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Everyone Gets To Play: John Wimber's teachings . . . on Life Together In Christ
Kindle version via Amazon.com ^ | 2008 | Christy Wimber

Posted on 10/06/2011 8:55:37 PM PDT by Quix

“Hold on a second!” I interrupted. “Are you saying that to become a Christian somebody might have to give up everything he has?” “Well, what do you think the text means?” Gunner replied.

. . .

“After I had this encounter with the Lord about the Pearl and realized I didn’t care much about what God wanted from me, sure enough over the next few weeks God bgan to help me liquidate my assets.

I prayed, “Okay, Lord, you can have my career,” and it was as though two giant hands came out of heaven and opened my fingers, and a voice said, “Thank you.”

. . .

Since that day, I have found that all through our lives, in our service to God and His people, we will be put in situations where others look at us with disdain because our obedience and sacrifice to God doesn’t make any sense to them. . . .

Some Christians make the mistake of what I call outward obedience. They become focused on their acts of service as evidence of being obedient Chrisitians. This kind of life does not provoke the level of disapproval from some other Christians that a life of service founded on intimate love or passion will.

. . .

Many believe they are walking out the Christian life when in fact their lives are miserable because they are living in a way that’s inconsistent with the call of God and the revelation of Scripture. No one has ever stopped and told them, “There’s more to this than just bowing your knee and praying the prayer.”

. . .

Two

Learning to Love
“WE’RE ALL JUST ONE VEGETABLE IN GOD’S STEW”

. . .

. . .one of the greatest traits John carried was instead of being “threatened” by the whole Church, he chose to love. John wrote the following article, addressing leaders in the Vineyard, concerning the Vineyard Movement and the course between chaos and traditional denominationalism that I believe is an important aspect of our foundation.

. . .

In 1984, the number of Vineyard churches was growing rapidly. We made the decision to formalize the structure that had evolved. . . .

. . .

. . . Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about that.

Years ago I talked about explorers and homesteaders in the Vineyard. I said at one time that explorers are radicals and usually spin out because they can’t stand the containment of an organization. Explorers seek adventure. Homesteaders, on the other hand, build community, leaving a heritage for future generations.

Homesteaders use, need and create structure, . . .

. . .

As an organism, the Vineyard needs organization. Compare two life forms: an amoeba and a human body. Which can accomplish more?

. . .

The key is life and relationship with God, not organization or lack thereof. . . .

. . .

. . . I also believe that it’s important to introduce structure carefully always being aware that the organization is subservient to the organism. No one wants to join something he has to be subservient to. We want to join something that will help us realize our potential. . . .

. . .

Through centuries of sectarianism and fracturing, most Christian today allow differences to divide rather than appreciating and celebrating our distinctions and diversity. Our relations as an extended family are typically clouded by distrust and disrespect.

I want to relate to the whole Body of Christ. Biblical unity to me flows from learning to love what Jesus loves—learning to love the whole Body of Christ. . . .

. . .

I want to see the Vineyard work through this question: “How can brethren major on the things we agree on, ignore the things we disagree on, and move forward together?”

. . .

Denominationalism promotes one denomination over the rest of the Church and asserts that “our grou” is better than any other group.

I can totally make my peace with the reality of different denominations, but I totally reject the idea of denominationalism. . . .

. . .

. . . Separation is when I declare your “brand” of Christianity is inferior to mind because of what you belong to and what you avow or are committed to.

A denomination devoted to sectarianism can have correct theology and have wrong attitudes towards the rest of the Body of Christ, which is an emphasis on “do it our way or take the highway.”

We must remember that we can become so enamored of who we are and what we do …and that’s a mistake,..It’s reminiscent of the Tower of Babel . . .

. . .

. . .What I am saying is that division is not so much a structural problem as an attitudinal one. . . .

. . .

Leaders need to take risks and continue to grow in the same way we took risks and continued to grow. If they don’t, God will hopefully raise up some other renewal movement, and they will be seen as irresponsible radicals in much the same way some parts of the institutional church regard the Vineyard today.

Remember, Church history reveals a cycle in which the homesteaders of one renewal movement persecute the pioneers of the most recent move. . . .

. . . If we’re not diligently humbling ourselves before the Lord, the Vineyard will do the same thing to someone else eventually. This sinful attitude is often the result of fear. This is because new and different group leaders frighten us, so we attack them, thereby sowing discord, perpetuating the practice of judging people and practices without proper examination. In this situation, slanderous reports confirming our prejudices are often gladly accepted and passed off as a fact to others. May the Vineyard never be accused of contributing to that ugliness.



. . . The Vineyard is not the issue. We need organization to exist—God called us, and I’m not ashamed of us—but the issue is the Body of Christ. We must lift up no other name but the hallowed name of Jesus. God is passionate for the glory of His own name and will not yield to any man or group. . . .

. . .


TOPICS: Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Culture; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: christianlife; johnwimber; leadership; unity
These brief excerpts are a good clue of the excellent quality of this book.

John's character and heart for The Lord come through loud and clearly.

