A Personal Reminiscence

Don Williams

It was the fall of ‘87 and I was in the crisis of my life. While on vacation, I was fired by the elders from pastoring Mt. Soledad Presbyterian Church in La Jolla, California. It was a “palace revolution.” The congregation was stunned. I was devastated, sunk in depression. It was as if my insides had been ripped out. One minute I was leading a large church. The next minute I was unemployed. After the ax fell, I instinctively found myself racing to Anaheim and sitting with John and Carol Wimber. Why did I do this?

When I began guest preaching at Mt. Soledad in 1980, the church was a shadow of itself. Under a hundred people gathered in an all-purpose building overlooking the Pacific. Unknown to me at the time, the Presbytery was preparing to close the church. Located in one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S., the dwindling congregation absorbed denominational funds to survive. After I began to preach, we grew to over a thousand members with three Sunday services and a network of home groups. This was originally fueled by a strong evangelical message, but in 1984 the Holy Spirit began to visit us in power. His coming was directly related to the influence of John Wimber.

The previous year (1983), my wife Kathryn and I were in crisis. We were reeling from a violent outside attack on our marriage. A caring friend encouraged me to visit John Wimber’s class at Fuller Seminary, M.C. 510, where “Signs and Wonders’ were not merely taught, but caught through clinic experiences at the end of the lectures. He thought this might help bring healing to my pain. While I was unable to catch the class, I did find my way to the Anaheim Vineyard in the late Spring. As I entered the parking lot of Canyon High School for the evening service, people were literally running toward the gym. Clearly they weren't drifting in for church as usual.

Once inside, I was greeted by an auditorium filled with about 2,000 people, informally dressed. I slipped into the bleachers. A group of musicians mounted the platform at one end of the basketball court and began to play simple songs. There were no lyric sheets, no overheads, but virtually everybody began to worship. One song followed the other, often repeated. As I watched, I saw something new: a vast congregation singing to the Lord rather than to each other. Most were seated, some were standing with arms raised, some were kneeling. Many faces were wet with tears. Many were shining. Most were lifted heavenward. As a traditional Presbyterian, this staggered me. My worship context was three hymns punctuated with prayers, responsive reading, announcements, and sermon. But here was non-stop singing for a half an hour. Because the songs were simple, I found myself tentatively joining in the repetition.

After worship, the large man at the keyboards, who I identified as John Wimber, got his Bible and began to speak. From my days in the “Jesus Movement” of the ‘60’s, I expected a pop sermon from Revelation on the end of the world. I got a thoughtful sermon on the kingdom of God, come and coming and our place in it “between the times.” Skeptical me was impressed. Then came the “ministry time,” which included a barrage of “words of knowledge” or prophetic words indicating people God wanted to heal that night. Scores responded and exited to a side room where a ministry team was ready to pray for them. I went into the Southern California night saying to myself, “I don’t know what worship is, but whatever it is, this is ‘state-of-the-art.’”