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  PLANTING & GROWING CHURCHES
  by John Wimber
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of embracing change and
being a catalyst for transformation within the church. It highlights the
need to slowly introduce change, focusing on actions rather than just
words, and adapting to reach different demographics effectively. The
speaker shares personal experiences of spiritual growth, revival, and
the impact of ministering to the poor and marginalized, encouraging a
shift towards a more inclusive and dynamic approach to church ministry.

Topics: "Embracing Change", "Catalyst for Transformation"
Scripture References: Matthew 9:37, Acts 1:1, Matthew 5:3, Proverbs 3:5, James 1:22

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of embracing change and being a
catalyst for transformation within the church. It highlights the need to
slowly introduce change, focusing on actions rather than just words, and
adapting to reach different demographics effectively. The speaker shares
personal experiences of spiritual growth, revival, and the impact of
ministering to the poor and marginalized, encouraging a shift towards a
more inclusive and dynamic approach to church ministry.

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CONTENT
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My concern in coming to this meeting is that somehow I'm not portrayed
as a hero or anybody special or having some enablement or ability or
acumen that others don't have because I'm convinced that if there's
anything that proves the grace of God, it's my life. And that the Lord
is able, he's able to use people who will show up part of the time and
are faithful on occasion and that's the way I've qualified so far and
today. I think, I have intention this week of talking a little bit about
revival and at some point I want to talk about, from pastor to pastor, I
want to talk a little bit about the basic problem of insecurity because
I see that as, I've been asked to bring a word and that's what I see as
a major, major problem in the church today.

But I think that in order to kind of segue from what I've been hearing
and maybe to demythologize my role as a pastor and someone who is
himself in transition, I think it would be good to take a few minutes to
sort of introduce myself, you know, how do you get a John Wimber? What's
the process? What are the things that guide me and that are important to
me? And of course there's a number of circumstances that have to do with
encounters with God and also with encounters with men, the things that
shaped and formed me, information, circumstances that have been
providentially brought about that have given me the viewpoints that I've
had. Maybe by way of introduction I could say this, that I was converted
at 28 years old, I was a rock and roll musician, had a group called the
Righteous Brothers and we had some hit records and I had hit records
with other groups but that was the group I was with when I got converted
and I was converted into a little Quaker church in Southern California.
This church would have been typical to most Nazarene or Wesleyan
churches.

It was an Armenian, Wesleyan kind of theology holding this church. It
was a quaint little church in a quaint little community and of course I
didn't know one church from another, I'd never been in one, I didn't
have any concept, I was totally pagan, I was out of the pagan pool from
pagan Anaheim right next to pagan Disneyland. So I didn't have a concept
of church.

I remember once, I was a second world war kid, I grew up during that era
and I remember one time riding my bicycle along a street in Anaheim
called Broadway and there was churches along that street and I turned
and came down Santa Ana Street and there was a little Pentecostal church
there, I learned that later, but I didn't know Pentecostal from Baptists
or anything else in those days because when you don't go to church you
don't know the differences between them and I remember they had a little
neon light on the side and it would flicker on and on and I said Jesus
saves and I remember riding my bike, I was about 12 years old at the
time and I thought I wonder what it is he saves because being a second
world war kid we saved all kinds of things, we saved rubber bands, we
saved paper, we saved all kinds of stuff, but I didn't have a clue as to
what he saved and I didn't find it out until I was 28 years old and
somebody asked me one time, wait a minute you grew up in America and you
never met a Christian and I said well if I did he didn't blow his cover
in my presence, I didn't have anybody ever tell me about Jesus and when
I was 28 I was introduced to the Lord by a lovely man, he was a welder
and he had had some tragic circumstances in his life, his daughter had
been murdered and raped and which had given him a lot of notoriety and
as a result of that he had been driven into the streets to witness and
win people to Christ and by the time I met him he had won a couple of
thousand people one on one to Christ using the, he couldn't go anywhere,
everybody knew him because this was a major murder case in Southern
California, it was during the early era of television and so it was
carried nightly on the news sometimes several times a night for a matter
of six months so it was a very dramatic case and in fact Billy Roop the
young man that murdered her was the last person to die in the gas
chamber in California, which by the way the man that led me to the Lord
his name was Gunner Payne, Gunner had led him to the Lord before he died
in the gas chamber but Gunner was a soul winner, he just went door to
door and knocked on the door, everybody recognized him, they had a
softness towards him because of the tragedy and he would come in and
tell them all about, they'd want to know about the murder and he'd tell
them all about the Lord and so in due course of time we got to know each
other and he led me to the Lord and he discipled me, now he didn't use
the word disciple, he didn't know the word disciple but what he did was
he would just say do you want to go with me and I just went and did what
he did and pretty soon I could stand like him and spit like him and I
knew all of his favorite verses and all of his favorite stories and I
would say them as he was saying them and you know because all he did was
basically essentially the same thing, he would just go from house to
house and talk to people about Jesus and so we would make appointments
kind of like insurance salesmen and so when I remember on occasion he
had a son that had a tragic accident, the man had all kinds of tragedy
in his life and I keep talking into this microphone I forget that I have
this microphone on, he had all kinds of tragedy in his life and it's
interesting to me that often men that are mightily used of God, and he
has been, do have a great deal of tragedy in their lives, it's
interesting that that's not only true in the scripture but it's true you
know today, I sat countless hours that first year in Holmes and listened
to him answer some questions, you know some of the most obscure
questions and he would say well over here in Amos it says and back here
and that's how I got through the Bible for the first time and so
approximately a year into this process he had to move away and he
basically handed off to me and so I had a ministry of soul winning and
