Tag Archives: Vineyard Values

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

“Go Ahead – Pray This Prayer. Your Life Will Never be Dull Again.”

[box]The following text was written by Steve & Cindy Nicholson, Evanston Vineyard pastors, for the recently released Come Holy Spirit” booklet  published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

“’Come, Holy Spirit.’ We remember the first time those words were used by us as a conscious invitation to the Spirit to come, with an expectation that we might see evidences of the Spirit’s presence. It was at our young church’s annual dinner-come-slide-show-come worship celebration. Everyone was standing. There was a deep, unnerving, very long silence.

steve and cindy nicholsonThen in the cavernous acoustics of a church gym, the sound of a metal folding chair flipping over and the unmistakable wail of a man whose emotional pain had just gotten uncorked by God. More flipping chairs, more crying, laughing, shouting, people shaking, people ending up under folding chairs, and all through the room, such a sense of purposefulness to it all, of God doing things and saying things, as though we had finally opened the door and let Him in. Which we had!

‘Come, Holy Spirit’ did not originate with John Wimber. We are merely the latest generation to embrace it. It has its roots back in the earliest prayers of the first Church Fathers and Mothers, the first generation after the apostles to carry the flame of the gospel forward. This prayer is not just some oddity of 21st century Western Christianity. It is part and parcel of Trinitarian theology, a beloved prayer of every generation of believers before us. You are in very good company when you pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’

‘Come, Holy Spirit’ is a direct, bold request for the Spirit to do the work the Father wants to do in us, and to be the fire that propels us out to do the work the Father wants to do through us. The words are not magic (oh, how many times have we found that out the hard way!); we have to actually expect the Spirit to accept our invitation! Otherwise it’s a bit like standing inside our home saying ‘Come on in!’ to someone standing outside, but never actually opening the door.

‘Come, Holy Spirit’ is a prayer best prayed with willingness to welcome surprise and unpredictability. When we pray this prayer, we never know what will happen next! Most of us love the image of Aslan, in the C.S. Lewis Narnia books, as ‘good but not tame.’ It’s another thing entirely to be met by this not-tame Holy Spirit in real life! But nothing beats the joy of seeing the Spirit come and do what we are powerless to do in our own strength. Go ahead – pray this prayer. Your life will never be dull again.”

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

The Third Person of the Trinity

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “Come Holy Spirit” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

Who Is The Holy Spirit?

Who is the Holy Spirit? In many churches you will hear messages on God as Father, and God as the Son. But how often will you hear a message about God as the Holy Spirit? The truth is that the Holy Spirit may be the least understood Person of what church history calls the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The Vineyard story is driven by the reality that God eagerly desires us to experience his presence. The presence of God is expressed by the Spirit of God, and it is the experience of the presence of God that empowers us to do the work Jesus has called us to do in the world.

Recognizing The Person Of The Spirit

holy spiritWe are committed to being “functionally Trinitarian” in all our church activities, recognizing that the presence of the Holy Spirit among us means everything to the church Jesus is building.  Recognizing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and communities, we are softened in our desire to become “change (coins) in God’s pocket” (John Wimber) – people ready to be spent by the Lord and led by the Spirit into any act of kingdom service he desires.

According to church history, the Holy Spirit is God, and as such, shapes our lives as God indwells us, by his Spirit through the work of Christ (Col. 1:27). In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is called by many names including the Comforter (Jn. 14:26), the Advocate (Jn. 14:16), and the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2).

The Spirit is given to us as a deposit guaranteeing God’s goodness to come (2 Cor. 5:5), to assure us of Christ’s presence within (1 Jn. 4:13), to speak through us to one another (1 Cor. 12:18), to guide us in our understanding of God’s gifts to us (1 Cor. 2:12), to empower us to impact nonbelievers (Mk. 1:11), and to give us rest (Is. 63:14).

Jesus And The Spirit

It is by the power of the Spirit of God that Jesus ministered:

“One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick” (Luke 5:17).

The Spirit also empowered Paul and the other disciples to do the works of Jesus, and touched those to whom they ministered:

“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:15-17).

