John Wimber as a Leader

By Don Williams

Vision is the Key

For Wimber, Christian leadership begins with receiving God’s vision for ministry. Behind this is his own sense of call. Early in his Christian life, he decided that it was “all or nothing.” “I’m a fool for Christ, whose fool are you?” With this radical commitment, he gave up his career in music, followed the example of his friend Gunner in evangelizing, and waited for God’s direction in his life. Carol Wimber writes, “What I find interesting is that he [John] didn’t lay down his career for something else. He laid it down because Jesus asked him to and there was no promise of ‘ministry in the future’ to soften the decision. It was a sacrifice born of obedience, and that is a key to understanding what motivated John Wimber his whole Christian life.”

God’s vision clearly came in stages, but it came. John was always a prophetic person, a person who had “hunches” from God. Never able to accommodate himself long term to the institutional church as it was, and never able to accommodate himself to the Enlightenment worldview which relegated “doin’ the stuff” [Wimber’s phrase for doing Jesus’ ministry] to the past, John helped build a significant Quaker church only to leave it. His wife Carol comments: “Though we loved that little church the way a drowning man would love the boat that he was hauled into, John and I would dream of a church that was designed just for us, the way we like it. No theatrics. Nothing staged. Our kind of music. Songs about Jesus. Casual and simple. Unpretentious and culturally current. Non-religious and transparent and honest. A ‘come-as-you-are’ gathering, where anyone would fit in, where one wouldn’t have to ‘dress up’ to go to church. Where the leader doesn’t look any different than the rest of the people.”

In the process of receiving God’s vision for ministry, John widened his understanding of the church through consulting with hundred’s of congregations through the Fuller Seminary’s “Institute for Church Growth.” This exposure not only made him an expert in the field, it also gave him a love for the whole church. His influence greatly extended over the church, nationally and internationally in coming years. John was welcomed by Anglican and New Church Leaders in England because he posed no threat to established congregations. He came not to criticize them, but to help and bless them. The result? Bishop David Pytchis said that he was the most influential leader in England since John Wesley..

God’s vision for John’s ministry came through a weeping prophet. In her tears John heard Jesus weeping over him and his ministry. It came through the word, “I’ve seen your ministry and now I’m going to show you mine.” It came through the question, “God wants to know when you are going to use your authority?” It came in the prophetic word of Jesus, “Give me back my church.” It came in John’s desire to have a church which he would want to attend himself. It came through the call to go home and pastor a remnant from the Quakers in Yorba Linda.

John was a leader because he was led by a vision for what the church could become if it resubmitted and surrendered to Jesus as its head. This is important, because John’s vision for ministry did not come through involvement in church planning, consultation, or strategic growth principles. John did not get his vision from Fuller Seminary or his travels. He got his vision from the Lord. It was spoken into his life. A vision which John had of dripping honeycomb, the grace of God welcomed by some, rejected by others, prepared him for the years of success and suffering in restoring kingdom ministry of healing and deliverance to the church.