Bible study leading and it wasn't really Bible study because I didn't
know the Bible, I knew the first three chapters of the Gospel of John
and then I was dead in the water you know and I didn't know those that
well but so it really didn't matter what question they asked me I
answered the first three questions, the first three chapters of the
Gospel of John and I had an interesting homiletic and hermeneutic for
that matter, if I didn't know the answer I just made something up and
pretty soon the people that started getting wise you know to that and
they'd say well wait a minute that's not right and they'd say well over
here it says and I'd say well if you knew it why didn't you answer it
and so pretty soon they started bringing their Bible aids and their you
know stuff with them and we legitimately got into studying the Bible
together but just to keep me honest but you know it's silly and it's you
know funny looking back on it but it worked I led several hundred
perhaps a couple of thousand people to the Lord in a three or four year
period because I was so visible in Orange County as a musician I'd been
there a long time and I was kind of the you know in rock and roll one of
the early pioneers and had a major group and so I had a lot of
visibility and that became an entree to talking to a lot of people about
Jesus. Now all this process that was going on I was being introduced to
church life and I found church life to be a lot different than what I
had anticipated I can remember the first few weeks I had gone to Bible
study in this home, a friend's home for three or four months before I
went to the church for the first time and by then again being a pagan I
didn't even know God had a book out so I didn't know that there was an
Old Testament or a New Testament I didn't have any concept you know so
when they told me the new part was two thousand years old I couldn't
believe it and I remember starting to read it and I found out it was all
about Jewish people did you know that? I didn't know God was Jewish and
it was so strange because in the music industry and in television and
movies where I had worked I worked with lots of Jewish people so one of
my biggest difficulties before I got converted is every time I'd picture
Jesus I would picture a little haberdasher with a cigar in his mouth you
know making a deal you know a jeweler you know with a thing in his eye
or something like that you know not exactly you know your classic view
of Christ so anyway I got converted in this process I got discipled and
along this process I had read the gospels a number of times and I just
fell in love with Jesus I was so excited about him I just loved the
stuff he did did you like that stuff? Me too I just loved it I mean I
liked it when he you know made the multiplied the fishes and the loaves
didn't you like that part? And when he walked on the water was that hot?
I got a theory about walking on water you have to do it very fast anyway
I just loved him so I didn't know what they did at these churches and
they kept saying come to church with us come to church with us so
finally you know one time we went and I had what I had in mind after
reading the gospels was that all these people would come to this
building they would sort of pray a little bit and talk you know rev each
other up and talk about it and then sort of divvy up the turf and then
everybody would hit the streets and they'd go out and multiply a few
fishes and loaves and heal the sick and cast out a demon or two and win
the lost and then come back to church and meet in the afternoon so now
you know you're looking at me like no that's actually what I expected to
happen so I went there the first week and ready to go and we got in
there you know we all kind of it was a building something like this we
all kind of got seated and everything and they did this and they did
this and then they did this and then they did this but no fish you know
and no loaves no demons you know and so afterwards I you know I went to
this friend of mine who invited me and I said did they have a bye today
or what I mean what happened he says what do you mean and Carol grabbed
my sleeve and said come on you know don't be doing it you're a
troublemaker and all we knew how to do those days was fight and make
children and we finally quit doing both so we I went home and she
couldn't talk me into going back for two or three weeks and finally I
said okay I'll go but I'm only gonna go if they're gonna go do it so we
went back there and they didn't do it it's the same stuff that they did
the time before us but so afterwards I went out on the front lawn they
had a front lawn there where everybody sort of stood around and talked
afterwards and this guy had a badge you know that's on this he looked
important so I went up and grabbed his sleeve and I said excuse me and
he said yes he was kind of he's tall he's bigger than me and I said
excuse me and he said yes and I said when do they do it and he said do
what I said you know the stuff in the book he said what stuff I said you
know the stuff this stuff for this stuff here like sight to the blind
the deaf you know those kind of people dumb that kind of stuff you know
walking stuff you know the healing stuff the stuff that they do in the
book he looked at me like I had two heads he says oh we don't do it I
said what I said you don't do it and he says no we don't do it I said
wait a minute let me get this straight I said I gave drugs for this
you're telling me they don't do it he says no he says sometimes we sing
about it so I went and got in the car my wife and I had an argument all
the way home I said what's the use I mean when I worked for the devil he
let me do his stuff now I'm working for Jesus I want to do his stuff and
so I didn't know that anybody did his stuff in fact what I was taught
early on was that nobody was doing it better than they were and in fact
this was sort of the premier group nobody ever used that language but it
was the attitude and you know we would we would talk bad about this
group and bad about that group every now and then and cut this group up
and this doctrine down and you know and this when we were the group and
I remember looking around I think boy Lord you're in trouble this is the
group you know because this group is going out of business because and
it was it was shrinking all the time and I've been in business for a
long time and I knew about business and if there's anything I understood
was business I I've owned and operated now I think 61 businesses in my
life and I understand business I know I know all about business and our
business was bad we were not doing good and I remember going to the
pastor and telling him you know one day I said what do you have in mind
what are you what are you trying to accomplish he gave me the most
startled look you know and I found out after about an hour and a half of
listening to him that what he had in mind was this keep it on keep it on
you know just doing it was enough you know just doing having the
meetings and keeping the calendar and baptizing a child now and then and
you know doing this or doing marrying somebody burying somebody and I
thought there's got to be more to it than this well over the next few
months and years you know a number of things happened to me I had some
encounters with the Lord and I ended up in Bible school and seminary and