In the Vineyard we believe that the Holy Spirit, likewise, distributes gifts among us, his Church today. These gifts of healing, prophecy, prayer languages, miracles and many other gifts enable us to experience God’s presence personally and corporately. These gifts enable us to minister to the world around us imbued with the power of God.

Vineyard Movement

Come, Holy Spirit: The Story Behind the Prayer

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “Come Holy Spirit” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

Sometimes, the simplest prayers are the best prayers. One prayer that has been prayed by the church in many forms over the past 2000 years has become very important to us in the Vineyard family of churches.

It is the prayer “Come, Holy Spirit.”

come holy spiritOn Mother’s Day, 1980, John Wimber had a unique experience at the church he pastored in Yorba Linda, California. John was from a Quaker tradition, and was a respected voice teaching leaders about Church growth through evangelism.

John had invited a guest speaker named Lonnie Frisbee to teach at their evening service. Lonnie was a hippie who was a part of what became known as the Jesus People Movement in the late 1960s in Southern California.

John’s church was filled with young people, and they gathered to worship as usual that night. Lonnie got up to speak, and at the conclusion of his message he prayed a prayer that has been prayed by many throughout church history.

It was a simple prayer, one that has become one of the most important prayers we pray across the Vineyard family of churches. The prayer was simply:

“Come, Holy Spirit.”

It is a prayer the church of Jesus Christ has been praying in many forms over many centuries. That night, when that three-word prayer was prayed, all heaven broke loose in John Wimber’s community. An entire movement of churches has, in many ways, grown around that prayer. After that gathering, deeply encountered by the Holy Spirit, young people poured into the streets, leading hundreds, then thousands, to faith in Jesus Christ. Miracles followed their simple prayers, such as healings of bodies and minds, as well as deliverances from addictions.

Since that time, tens of thousands have come to faith in Jesus through the work of the Vineyard. Our belief in “Power Evangelism” – reaching people by participating with God in the miraculous – centers us on the Holy Spirit’s work in drawing the heart to God.

Today, you will hear this simple prayer, in some form, being prayed in virtually every Vineyard church around the world. It is because we are learning in the Vineyard what the Body of Christ has had to learn again and again throughout history – that with the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us, we can do the works of Jesus. We can join him in the advancing of the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.

We are a people of the presence of God. So we pray “Come, Holy Spirit.”

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

Is It Possible For A Child To Be Used By God?

[box]The following text was written by Rick & Becky Olmstead, Pastors of the Vineyard Church of the Rockies, for the recently released “Everyone Gets To Play” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

rick becky olmstead
Rick & Becky Olmstead

“When we say ‘everyone gets to play’ we sometimes overlook youth, and we usually aren’t referring to the kids in our churches. At best, we let them be spectators as we participate in the ministry of Jesus. But, Jesus told us, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these”  (Mark 10:14b).

“Is it possible for a child to be used by God to deliver a prophetic word? I heard of an instance just recently where a child told her mother, ‘One, two, three, four… that’s how many there are of us. But one is missing. He’ll be here soon.’ She was telling her mom that their family wasn’t complete. They would have one more brother. Within two years that brother was born.

“Could a child speak a word of wisdom to an adult? A single mom who had angry blowouts with her children came to see me one day because her three-year-old daughter told her the night before, following an emotional outbreak, ‘Mommy, Jesus doesn’t like it when you treat us that way. Ask him and he will help you change.’

“Could a child’s prayer bring healing? A four-year-old child prayed ‘Jesus heal cancer’ for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer. After a trip back to the doctor she learned that she no longer had a cancerous mass in her breast.

“What if a child started a ‘God talk’ with his or her friends? Several kids from our church have. They have shared Jesus with their friends on the playground at school. One of our teenagers started a ‘God talk’ with a homeless man one very cold winter night. He ended up buying that man dinner, bringing him into his warm truck and praying for his foot condition, and then, rather than turning him out to sleep in the cold, he took the man home for the night. (The next morning his parents were very surprised.) Now that sounds like something Jesus would do!

