of the Spirit. It launched the ministry into a full on Charismatic renewal. “John sat quietly playing the piano, but he was wide eyed and outraged. Members of our staff were fearful and angry. Several people got up and walked out, never to return. But I knew God was visiting us. I was thrilled, because I had been praying for power for so long.

…But John wasn’t happy…he spent the night reading Scripture and historical accounts of revival…” (Carol Wimber, “Hunger For God”, Vineyard Newsletter, Fall 1987). John was desperate to know if this was God. Early in the morning a phone call came from a man in another state who had a message he thought strange and didn’t understand, “The Lord says, ‘It’s Me, John’.” That’s it, it was God driven, that was enough to go on.

Wimber soon realized that the Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda was being given a vision and developing a different set of values than the other Calvary Chapels.

The movement of the Spirit in worship, gifts of the Spirit, signs and wonders,

charismatic experience was speaking to a new direction. John met Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel and it was agreed that John needed to pursue what was

happening. It was asked that while staying affiliated, the Calvary Chapel of Yorba Linda change its name.

In May 1982, John asked a handful of pastors whom he had been mentoring over the years to get together in Morro Bay, California. Out of love and care for these men and the relationships with them that he valued, he simply wanted to share with them that he had decided to withdraw from the Calvary Chapels so that he could pursue this move of the Spirit their church was experiencing. He wasn’t there to recruit anybody to start anything.

Several of the men there however had been experiencing similar moves of the Spirit which was also birthing a similar set of values in them.Among the men there was Kenn Gullicksen. Kenn and his wife Joanie had been involved in the “Jesus People” movement in the 1960’s. In 1974, they were sent out by the Lord from Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa and started a bible study in the home of gospel singer Chuck Girard which became a church seeing hundreds of people come to Jesus, being filled with His Spirit as they worshipped, studied God’s word and fellowshipped together. The Lord had led Kenn to the Scripture concerning a vineyard as being a sign of divine blessing; and so the church became the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. By 1982 and the gathering at Morro Bay, Kenn had seen seven Vineyard churches planted in Southern California.

These too had an affiliation with Calvary Chapel.

As John shared his heart, it became obvious to the men there that God had been preparing John to be a pastor to pastors and to serve, lead, guide what God was birthing in this move of the Spirit. Several of the pastors there declared that they too desired to pursue God in this and asked John to lead the way. Though this was not his intention, he agreed. Kenn ceded his own leadership to John and so the churches there who decided to be led by John became the newly formed Association of Churches known as the Vineyard. There were about nine churches, one of them the Calvary Chapel of San Clemente which would now become a Vineyard.

With John’s leadership of this new movement, we saw a charismatic renewal

touch thousands of mainline denominational churches, evangelical churches, non denominational churches. This touch has transformed much of how a great part of  the church in the world worships and encounters God, ministers in the power of His love, and more. To God’s glory, awesome !!!

Vineyard Movement Today

It’s been twenty five years since the beginning of the Vineyard and over thirty years since many of the early players first encountered the move of the Spirit the Lord was birthing.

Today, we are approaching 650 Vineyard Churches in the U.S. and hundreds more in approximately 54 countries.

Among other things, we are a church planting movement. In the beginning, the Lord had given John Wimber a dream of 10,000 vineyards bearing fruit in America. So with John’s going home to be with the Lord in November 1997, we are moving, in a certain sense, from the time of Elijah to the time of Elisha and  tenfold blessings toward the fulfillment of the movements destiny.

Vineyard In New York

The vision for planting Vineyard churches in New York was given to a few men in the early 1980’s, among them was Jim McDonough.

In January 1979, Jim began to be drawn into the same dynamic move of the Spirit that was being experienced and embraced by the church in Yorba Linda. Jim began pastoral, church planting work in 1980 becoming one of the pastors of the Calvary Chapel in San Clemente, California. This church had come into relationship with John Wimber in the early days of what the Lord was doing with John at Fuller Seminary and the church in Yorba Linda that John pastored. The San Clemente church was one of the churches that formed the Vineyard movement in May 1982.

 The Lord began to speak to Jim in 1985 about going east, to Westchester, New York to renew and plant 300 works of the Father’s love in Christ. The Spirit said, “Go tell them and show them that the Father loves them.” After seeing the Vineyard Mission Viejo, California planted, Jim came to New York and planted a Vineyard in Kingston, New York in 1987. He began to gather people in Westchester and planted the Vineyard Christian Fellowship ~ Westchester in 1993. Soon after, the Lord had Jim ministering again to the nations in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Far East. More recently, Jim is back in a more hands on role as Senior Pastor to build up the Vineyard Church ~ Westchester and pursue the raising up of a network of 300 works of the Father’s love in the areas north, north east and north west of New York City.

In the mid 1980’s there were only a handful of Vineyard churches in the east, now there are over 70 churches.

We press on toward the goal of winning the prize for which God has called heavenward in Christ Jesus.