I believe he documents very vividly crucial END TIMES ERA priorities for the Body of Christ.

I strongly encourage anyone interested at all to get this book as well as the earlier one:

THE WAY IN IS THE WAY ON--also by Christy Wimber.

BTW, I've learned to really appreciate the Kindle versions. They are easier to keep with me--in my pocket--to make use of snippets of time here and there.

I also believe his insights have merit regarding the interactions beteen RC's and Proddys hereon.

. . . as well as for the whole idea of what a church structure and leadership are to Biblically be about.

1 posted on 10/06/2011 8:55:42 PM PDT by Quix
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To: Alamo-Girl; Amityschild; AngieGal; AnimalLover; Ann de IL; aposiopetic; aragorn; auggy; ...

END TIMES PING LIST PING . . . AND TO my Calvinist loved ones.


2 posted on 10/06/2011 9:06:02 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: All
Ping to read later. Former Vineyard pastor Tom Stipe had this to say about the Vineyard movement:
...I went back to teaching the Bible in the most basic fashion I could, verse by verse. When I first announced that we were going to go through the Gospel 'of John for the better part of the year, the response of some was, 'Why the Book of John? I read that when I was a baby Christian.' Others were horrified that I would discourage shaking and twitching "in the Spirit." What had been a church of 4,400 shrank as people left to join the 'holy laughter" movement. My hate mail grew to enormous proportions. Even the movement's leader publicly denounced me, predicting that God would kill me for my 'sin." God was true to His word in the midst of the storm that our congregation endured during what we later called 'the year of slander.' Within a few months, several hundred people came to a saving knowledge of Christ. Baptisms increased simply because there were new converts to baptise. People's lives were radically changing, and the church was becoming healthy again. Attendance increased almost overnight. Within a year, we added a third service to our Sunday schedule. Currently our congregation is moving past 6,000, and our struggles are with ordinary, normal issues of Christian life. All of this because of the basics. It's really that simple.
-- Tom Stipe, in his forward to the book Counterfeit Revival, from the thread PROPHECY DU JOUR
Related threads:
Is Nicene Christianity that important? An historical-ecumenical note
Elephant Room invite undermines black evangelicals
3 posted on 10/06/2011 9:07:49 PM PDT by Alex Murphy (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2703506/posts?page=518#518)
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To: Joya


4 posted on 10/06/2011 9:12:31 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Quix

Thanks for the ping!


5 posted on 10/06/2011 9:20:08 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alex Murphy

I think even you might find a LOT of BIBLICAL food for thought in both the Wimber books.

He’s more like Christ in my experience and observations of Christian leaders than all but a very few others I’ve met in my 64 years. In most respects, he’s one of two most humble, anointed and sold out to Jesus intenational leaders I’ve known.


6 posted on 10/06/2011 9:24:42 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Alex Murphy

And you should see Tom’s church now. It is a shadow of what it was. The attendance has dropped by the hundreds and the worship is nothing to what it was years ago. Tom appears to counting the days until retirement. The holy spirit has left that house.


7 posted on 10/06/2011 10:10:08 PM PDT by Windriver
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To: Quix

Wimber, yes. His writings are a blessing in my life.

Thanks for posting the thread. God be with you, FRiend.


8 posted on 10/06/2011 10:38:11 PM PDT by Joya (http://www.amazon.com/QUESTIONS-BUILDING-LOVE-Conversational-ebook/dp/B005GHDSOC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&)
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To: All
As an organism, the Vineyard needs organization. Compare two life forms: an amoeba and a human body. Which can accomplish more?

And that is why there has been orthodoxy since Apostolic times in the form of the Church that Christ Himself inaugurated -- His bride the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church (Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, Assyrian) with our traditional, conservative Anglican, Lutheran etc. brethren.

9 posted on 10/07/2011 12:54:19 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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To: Quix; Alex Murphy; D-fendr; MarkBsnr; Natural Law; Judith Anne; Dr. Eckleburg
"to my Calvinist" -- interesting, this is what you can find in a Calvinist webiste:
FALSE TEACHERS EXPOSED: John Wimber
"There is no place in the Bible where people were lined up and Jesus or Paul or anyone else went along and bapped them on the head and watched them go down, one after another, and somebody else ran along behind. Can you picture Peter and James -- "Hold it, hold it, hold it!" -- running along behind trying to catch them? And so the model that we're seeing, either on stage or on television, is totally different from anything that's in Scripture."
(John Wimber, "Spiritual Phenomena: Slain In The Spirit -- Part 1," Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Anaheim, CA, 1981, audiotape)

'There's nothing in Scripture that supports these kinds of phenomena that I can see, and I can't think of anything throughout the church age that would,' Wimber writes. 'So I feel no obligation to try to explain it. It's just phenomena. It's just people responding to God.'

"In the final chapters I address the implications of power evangelism for conservative evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and the charismatic renewal in mainline denominations and the Roman Catholic Church. Though I write about power evangelism, the most powerful evangelism will come only when Jesus' prayer for Christian unity is fulfilled."