“We know that the Holy Spirit has distributed his gifts to all believers. Does it matter that a significant portion of believers are kids and teens? After all, one out of every four people in the world today is 14 or under. Could we be missing out on 25% of the ways God would like to see his kingdom advance because we have overlooked including a whole population of youth when we say that ‘everyone gets to play?’”

-Rick & Becky Olmstead

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

Jesus’ Way Of Leading

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “Everyone Gets To Play” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

"The Good Samaritan" by Aimé Morot (1880)
“The Good Samaritan” by Aimé Morot (1880)

The life of Jesus of Nazareth is recorded in the four canonical books we call the Gospels. Each tells the story from a different angle, and the books fit together to paint a striking image of the man Christians believe was simultaneously human and divine. Thus there are aspects of his life that we can never emulate – his moral perfection, his perfectly clear wisdom, his redemptive death. And there are also aspects of his life that, through the empowerment of the Spirit, we can seek to emulate. So, focusing on those parts of his life we can pursue … what did Jesus do?

First of all, Jesus welcomed. His welcome was as broad as the people he encountered. He was not a power broker; he was not strategically (or cynically) “networking” so as to maximize his potential influence. He did not see any one person as more righteous or valuable than another. Rather, Jesus’ welcome was total. He hung out with people, especially with the marginalized. He loved to be with the poor and the outsiders. He liked to be with prostitutes and drinkers, doubters and thieves. These people found in Jesus someone who saw past their flaws to their inner person — the core part that the God whom Jesus called Father had created in his own image.

Second, Jesus healed. He healed the sick in every way imaginable. He brought sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead. He made people to walk again, speak again, feel again. And he brought spiritual healing. To those oppressed by evil spirits, to those who were manic or depressed, to those whose inner demons had led them to isolation and alienation, he brought remarkable freedom. There is scarcely any clearer New Testament witness to any other aspect about Jesus than that he was a healer.

Third, Jesus summoned. His call was for people to repent and to follow him. He welcomed and healed anyone, but he did not invite them to stay in their painful lives — he called them to change. He gave them hope that there was a different way of life available. He taught them what spiritual power without religious oppression looked like. He showed people what it meant to be convicted by God without feeling condemned. Jesus was remarkable in his spiritual genius, which could draw people to transformation without him having to exert pressure or power.

Fourth, Jesus commissioned. The gospels are replete with language about how Jesus’ ministry, while in some ways utterly unique, was in other ways definitively intended to be imitated. His final words in the gospel of Matthew were “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you” (Matt. 28:19). This was not a religion for a single cultural moment.

Rather, it was intended to launch a global movement of the kingdom of God, bringing life and hope to all people.

Theology Thoughts, Vineyard Movement

Spiritual Experts or Kingdom Disciples?

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “Everyone Gets To Play” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

everyone gets to playIs being a Christian about believing the right things, or living a new way?

One of the weaknesses of the Church in the 20th century was the direct result of what scholars call modernism. Modernism was based on the idea that if we just  gave people the right ideas, the right knowledge, they would then have happy and satisfied lives.

In the 21st century, we are coming to terms with the emptiness of this argument. Simply having intellectual knowledge does not lead people to live meaningful, satisfying lives.

John Wimber, the spiritual father of the Vineyard Movement, intuitively understood that much of the church had given in to this error of modernism. That is, they were more concerned with telling people what to believe than showing them how to live.

There’s a famous anecdote about Wimber going to church for the first time after coming to faith in his friend’s living room. After a fairly dry sermon and singing time, he asked his friend, “When do we get to do the stuff? The stuff in that book? I gave up drugs for this?”

This intuition goes to the heart of one of the most important distinctives of the Vineyard: that we are a movement of people who want to learn to live like Jesus lived, not simply believe what Jesus believed. And we don’t want this limited to the professional clergy — we believe that anyone can learn to live the kind of life that Jesus did.

The phrase that has come to embody this value is everyone gets to play – which is another way of saying that the Holy Spirit will empower anyone to do what Jesus did.

Church History, Vineyard Movement

The Vineyard is God’s Idea

[box]The following text was written by Phil and Jan Strout, Vineyard USA National Directors, for the recently released “What is the Vineyard?” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

Phil and Jan Strout
Phil and Jan Strout

“There are a number of things that come to mind when we are asked ‘What is the Vineyard?’ We are going to attempt to express our thoughts in a very simple way, from our point of view.