and early on I should tell you this I had an experience the Pentecostal
it's called baptism in the Holy Spirit and spoken tongues and that
without I've never read Acts and or Corinthians or Romans even at that
point and so I don't know what in the world was going on with me I went
home and told my wife and she said the devil had me and I said I don't
understand that because I mean how could the devil have me I've been so
good and she says all I know and she brought out this little book she
got from this radio preacher sure enough the devil had me so we went
down and talked to the to the pastor and she made me she made me show
him that I could do it what I could do listen to this she said and so I
did it and he said sure enough the devil had me and I said well I don't
understand how the devil got me I said I'm not sinning I'm not doing bad
I know how did the devil get me and he said well your problem is you
don't have sound doctrine if you had sound doctrine these things
wouldn't happen to you and he sent me off to Bible college and I got
sound doctrine and you know it was he was a true prophet because the
sounder I got the less of those things happened to me and so about a
12-year period went on during that time I was faithful to continue to do
personal evangelism and start small groups and things and that was a
wonderful era period of my life a very productive period it was set
during a portion of the Jesus people revival and in those days in Orange
County you could practically sneeze people into heaven and it was just
it was just wonderful to lead people to Christ and though I wasn't
working with the the hippie element I was still having my impact and it
was a wonderful and I don't want to in any way cheapen the Lord's
participation in my life it was wonderful but I there was an impugning
dynamic in that I was being told that one aspect of my Christian
endeavor was you know inappropriate and wrong and somehow a
psychological quirk or a false teaching or or the devil had me or some
other and I remember every now and then driving home from seminary and I
checked to see if the devil still had me I've always been a little bit
of a rebel you know just just a tinge and I'd check and sure enough he
still had me I think well you know he really holds on once he gets a
grip in some area of your life I just simply couldn't handle the ever-
increasing residual group of people that just didn't make it in that
kind of system I know now that some of them were demonized and others
were having other kinds of problems but I just they just kept falling
through the cracks it was breaking my heart to see people that I
sometimes gave countless hours to just unable to to overcome and unable
to function in a system that that really didn't recognize the enemy's
power much and didn't didn't recognize sin in the way that I think it I
now recognize it and some other things and at the same time I want you
to know that said that the people I worked with there were godly people
wonderful people I you know I owe much of my foundation and
understanding to them and with just a few points of departure I'm much
the same as they are today in the aftermath of that I had planted a lot
of churches as a byproduct of small groups and that became known and
Fuller Seminary approached me and asked me to pioneer a department of
church growth called the Fuller Evangelistic Association and it was a
consultative arm that worked with denominations and parachurch
organizations so between 1975 and 74 and 78 I worked with 27
denominations and nine parachurch organizations and as a church growth
advocate I still am people ask me today do you still believe in church
growth I do I the only proviso is that well I didn't believe it then I
used to say I'm a thoroughgoing church growth advocate except for two
things one is I do not think anything you learn from church growth can
grow a church only God can grow a church and I you know I always
believed that and so that's not inconsistent at all and furthermore that
that the assumption that learning these things will somehow give you
control or ability to manipulate growth and I don't believe either one
of those things I didn't believe it then I don't believe it now but
beyond that I really don't have any problem with church growth but not
everything that's called church growth is church growth but generic
church growth teaching is simply reporting it's reporting what God's
doing around the world and in such a way as it ought to be helpful to
help you discern what he may be doing maybe at an embryonic level in
your midst and in your group probably the two most important things that
happened to me at seminary is other than my not graduating one is I was
introduced to George Elton Ladd first time I ever met him he found a
sandwich in his pocket that had been there for four days he was a
classic absent-minded professor type you know he literally did he
reached it he says oh there that is you know it happened to be a tuna
sandwich I'll never forget George but he introduced to me the teaching
of the kingdom of God is and frankly it became the very foundation of
everything that I do it gave me the integrating theme that made the
Bible make sense to me up until then I had been trained as a
dispensationalist and whereas I haven't really left dispensationalism as
a whole I left one aspect of it cessationism which of course you
wouldn't agree with but I was introduced to and thought that it was true
I thought that all the gifts had died out the end of the Apostolic Age
and so that was one of the things I was indoctrinated in to get sound
doctrine so I wouldn't speak in tongues any longer so being introduced
to George was profoundly important and then one day I was sitting out on
the mall eating a sandwich and I was reading in the speed reading
actually the gospel of John and I came to the 14th chapter and I was
reading through it if you'll turn there with me I want to share three or
four verses that tell you the core of what I'm all about this is Jesus
speaking he's having this interaction with Philip Philip has said Lord
show us the father Jesus answered don't you know me Philip even after
I've been among you such a long time or with you such a long time anyone
who has seen me has seen the father how can you say show us the father
don't you believe that I am in the father than the father is in me the
words I say to you are not just my own rather it is the father living in
me who is doing his work 11th verse believe me when I say that I am in
the father and the father is in me or at least believe on the evidence
of the miracles themselves now what he's saying here is very logical
within a Hebraic mindset he's saying if you can't believe my testimony
believe that that testifies of me which is the miraculous and gives
evidence the fact and pointing in his case to his divinity as well as to
the undergirding and the backing up and blessing of his father and then
he says this incredible statement I tell you the truth anyone who has
faith in me will do what I have been doing now when you learn scripture
under a teacher they tell you what it doesn't mean and doesn't mean and
the ones once you've been taught that you have what we would call
paradigms viewpoints understandings and I had been taught what this
doesn't mean which is what it obviously says it does mean and that
