| Association of Vineyard Churches | |
| The Vineyard USA logo | |
| Classification | Protestant |
|---|---|
| Geographical areas | Worldwide |
| Congregations | 1,500[1] |
| Official website | www.vineyard.org |
The Association of Vineyard Churches, also known as the Vineyard Movement, is a neocharismatic evangelical Christian denomination[2] with over 1,500 affiliated churches worldwide.[1]
The Vineyard Movement is rooted in the charismatic renewal and historic evangelicalism. Instead of the mainstream charismatic label, however, the movement has preferred the term Empowered Evangelicals (a term coined by Rich Nathan and Ken Wilson in their book of the same name) to reflect their roots in traditional evangelicalism as opposed to classical Pentecostalism. Members also sometimes describe themselves as the "radical middle" between evangelicals and Pentecostals, which is a reference to the book The Quest for the Radical Middle, a historical survey of the Vineyard by Bill Jackson.
It has been associated with the "Signs and Wonders" movement,[3]:199 the Toronto blessing,[3]:222 the Kansas City Prophets[3]:160 and a particular style of Christian worship music.[3]:212
The Vineyard operates a publishing house, Vineyard International Publishing.
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The first Vineyard Church started when Kenn Gulliksen brought together two Bible studies, both meeting at the houses of singer/songwriters: Larry Norman and Chuck Girard.[4] In early 1975, thirteen groups met at the Beverley Hills Women's club.[5]:80 These Bible studies, and others like them, were attended by many popular actors/actresses and musicians including Bob Dylan.[5]:81 Gulliksen's Vineyard had spun off sister churches.
In 1977, John Wimber, an evangelical pastor and teacher on church growth, founded a Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda, California.[1] Wimber's teaching on healing and the ministry of the Holy Spirit led to conflict with Calvary Chapel. In a meeting with Calvary Chapel leaders, it was suggested that Wimber's church stop using the Calvary name and affiliate with Gulliksen's Vineyard movement.[6] In 1982, Wimber's church changed its name to the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Gulliksen turned over the churches in under his oversight to Wimber, beginning his leadership of the Vineyard movement.
Beginning in 1988, Wimber established relationships with prophetic figures such as Paul Cain, Bob Jones, and Mike Bickle who pastored Kansas City Fellowship, an independent church which would come under the Vineyard banner as Metro Vineyard (see Kansas City Prophets). For a time, these men had considerable influence on Wimber and the Vineyard—according to Jackson, Wimber's son was delivered from drug addiction through a prophetic word from Jones.[7] However, there were those in the Vineyard who were skeptical, and Wimber himself became disillusioned over the restorationist teaching and failed prophecies of these men. Around 1991, Wimber began to distance himself from the prophetic movement, leading the Vineyard back to a church-planting direction, while Bickle's church withdrew and dropped the Vineyard label.
The Vineyard Movement suffered a visible leadership vacuum after Wimber's death on November 16, 1997.[8] However, Todd Hunter, who served as National Coordinator since February 1994 and as acting Director of the Vineyard at the time of Wimber's death, became the National Director in January 1998 and served in that capacity until he resigned in May 2000.[9] After Hunter's resignation, the National Board of Directors named Bert Waggoner of Sugar Land, Texas, as the new National Director. As of 2007, the Association of Vineyard Churches includes over 1,500 churches around the world, and this number continues to grow due to a strong priority placed on church-planting within the Vineyard mission.[1]
For most of the early life of the Vineyard Movement, Vineyard churches had no official statement of faith. This is not to be interpreted as an absence of a common belief structure; rather, the primary reasons for the absence of such a declaration were:
According to text in the official Vineyard Statement of Faith[10] released in 1994, an effort to create a common Statement of Faith had been underway since 1983, but took 10+ years to complete because: "On one hand, we felt obliged to set forth our biblical and historically orthodox beliefs, on the other hand, we wanted to describe the values and priorities that make the Vineyard unique within the context of Evangelicalism."[11]
The Vineyard Statement of Faith is generally considered to be a biblically-based Evangelical Christian profession of faith, with no mention of any issues that are considered to be controversial or divisive. In addition to the Statement of Faith (released in 1994), the church released a statement of "Theological and Philosophical Statements" penned by Bert Waggoner in 2004 to clarify the church's position on some issues that had been unclear from the Statements of Faith, including the church's priorities as it relates to worship and Bible study. The church also has published a 10-point "Vineyard Genetic Code," taught to a session of senior leadership by John Wimber in 1992, that outlines the 10 areas of ministry considered essential to any Vineyard church. Rich Nathan has described the Vineyard movement as part of a "Third Wave of the Holy Spirit" in America.Vineyard philosophy has also played a key role in the development of the transformationalism school of Christian thought.