====================================================================

"He holds a radical Arminianism (some might well argue it is Pelagianism). Wimber seems to have little or no appreciation of the doctrine of the Fall and speaks of being involved in "restoring the Edenic state" in and through his ministry."
(Assessing the Wimber Phenomenon, Dr. Don Lewis)

Seems like your Calvinist friends have no love for Wimber...
10 posted on 10/07/2011 1:02:18 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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To: Quix; Alex Murphy; RnMomof7
"to my Calvinist" -- interesting, this is something else you can find in another Calvinist webiste:
ondoctrine: John Wimber
he inevitable conclusion of John Wimber's theology is the acceptance of an emotional and experiential approach to spiritual truth in which experience in itself becomes the self-validating criteria confirming the nature of a religious experience. This self-validation process takes two main forms:
  1. I had an experience, therefore it is from God.
  2. My experience was from God because I feel that it was.

The emotional reaction to an experience then becomes the verification of the presumed true spiritual nature of that experience, and becomes the criteria for judgment rather that Biblical teaching or the application of doctrinal principles. With that theological foundation in place, the Vineyard Fellowship became the perfect object for the introduction of emotional and experiential manifestations such as the Toronto Blessing which was introduced into the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship (Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship). Leadership, under men like John Arnott, could then tell their congregation to receive the manifestation first and analyze it later; an approach that allows false teaching and heresy to enter the church prior to any person analyzing its content and, at the same time, allows leadership to increase its control and position of power. Although he initially rejected the Toronto Blessing, John Wimber then embraced and supported it.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A CONTROLLABLE ENTITY

This belief is no more apparent than in the performances surrounding the Toronto Blessing phenomenon, in which the Holy Spirit is commanded, directed and given permission by the leadership in charge, to make an appearance and manifestation, which results in the excesses of that experience.

Since the Holy Spirit is part of the trinitarian nature of the Godhead, it is presumptuous at best and heretical at the worst to assume that a person, even a pastoral leader, has the authority or ability to call or command an appearance by the Holy Spirit. If, or when, the Holy Spirit makes an appearance, it is based on the sovereign and consummate will of God, not the desire of leadership to express their self-proclaimed power and authority based on the times during which a church fellowship meets. In Charismatic practice, the Holy Spirit becomes a genie, appearing on command and conforming to a scripted performance.

In Charismatic practice, the Holy Spirit becomes a genie, appearing on command and conforming to a scripted performance.

Seems like your Calvinist friends have no love for Wimber...

11 posted on 10/07/2011 1:11:28 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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To: Quix; Alex Murphy
"to my Calvinist" -- and finally from another Calvinist webiste:
on the Toronto blessing
John Wimber himself, is revealed as a chameleon, modifying his theology and shifting his ground whenever challenged. The authors point to significant variations in his published testimonies (p.221ff); they question the authorship of books bearing his name (p.222); note his attack on the need for a rational mind (p.235); and his unfulfilled prophecies (p.239ff). These include claims made in 1989 that a new strain of AIDS would be released which only the church would be able to heal (p.239),

Seems like your Calvinist friends have no love for Wimber or his teachings...

12 posted on 10/07/2011 1:18:52 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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To: Windriver; Alex Murphy

That’s sad to hear of.

However, as I’ve noted, I met John 1:1. I’ve watched many hours of his videos. He’s probably the MOST authentic, anointed, balanced, humble, sold-out-to-Jesus man I’ve ever met. The FUIT OF HIS MINISTRY IS ABUNDANT, BIBLICAL, MIRACULOUS AND CHRIST/HOLY-SPIRIT SATURATED.

Alex, I’m grieved that you could, would blackwash such a man without reading the posted quotes. I’d not have expected that of you ahead of time.


13 posted on 10/07/2011 5:50:33 AM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Quix
Alex, I’m grieved that you could, would blackwash such a man without reading the posted quotes. I’d not have expected that of you ahead of time.

On the contrary - I did read the quotes, all of them, before posting. What would make you believe otherwise?

14 posted on 10/07/2011 6:08:39 AM PDT by Alex Murphy (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2703506/posts?page=518#518)
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To: Alex Murphy

GOOD. Thanks for telling me that.

I was only inferring from the speed with which that post appeared.

What did you disagree with, of what you read?


15 posted on 10/07/2011 6:38:24 AM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Quix; Windriver; Alex Murphy; MarkBsnr; Judith Anne; Natural Law
He’s probably the MOST authentic, anointed, balanced, humble, sold-out-to-Jesus man I’ve ever met

Just as you've said before that Jesse Duplantis is probably the MOST authentic, anointed, balanced, humble, sold-out-to-Jesus guy who preaches the pentecostal message?

16 posted on 10/10/2011 3:11:30 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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To: Quix

john Wimber seems more and more of a charlatan, the more I read of him on those Calvinist websites...


17 posted on 10/18/2011 11:44:10 AM PDT by Cronos (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2787101/posts?page=58#58)
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