controlled the way I viewed the text now I don't know if it was my Apple
or the sunlight or the fact I was reading a New American Standard or
what but I came to this text and I heard it like it was resounding in my
head I tell you the truth anyone who has faith in me will do what I have
been doing and it was like an explosion in my face and then I read on he
will do even greater things than these because I am going to the father
now at the time that I read the text I had been taught that of course
Jesus didn't mean even greater things and I you know there aren't many
commentaries or theological writings that you can find today that would
support what I think we have in common in our belief and that is the
understanding that it is in God's intention and is here being prophesied
by his son which the book Revelation tells us in whom the spirit of
prophecy you know is as its full being as it were and he's prophesying
about a time I believe yet to come in which the church will literally do
literally do literally do greater things than Jesus did now I have been
taught as I said not to believe that but that day you know it was just
like an explosion in my face and texts came to mind that might otherwise
seem a little obscure for instance there's a sort of a transitory news
brief found in the fourth chapter of the gospel of Matthew let me read
this to you and I'm going to dramatize it as I have in other places by
reading it as a newscaster because I think it helps contemporize it this
is the fourth chapter of Matthew the 23rd verse I'm reading it out of
the NIV which is necessary in vineyard Jesus went throughout Galilee
teaching in their synagogues preaching the good news of the kingdom and
healing every disease and sickness among the people news about him
spread all over Syria and people brought to him all who were ill with
various diseases those suffering severe pain the demon possessed those
having seizures and the paralyzed and he healed them large crowds from
Galilee the Decapolis Jerusalem Judea and the region across the Jordan
followed him more at 11 o'clock this little passage along with one found
in the ninth chapter of Matthew are like bookends on the outside of the
Galilean campaign and they clearly state clearly state that the
characteristics of the ministry of Jesus was done both in the doing and
the telling this is what Luke catches in the first chapter of the book
of Acts let's look at that for a second in his writings he says this in
my former book Theophilus I wrote about all that Jesus began and to what
to do and to teach now it was the marrying of these two ideas that
formulated my whole theology at least as it relates to ministry you see
the message of Jesus was contained not only in the words but also in the
works now I believe that we can be converted as it were outside of a
direct interaction with Scripture but I don't think we'll be fully
converted until we know the Scripture the Scripture knows us I think
conversion is a process as well as an event and that we we need to as it
were have our minds come under the tutelage of the Scripture now I know
that there's theological tensions with that but I think I can defend
myself ably in this particular area so I see the Word of God as the
message of God but I also see the works of God as the message of God
that is to say the Word of God gives the illumination but the works of
God give you the illustration the illumination without the illustration
is a incomplete message and in this century the phenomenon of the
Pentecostal charismatic and now third wave movement has married those
two ideas to the extent that it is impacted the church the world over
and we have various and sundry numbers summarizing the total at the
present time it ranges everything from 327 million to 372 million I
don't know if those two numbers have been turned around but there's no
question about it that the most incredible move of God in all the
history of redemption is going on today worldwide and it's inculcated in
the Pentecostal charismatic and now third wave aspects of the work of
God and so if there's anything that I felt that I had a got a hold of I
got a grasp of and remember this was back in 1985 and at that time we
didn't have Dr. Barrett hadn't published it we didn't have some of the
information we now have concerning the rapid growth of the Pentecostal
charismatic influence and so when God spoke to me so clearly and so
plainly it set me off like my grandpa used to say like a scalded dog
trying to work it out and I remember writing down I had a as I said a
new American standard was with a large what do you call border and I was
right I wrote down I must learn next to John 1412 I must learn to
believe what Jesus believed and do what Jesus did now since that time
and in fact if you want to know what I'm about that's it that's I'm
still working on John 1412 I haven't ever got to 1413 yet I'm still
trying to work out and my understanding is it comes comes out of the
core of it comes out of intimacy with Christ which is that is what Jesus
was saying to Philip when he said he is in the Father and the Father is
in me and so the two very important understandings that I have is one
that I've been called as a member of the body of Christ to work out in
some practical way an evidential Christianity that is more than just a
good idea more than just a good philosophical framework for working out
your life and it's in its derivatives it is a Christian experience an
experience with God that can be evidenced from day to day in place to
place among all people that transcends every culture every language and
every division that the enemy has been able to bolster or develop from
that day to this that's the kind of Christianity that I want to work
with and work in and along the way God spoke to me and gave me a
directive and that directive basically is he told me to go home to
Anaheim and plant a church and I'm still there and we're still in that
process but God called me at home to plant a church and but the
difficulty is he's really given me three basic jobs and one of the jobs
has to do with pastoring a church another is fostering and fathering a
movement and probably therein is that's been the most difficult part of
my pilgrimage the last ten years the movement has grown rapidly and I
don't know if it was false humility or real humility but I had
difficulty believing that God really wanted me to take those churches
seriously and it's only been in the as a direct encounter with Paul Kane
and in which he called me to account in the name of the Lord for my
fathering that that I've really taken seriously the role of spiritual
father and I want to go on record as saying that there have been a
number of helps and aids not the least of which was Ernie Gruen he's
helped me too in that regard and so I'm taking seriously the role of
fathering the churches now for the first time and I and I give more time
to it but the Lord told me a long time ago he gave me a third job and he
gave that to me out of Matthew 10 you don't need to turn there but you
know that's where Jesus sent out the twelve and he called them by name
and he gave an express and specific job to do and he told him to go not
to the Gentiles but to the house of Israel and told him to preach this
message the message of the kingdom and he told him to heal the sick cast
out demons raise the dead now the Lord took that text a number of years