One of the most important aspects of the Vineyard church model is the strong emphasis on connecting with God through worship. Generally in regular gatherings, whether they are main Sunday services or small “homegroups” based in private homes, equal time is given to both worship and Bible study, and a significant amount of time is also devoted to prayer and one-on-one ministry. This focus on worship and connection with the Holy Spirit is one of the primary reasons (along with the active nature of spiritual gifts discussed previously) that John Wimber gave for breaking with the Calvary Chapel movement. Worship in the Vineyard almost always is performed in a contemporary worship format, with a multi-piece band leading worship, but is not restricted to this style.
The unique nature of this contemporary worship music (especially unique in the 70s and 80s, when most mainstream denominations limited their worship to more traditional hymns) gained a lot of interest, and led to the formation of a special music ministry, later formed into a church-supported music recording and distribution company, Vineyard Music.
Vineyard Church pastors and ministers are officially ordained after years of church service in the role of a lay leader, rather than after seminary education as in mainline Protestant denominations. Clergy in the Vineyard, like the membership and the church as a whole, are known for their “relaxed” style. More likely than not, clergy will be seen preaching on Sunday morning in jeans and a button-down shirt, and they never wear ceremonial vestments.
Many Vineyard Churches have no official membership procedures or membership records, and such a policy is not dictated by the national Vineyard Church. Instead, a community of believers is formed by those who attend Sunday or weekend services, weekday homegroups, and participate in various church ministries.
The Vineyard has a highly decentralized organizational structure, reflecting the church's belief that local and regionally-based management, ministries and outreach are more effective. Besides the nations listed below, the Vineyard also exists in many countries across Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Far East. Most national Vineyard churches are charged with their own governance, although some smaller groups exist with the support and oversight of another nation's leadership.
The national headquarters of Vineyard USA is currently located in Sugar Land, Texas. Vineyard USA is divided into eight regions, and each region has clusters of churches grouped together by relationship and location, facilitated by an Area Pastoral Care Leader (APCL). The APCL's work together with the Regional Overseer (RO) to provide leadership and encouragement to the region. The central governing body of the Vineyard in the U.S. is a 12-member National Board, made up of the eight regional overseers plus four additional leadership members, including the National Director. Currently, the President and National Director is Bert Waggoner. All major strategic decisions, including theological and doctrinal statements, are made by the National Board. In 2004, Vineyard USA had 140,000 members in 600 churches.[12]
Canada was the first country outside the United States to be accorded its own independent National Association. The first Canadian Vineyard was established in Vancouver in January 1985. Within a year, a second Vineyard was established in the Vancouver area. More churches followed, and by the time of the release of the Association of Vineyard Churches Canada in the summer of 1995 and the appointment of Gary and Joy Best as National Directors of Canada, there had been fifty Vineyards established across the country.[13]
The Association of Vineyard Churches UK (AVC) was released in the spring of 1996 by the international association as its own national organisation. It is governed by a Council through a number of task forces, including a Board of Trustees, which oversees the pastors of existing churches and facilitates church planting.[14] There are more than 100 Vineyard Churches in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.[15]
In 1995, the first Vineyard churches were commenced in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane, Australia. On 13 March 2003, the Association of Vineyard Churches, Australia was formed, with Peter and Kathy Downes commissioned as National Directors.[16] As of June 2009, there were 33 Vineyard Churches in Australia.[17]
In February 2009, the Association launched a School of Ministry, in conjunction with Perth Bible College.[18]
The first Vineyard church in Germany started in the mid-nineties near Munich. In 1999, the national association - Vineyard DACH (Deutschland, Austria, CH-Switzerland) - was released under the leadership of Martin and Georgia Bühlmann as National Directors. As of summer 2011, there are more than 70 Vineyard Churches in Vineyard DACH, with some of them within the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) or Roman Catholic Church. Vineyard DACH is governed by a leadership council, supported by task forces (church planting, worship, theology, training) and active in missions in countries such as Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast,Togo, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Moldovia, France, Spain etc. Vineyard DACH has started an African Migration Vineyard Movement in Europe with 12 Vineyards and is also very active in reaching Roma Gypsies in different European countries.