“The Vineyard is God’s idea. We often refer to the Vineyard as a ‘movement of people’ that God initiated and invited, among many others, to join His mission. In other words, we are recipients of and participants in God’s great grace and mercy.

“We are a people who have responded to this invitation to join God’s mission, for His greater glory and the well being of people. In responding to the invitation of God, men and women like the Wimbers, the Fultons, and numerous others found themselves swept up in a Holy Spirit avalanche. These people who were at the beginning of this movement did not sit in a boardroom and draw up a five-part plan to form a movement that would spread around the world. This is very important for our present understanding of the Vineyard.

“We were called into being as worshippers and Jesus-followers, grateful and humbled by God’s inclusion of people like us. As we understood early on, we received much from God in relation to his presence – his power, his favor, his fruit. We all heard: “We get, to give.” What God had done in the people of the Vineyard, he wanted to do through these people. We have not moved very far from that simple understanding, nor should we.

“Church, church, church! John Wimber’s clear instruction to ‘Love the whole Church’ was a refreshing and liberating invitation. Worship songs with lyrics such as Help Me to Love The Things You Love by Danny Daniels reflected this emphasis. The Vineyard taught us all to not only appreciate, but also to embrace, the great historic traditions of the Church.

“God has always had a people. Despite our penchant for viewing ourselves as innovators in the 21st century, we must realize that we aren’t as vogue as we think. Instead of blazing trails with our faith, we have taken the torch that has been passed down to us from generation to generation. We are a family of torch-bearers.

what is the vineyard“‘Find out what God is doing in your generation and fling yourself (recklessly) into it.’ That is a paraphrase of a Jonathan Edwards quote that caught our attention during the Jesus Movement in the ‘70s. It is not that God changes, or that his message changes. Rather, it is often that a vital truth has been lost or disregarded – and it needs to be rediscovered, revived, and made alive again.

“During the time of the birth of the Vineyard, the church was rediscovering the charismata, or gifts of the Spirit. Incorporating them into the life of the church, with all of us participating (‘everyone gets to play’), was one of the highlights of Vineyard understanding. Instead of the ‘one’ getting to play, ‘everyone’ was getting to play. There was no special person, no superstars. Even in our music, the simplicity of the chords and words took music that might have headed into performance back to intimacy, without hype.

“First generation Vineyard people came from an incredibly varied set of backgrounds. We ranged from burned-out church leaders from many denominations, to those who had never stepped foot in a church building. Some showed up in suits and ties, only to find out that the casual mode (in dress and attitude) of the Vineyard atmosphere was actually an intentional piece of our liturgy. In those days, the wide range of doctrinal statements was of little importance. We said, ‘Come as you are, you’ll be loved.’ God was gathering a people made up of ordinary people.

“The Vineyard Movement has a very unique opportunity to pass on a healthy template of what it means to be the Church to another generation. We will stay flexible and pliable in what is negotiable, as we stay the course in our main and plain, divine assignment to be worshippers of God and rescuers of people.”

– Phil & Jan Strout

Church History, Vineyard Movement

What is the Vineyard? Our History – Booklet Excerpt #2

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “What is the Vineyard?” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

Kenn and Joanie Gulliksen
A Brief Snapshot

The first Vineyards were planted in 1975. By 1982, there were at least seven “Vineyards” in a loose-knit fellowship of churches. Kenn Gulliksen, a soft-spoken, unassuming leader with a passion to know and walk with God, started a church in Hollywood in 1974. In 1975, believing that God had instructed him to do so, he officially gave the name “Vineyard” to this association of churches and led them for about five years.

In the early 1980s, Kenn felt led to ask John Wimber to assume leadership for the growing movement. The official recognition of this transition took place in 1982: the emergence of what was to be called the “Association of Vineyard Churches.”