ago and I know that this is an allegorical hermeneutic whereas I don't
believe you can use them for teaching I do believe that God uses them
for speaking to his children I think there's ample illustration of that
in the scripture where God abuses Old Testament Jesus himself abuses the
meaning of Old Testament text to give a new meaning in a New Testament
context and I believe the Holy Spirit still does that and so the Holy
Spirit gave me that text one day in prayer and said I want you to go to
the nation so I want you to go basically to the Western nations and I
want you to arouse them excite them make them mad at you he didn't tell
me that he just said I want you to go and preach this gospel to the
kingdom and I said where he says to the house of Israel and I said you
mean that you want me to literally go to Israel he said no the church
and so he sent me to the church so a long time ago he made a bargain
with me my understanding of the bargain is if I will give nine-tenths of
my time travel time to working in his church he will in effect grow mine
and that's been our agreement so that's the way that's the division of
labor I go out and do meetings such as this you know working trans
denominationally of all the weeks that I'm gone at nine-tenths of the
time I give to this kind of thing one-tenth of the time I give to the
movement the rest of time I spend home and the Lord is as blessed and
it's been wonderful and and I'm grateful for it he also told me as some
time ago to be a change agent and for 16 years now I've been teaching in
the doctoral program at Fuller some people think that I was fired at
Fuller I've never been fired I have all the work I want and more than I
want and during that time I've been teaching on being a change agent but
I'm teaching primarily there as well as in the meetings that I go out to
I mentioned a moment ago that we've had about 400 it's approaching
400,000 people in our meetings they're mainly leaders about 85% are
professionals that come to those meetings 63% of them are pastors and or
pastors wives so we're talking to professional people only 2% of them
are Pentecostals about 6% are Charismatics and the rest of them are
mainline church people largely conservative evangelicals and so God has
given me a target audience a group that he wants me to talk to and this
is the non-tongue speaking portion of the evangelical strata and my job
to them is to go and tell them that they need to speak in tongues no my
job is to go tell them that you don't have to leave your mind at home to
get your tongue to work or something like that and to preach the kingdom
of God to them and to get them to to expand their horizons and their
understandings and as I have prayed over it and worked with it and
analyzed it I think the main problem that I'm dealing with there as I go
to the conservative evangelical church is that they are theologically
theists but in practice deists and what I'm dealing with is and
assaulting again and again and again is a is a perception of the work of
God vis-a-vis the Holy Spirit that distances him and does not anticipate
or expect his present action or presence today now that is not the
problem in this room that's that's not my analysis of you and or a
Pentecostalism generally I think Pentecostalism has some other problems
and if you want to pay me a lot of money and get me a screen here where
I can stand behind it I'll tell you what your problems are someday and
so my job has been to go out and talk to a group of people and remember
Bob talked about waking how to wake a sleeping dog and go out and talk
to a group of people who are by and large believe they're right about
everything they're right and they know they're right and we are right
and when you're right you don't need any help or you know counsel or
work and you just let's just affirm how right we are by telling
everybody how wrong everyone else is and that's a kind of a cyclical
process in which they they they swirl in their reasoning we've come to a
place of liberal thinking through interaction with what is called a
higher criticism in the Anglican circles he would have difficulty with
any number of cardinal doctrines concerning Christ his birth and his
ascension that type of thing resurrection and then depending on which
circle you're in whether it's in Lutheranism or in Presbyterianism for
them if you study church growth as I have and still do you'll know that
there's been a continual out migration for 40 years now when you study
the decline of the Presbyterianism and Methodism and Episcopalianism and
other church systems here the United States and wherever we see a an
adherence to and a commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture and the
infallibility of Scripture and a substantial commitment to the cardinal
doctrines of the past you'll see a more solidarity and more substantial
church life wherever you see them vacillating it's just almost destroyed
the church and so and so America's changing advancing pluralism is set
in and throughout the South we've had major changes in communities and
there's been a number of studies showing the interaction between groups
and so on the one hand there's the larger menu of what's happening in
the nation but on the other hand there's there's that that that's coming
up through the nation such as what we call the baby boomers and somebody
was talking to me at lunch about you know the baby boomers and I
minister to the baby boomers and and in fact if I've heard two people
say this since I got here last night how with sort of an enviable sound
in her voice gee isn't it wonderful to be on the cutting edge of working
with the baby boomers hey it's not so hot the baby boomers are hard to
minister to it's very important that you understand the baby boomers are
entrenched in rebellion and witchcraft it's widespread and the
manipulation of themselves self-exploitation they're very mobile that
change and fluctuate and you know it so you have to do it kind of do it
on the run you know hey I got one more thing I want to tell you about
Jesus and so somebody said well you know are you discipling your people
at the vineyard and I said I don't know it I watch him come in the front
door watch him go out the back door how much discipling can you get in
and a half an hour you know I don't know it's it's hard work to disciple
but we you know we catch a core and and we are growing and by every
standard that I know of in terms of measurement we're processing them
well keep in mind the New Testament we have the images of fishing and
farming I said I was converted in 1963 into a church that was really
about 25 years out of phase with a culture I mean you could have walked
in there in 1940 and heard the same music the cars would have been a
little different in the parking lot but they would have been mainly
Chevys and the clothes they look the same they were still to get getting
in with JC Penney's and but as far as the music and the way they
preached and the way they interacted together they were at least 25
years out of phase with the rest of culture keep in mind that the church
system being a microcosm of the larger culture is in itself cultural
retardant it's resisted it does not change at the rate that the rest of
the culture does now that's one of the values in that it helps us as it