Vineyard Music is a record label created and used by the Association of Vineyard Churches. The organisation uses it to release worship albums. A UK branch of the record label exists, called Vineyard Records. Its musicians include Kathryn Scott, Nigel Briggs, Samuel Lane, Marc James, Nigel Hemming, Casey Corum, Carl Tuttle, Brenton Brown, Brian Doerksen, David Ruis, Andy Park, Jeremy Riddle, Scott Underwood, Johanna Blanding-Koskinen, Jeff Searles, Rita Springer, Kevin Prosch and Steve Southworth.
Vineyard Music was developed by the Vineyard church in 1986. The church began to write its own worship songs, so John Wimber founded Mercy Records. This later became Vineyard Music.
Vineyard Music has won some industry awards, such as an award from ASCAP. Breathe was recognized in 2002 as ASCAPs most recorded song of the year.
The Vineyard operates its own 2-year leadership training program called Vineyard Leadership Institute, or VLI. VLI is housed on the campus of Vineyard Church of Columbus in Westerville, Ohio, and is directed by Steve Robbins. VLI is also offered in many Vineyard and some non-Vineyard churches through video and correspondence course curriculum. Vineyard clergy are not required to have been trained through VLI.
The Vineyard Bible Institute, a distance-learning Bible studies program, is based out of a Vineyard church in Cape Town, South Africa.
During the 1990s, the Vineyard was widely criticized by conservative Christians due to events during a series of revival meetings at the then Toronto Vineyard. These meetings, dubbed the Toronto Blessing, gained notoriety due to the large crowds, lengthy meetings, and reports of unorderly manifestations of the Holy Spirit, including people laughing, crying, and shaking.[20] Critics, such as Hank Hanegraaf in his book, "Counterfeit Revival", charged the Toronto Blessing (under Wimber's authority at the time) with promoting heresy for three main reasons: first, claiming unusual experiences of the Holy Spirit including physical responses, speaking in tongues, and prophesying; second, claiming that these experiences of spiritual revelation were equal in importance to the Bible; and third, claiming that these experiences were a sign that God was doing "something new."[21] Hanegraaf held that the Toronto Blessing (and thus the Vineyard movement) was denying sola scriptura or the “sufficiency of Scripture”, a doctrinal tenet that Protestant churches have held to be incontrovertibly true, by suggesting that all believers should come to see what "new thing" God was doing in Toronto. To cessationist and conservative thinking, this "new thing" felt dangerous and potentially cultist, putting the inerrant word of God on equal footing with the expression of a spiritual gift or, in the Hanagraaf's position, undermining the Bible with false teachings.[21] Ultimately, the Toronto church was released from the Vineyard movement due to the controversy of how the meetings were being handled.[22] For a detailed treatment of this topic, refer to "The Quest For the Radical Middle" by Bill Jackson (see related books below).
Wimber consistently emphasized that clear, accurate teaching and knowledge of the scripture is critical for every Vineyard church, without expressly stating the scriptures to be the final and supreme authority in all matters of faith. These items are included in the "Vineyard Genetic Code" paper he released in 1992.[23]
Throughout the early years of the Vineyard (1970s to 1992), Wimber avoided publicly responding to his critics.[24] Instead, he invited his critics to meet with him personally to talk through their charges in accordance with his understanding of Scripture (Mat 18:15–17, Gal 6:1, 1 Tim 5:1). However, as the influence of the Vineyard broadened and certain misunderstandings were repeated from different sources, both outside the church and within, Wimber made the decision to respond publicly. The decision is detailed in Vineyard Position Paper #1 entitled "Why I respond to criticism" authored by John Wimber.[24]
This was followed by a number of other position papers from various sources within the national Vineyard leadership which sought to address the most serious and widespread of the criticisms leveled against the movement.[25]
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