John Wimber

John Wimber’s influence profoundly shaped the theology and practice of Vineyard churches, from their earliest days until his death in November 1997. When John was conscripted by God, he was, in the words of Christianity Today, a “beer-guzzling, drugabusing pop musician, who was converted at the age of 29 while chain-smoking his way through a Quaker-led Bible study.”

john and carol wimberIn John’s first decade as a Christian, he led hundreds of people to Christ. By 1970 he was leading 11 Bible studies that included more than 500 people. John became so fruitful as an evangelical pastor he was asked to lead the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth. He also later became an adjunct instructor at Fuller Theological Seminary, where his classes set attendance records. In 1977, John re-entered pastoral ministry to plant Calvary Chapel of Yorba Linda.

During this time, John’s conservative evangelical paradigm for understanding the ministry of the church began to grow. George Eldon Ladd’s theological writings on the kingdom of God convinced John intellectually that all the biblical gifts of the Holy Spirit should be active in the Church.

Encounters with Fuller missiologists Donald McGavaran and C. Peter Wagner, along with seasoned missionaries and international students, gave John credible evidence for combining evangelism with healing and prophecy. As he became more convinced of God’s desire to be active in the world through all the biblical gifts of the Spirit, John began to teach and train his church to imitate Jesus’ full-orbed kingdom ministry. He began to “do the stuff” of the Bible, about which he had formerly only read.

Early Experiences With The Holy Spirit

As John and his congregation, mostly made up of former Quakers, sought God in intimate worship, they experienced empowerment by the Holy Spirit, significant renewal in the gifts, and conversion growth. Since it soon became clear that the church’s emphasis on the experience of the Holy Spirit was not shared by some leaders in the Calvary Chapel movement, John’s church left Calvary Chapel in 1982 and joined the Association of Vineyard Churches.

A Network Of Churches Worldwide

Over time, the Vineyard movement has grown to be a network of over 1,500 churches worldwide. We seek to blend the best of the evangelical traditions with their focus on Christ-like character and regard for the Scriptures, with the best of the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions of welcoming the empowering of the Holy Spirit for life, ministry, and acts of service.

Vineyard Movement

What is the Vineyard? An Introduction – Booklet Excerpt #1

[box]The following text is an excerpt from the recently released “What is the Vineyard?” booklet published by the Vineyard USA.[/box]

what is the vineyardIf you’re reading this, it’s likely that you are somehow involved in a local Vineyard congregation. You may be a pastor or leader in that church, or maybe you’re an occasional attender or first-time guest. What you may not know is that this Vineyard church is part of a larger family of churches known as the Vineyard movement.

Vineyard USA is a community of churches with a common heritage and set of values. We are organized in a fairly simple structure, but we are mainly held together by relationships. Most Vineyard churches were planted from other Vineyard churches, and meetings between pastors and leaders often have the feel of a family reunion.

Vineyard churches have a refreshing blend of unity and diversity. There are some qualities you will find at almost any Vineyard church: intimate worship, openness to the Holy Spirit, a high value placed on relationship and community. At the same time, because we value the autonomy of the local church, there will be wide variations of church size, buildings, music styles, preaching styles, and any number of other things. We believe this diversity is a strength, as it enables us to reach the many regions and people groups of the United States with various forms and expressions of congregating.

The Vineyard has some national structures that help hold the movement together. A national director and executive board provide leadership. Regular meetings at both local and national levels provide a place for community and care as well as broad vision-casting for all the different pastors and leaders in our movement.

Launching new initiatives has always been part of the Vineyard’s DNA, so two important national ministries are organized around launching new domestic and international congregations. We work together to identify places where God might be calling us, pinpoint leaders, and develop strategies to see new churches come into being.

Worship music has always been a central part of Vineyard churches, so perhaps over the years the most well-known arm of the Vineyard has been the Vineyard Worship branch of Vineyard USA. Its leaders strive to find the best songs and approaches to leading congregations into heartfelt worship singing. Then, through albums, conferences, and trainings, Vineyard Worship distributes these to the rest of the Vineyard and beyond. Vineyard Worship historically has been one of the most impacting branches inside and outside our movement.

The Vineyard is committed to being a community of churches that live out the words and works of Jesus. But how did we get started, and who are we now?