were keep the faith but one of the negatives is that it helps it deters
the rate at which we can share the faith because we don't look like act
like talk like the people we're trying to witness to and relate to and
people they see that very clearly and we can't see it nearly as clearly
as they can see it but you know I want in in reverse you know most of
you would know that many of the churches in the community but you
probably don't know all the beer bars I hope and but those that frequent
beer bars they know all the different beer bars and when you can get the
cheapest beer at the right time and get the most beer or the quality
beer or the or the waitress that's the better-looking and they know all
about it they can tell you all the pros and cons of where to go in much
the same way you could the churches that you might attend because you're
a consumer you use churches you go to churches you understand churches
and so those that frequent other places they see clearly the
distinctions you know when you go into a mall and we have them across
the country now and you know my my daughter she likes to dress me it's a
it's a thing I don't know why she's taking it on I think she thinks I'm
looking very old which by the way does anyone here know my wife Carol
would you raise your hand four or five of you do oh Danny hi don't tell
her I got up here with a wrinkled shirt when you see her nothing makes
her matter I forgot to change shirts so my daughter she's been she's
been buying my clothes lately now when we go into the mall there's four
or five stores that I recognize instantly as my kind of stores right I
mean I can tell by the clothes they've got out in the front window I can
tell by the music that's not playing when I walk in the door I can tell
by the the age of the men and women serving us that it's my kind of
store that's not the kind of store she wants to go into to get me
clothes she wants to go into these places where the lights are rocking
I'm saying Stephanie you don't understand I'm 57 years of age and I like
it and I'd like to dress 67 I don't want to dress 27 so we have these
little dialogues and so a number of years ago when the Lord gave me an
opportunity to start a church now I I don't want to in any way sound
like I thought this thing all up because believe me the Lord he had to
wrestle me down to get this church started and I mean he spoke to me 19
different times in three months and in different ways ways I was not
used to he spoke to me through a prophetess I didn't believe in prophecy
much less prophetesses dreams visions I mean I'm in our circles we had
four ways that God spoke to us he spoke to us through highlighted
scripture right God gave me a word today right you know that one now
that was a biggie that was you know number one for us and if you got
that you were there and then we had one it was just a slightly more
subjective it was called the burden you know the burden everybody ooh
this is a spiritual man you know he's got a burden I don't have a burden
you know he's got a burden I know that man's spiritual because he got a
burden you know I mean it qualified him instantly in our circles now
there was there was one of a sort of in between that it was not quite
some subjective it was every bit as good and that was the counsel of
your elders and besides that your wife said it was okay and so if you
got those two you're in you know if the scripture is highlighted and you
got the counsel you didn't really need a burden you know you know that
God was in now the most qualified spiritually was called the open door
it just came together and boy whenever that happened that was a coup de
gras we knew God was alive and working in our circle now I'm saying it
in a humorous way but I want you to know that was that was that was the
total thing and so the kinds of things that happened to the people in
the Bible were just not on my horizon dreams and visions and people
talking to you and angels of bearing and stuff like that you know well
God's God used all those means one of the first things he used Larry was
a Lutheran man came up to me in a meeting in New York City and he was
very embarrassed and he said I I don't know I've never done this before
it's going like that he says I've never done this before he says but I I
was sitting there today and he says I I don't it could I could be wrong
he says every time I looked at you I saw a big Indian I said I said what
he said I saw an Indian I mean I saw an Indian like that he said and he
said I saw it in a gymnasium I said what he said he said I saw an Indian
I never had talked to anyone there with a vision before I think it was
his first vision and he says he says to me while you were up there
speaking I could see this look like a gymnasium to me he said I saw this
big Indian and he says and I know that that's where you're going and
you're going to start a church there well a year and a half later we
move into a gym it was about the size of this and we're I'm walking in
the door and I turn and I'm on the wall from floor to ceiling is an
Indian that's the symbol you know and so you know authenticated his work
and so God gave me through a number of unique experiences leading to
start this work furthermore he gave me similar kinds of things for for
the movement furthermore he gave me similar kinds of things for the work
among the churches and I learned to speak all the buzzwords you know I
knew how to talk to the Southern Baptist and I knew how to talk to the
GARB it was you know Conference Baptist from the you know this group and
that group and I but you know they're all different I knew seven
different kinds of Mennonites I learned three different kinds of
Presbyterians and each of them had their own language symbols and
systems you know yeah I remember getting off the plane once in Memphis
and meeting a Southern Baptist brother you know the first thing in the
worst in the blood brother it was Monday morning his throat was hoarse
and had been preaching hard and you know I'd never heard washed in the
blood before I was a Christian I was a consultant you know but I washed
in the blood what's he talking about you know but I decided I must be so
I said yes and that that seemed to qualify me he never asked me another
question about my education or training or background for being there
and charging him $800 a day as a consultant and so I discerned that very
few people were reaching the boomers and so the Lord said go home and
start a church and I said Lord can I start it with the boomers can I
reach young people and he said okay in effect I got the distinct
impression it was okay and so I said Lord what do I have to do and
that's when he started giving me these images of malls and centers where
do young people go how do they dress what kind of what's what's the
decimal level for young people is over against your comfortable zone
John and so I realized from all the years of traveling around churches
in America the churches are made for people approximately 48 years of
age they're designed for that the buildings are designed for it the
sound the color selection the tones everything is designed to
accommodate people you know in their mid to late 40s it's not for 28
years old it's not for 18 years old so I said Lord if you want if we
want me to have a church where should I have it he said put it in the
gymnasium that's where they're the most comfortable and so that's where
we went we stayed there for five years we grew from a handful of about
50 people to 4,000 in that five years or four years in the gymnasium and
then we moved from there to a factory and that didn't seem to bother him
too much so we kept on growing I got a long letter the other day why
aren't we having kinships anymore and I said well because they don't
work anymore you know we've changed you know if you were fishing in the
lake and you caught all the bottom fish would you continue to use the
bait and set up for bottom fish what would you do if you wanted fish
you'd hook up on a different setup right not the church I want to keep
fishing for bottom fish there ain't no bottom fish I don't care if
there's no bottom fish I like to set up with this setup this is the one
my daddy used and my granddaddy used and I'm gonna keep on using it I am
speaking to the right group because we sanctify our methodology and I
understand that you know you get saved in Sunday school what do you do
the rest of your life you work in Sunday school you get saved at camp
what do you do the rest of your life you go to camp you get saved at a
grand crusade what do you do huh it's at your point of entry where did
you have these occasions with God and so that gets you know you build a
little tabernacle and you camp there huh that's biblical isn't it but
what what am I advocating and arguing for is that in the meantime people
are moving on and going to hell every day we got to set up to reach him
now I'm not advocating that all of you change your churches from the
inside out I think that would be dumb and dysfunctional harmful it would
be in lack of harmony with God I think you'd be doing a disservice to
him I think some minor modifications might help accommodate a larger
group than you're now working with but I'm not in any way encouraging
you in fact because I've spent so much time working with the church
system when I don't advocate anything that the vineyard does for the
church system I'm dead serious it's not for you you shouldn't use our
stuff you should develop your own things that will accommodate you now
there's a lot of things that can be done a few years ago I was sitting
with some Anglicans in in central London and they said our church is
packed to the brim now they don't they're not a lot of Anglican churches
they have that problem but this particular one did it it's Holy Trinity
Brompton in central London they said that our church is packed to the
brim what can we do and I said well let's church plant we can't church
plant we have the parish system we can't do that and I said are there
any redundant churches well yes there are I said go to the Bishop of
London find out how many were they did found out there were 33 redundant
churches in the community now the difficulty with their system is even
if the church is closed it since it's owned by the state in effect it's
still under controls of people who have vested interest in keeping that
control you ever heard of a church boss you haven't if you've been in
the church five minutes because every church has a church boss or two
and so they had their church bosses and they had to get around those
church bosses but I don't know how to do that I've been doing it for
years and so I just gave him some counseling we worked with it and
prayed over it and since that time they've started I think they're on
their seventh church in central London they've grown from I think about
13 to 1400 people now to almost 5,000 people in central London building
big healthy vibrant Anglican churches in the center of one of the
largest cities on earth where you couldn't afford the property to save
your life but by simply getting past the system and doing their job
they're doing their job a similar situation in an Anglican Church in
northern England they had a lot of what we would we call urban blacks
this doesn't mean people with the Afro ancestry these are people that
are white people that dress in black clothes dye their hair garish
colors it's often black they wear all black clothes they're all over
Europe and nobody to speak of is reaching them there was a young man in
that community named Chris Brain he came to our meetings he was a fine
musician very artistic very gifted and I could see evangelism all over
him so we prayed for him and the Spirit of God put him in seminary for
several hours on the floor flopping like a fish and he came up and we we
said there's your pastor pastor there's your evangelist and now they
have over 900 of these young people that meet in what they call the nine
o'clock service and now they're beginning to multiply those churches
churches within churches these are churches that are reaching a select
group of people now the people in the morning don't want to see those
young what those young people do at night and so the pastor says don't
come around here at night you won't like it because about three o'clock
in the afternoon they come in and they they hang things and they I mean
this hardly seemed like church because they have lights and they have
photographs and all kinds of media going on and and rock and roll music
and and the the drums beat all the way through the service while the
preaching is gone while the I used to be a rock and roll musician but I
was totally threatened when I was in that service preaching through it
was hard for me to handle because it's so foreign to my understanding of
what it ought to be but when you see those young people coming forward
the tears running down their faces and saying Jesus Jesus I give you my
heart and my life and you and you see that you know I've been back now
three or four times and I've watched him and they're now out
evangelizing in the streets and feeding the hungry and so what I'm
saying is that you need to begin looking at the the harvest that's
around you know the harvest that the Lord is preparing in America today
it's the harvest of the poor multiple millions of them multiple millions
of them it's a great harvest not too long ago I was praying for them in
the Lord I said Lord how I want to see the harvest I've been praying out
of Matthew 936 and he said I want to see the harvest he took me to
Matthew 5 and showed me the Beatitudes and he says that's the harvest
the poor in spirit blessed are those that are me blessed are and I and I
said Lord what's it look like and he showed me a wheat a field of wheat
and I grew up in Illinois in Missouri and I know what ripe wheat looks
like when ripe wheat is ripe what happens to the head of the wheat it
drops and so walk around your malls walk around your streets and look at
the people with their heads down they're ready but they're not going to
come into your church most of them they can't now some of them will here
in the south but many of them can't they just can't make that transition
we saw that in our community we had Hispanics and people that were
impoverished in our community we moved down into the barrio for the
purpose of winning those people we were at a terrible time we'd win to
Christ but we couldn't get him in our church so finally one of the young
men said why don't we make a church for them that's so obvious and so he
started what he calls the lambs lunch and he thought he said these
people they're homeless by and large some of them have you know they
live in a semi-transient situation they can afford motels and things
when they double and triple up in families so part of the month they're
in a motel part of the month they're in a state park part of the month
they're in a car and sometimes they're sleeping on the ground depends on
what part of the month it is and what where they are economically at
that time and so I you know our guys were working with them all the time
and I said tell me where the penetration ought to be every market has a
point of penetration point of felt need he said it's for the children
we're all sick over the educative loss for the children who are sick
over the clothing for the children for the lack of dental care for the
lack of any number of things they feel worse about their children than
they do about themselves and I said okay let's let's set up a ministry
for the children and so they came up with one called the lambs lunch
they started that that a ministry about a year ago with three kids they
average about 1,200 now on Saturday in the lambs lunch the lambs lunch
has seen hundreds and hundreds of converts we've seen many people
rehabilitated and brought back into the working market or back in homes
many of them are now at church on Sunday but hundreds of them aren't and
never will be and they ought not to be we've planted six churches out of
the lambs lunch today are you and but they're not churches like the
church you'd go to or I would go to their churches that are different
but their churches that meet the needs of those folks their churches
that are culturally approximate they're their churches their services
are different their services last almost five hours you know why because
part of it they have to do the food bagging bagging of the food that's
part of it then they have to do the cooking and then they have to they
have to dance for a while because that's part of the culture so they
dance and sing and we have hirachi bands and we have you know and they
have just a big party and it lasts about five hours and that's a normal
church service for them and anything less than that they feel cheated
and everybody from the smallest baby to the oldest grandma to the
biggest dog comes that's the truth and sometimes opposing gangs are
there and then we have violence you know and that's part of the culture
too I used to play in Mexican weddings I never went to a Mexican wedding
they didn't have some fights that's part of the deal so we don't we so
when we when they gather they have some fights now most of you wouldn't
program that into your order of I don't mean that there's violence every
time to get together but there's potential for violence every time
because it's in the culture it's the way they think about gathering and
being being a people to understand and we have to administer to who they
are not who we want them to be I want to talk to you for 10 minutes
about change as I mentioned earlier I've been lecturing as a adjunct
professor at Fuller for 16 years and I've been doing a lecture on change
being a change agent for that period of time so I know a little bit
about change it's field-tested fear is a natural outcome of change
particularly change that they don't get any input into or control over
and so it's very important that if you're going to if you decide that
you want to brain change you know Bob was talking about 330 degree I'd
say a hundred three degree would be better for some of your churches I
honestly change slowly change personally as over against professionally
now let me talk to you about changes the way I understand it and again
I've worked with lots of churches lots of different kinds of churches
and there's some things that I think ought not be done I would not
change anything on Sunday morning if I was going to bring change you
know if I was in one of your churches maybe I was in the in the first
assembly of God Church to the such-and-such I and I don't know what your
churches are but if you mentioned Pentecostalism earlier I wouldn't
change anything on Sunday morning that's the last thing that mess with
keep in mind it works sort of like this orthodoxy and orthopraxy 92% of
the people are tuned into what you do 8% are tuned into what you believe
about what you do listen to me you start messing with what they do and
immediately the set the singles get the symbols get cleared the single
you begin signaling them very clearly changes here okay so don't mess
with Sunday I mean it just it's just sheer idiocy to go home and bless
God we're gonna we're gonna you know I've seen guys preach that way they
go off to a conference and then somebody says back in the 70s get a bus
that's the secret to success and I'm a church consultant I'm going
across the country I saw thousands of rotting buses I mean I'm not
exaggerating thousands of rotting buses sitting behind because back in
71 they went to the Chicago such-and-such and you know such-and-such
said if you had a bus you can bus ministry you can do that so I want to
bring healing into our church will you come and do a conference on
healing in our church I said no way and I said I can't afford the blood
and neither can you this was a very liberal church that you know I had
had a very visible position in the nomination back a few years build a
huge Oedipus now about a third full you know and doctors such-and-such
had been there and doctors such-and-such and now it wasn't doctor
anymore you know they couldn't afford doctor next now when you think of
it negatively so that's a hard group to change and you think of another
way that's a good group to practice healing on so I had to I had to ask
some questions because see some of these things are prescriptive Lee put
together you can't sell over-the-counter medicine on every situation I'm
in a Methodist Church Oh 68 years of age so I had to find that out so I
asked him a few questions tell me about your church and history the back
I said you've got to you've got to build small groups in your church he
says oh I can't get people in small groups I said that's right older
people do not like small groups he says I did what I can't do it I said
no way you don't understand you already have small groups he says what
do you mean I said you told me earlier you have 22 committees in your
church and they did and he was on every one of them you wonder what he
did a whole month long and so he said what do I do and I said when you
when you go home make hi how are you a question that doesn't mean pray
about you that means pray on you he said oh they feel funny not you're
sure they I said they will the first few times but just do it anyway do
it quickly don't make a big deal of it don't make any big promises don't
put on some sort of an attitude don't start speaking in King James's
stuff like that just say Lord you know here's my brother and his back
really hurts today touching God and that's it he says that all there is
to it so the headaches went away you know and other things didn't happen
you know person here I said start tearing pages out of books share this
guy share it with that guy you know get a chapter here or there write an
article don't preach it from the pulpit bring change in very slowly then
I said begin looking for their children and grandchildren and start
having parties for them and he says what do you mean I said look by the
way this would have been very easy in a Hispanic or an Italian culture
but it was very hard in the culture he was in because of the way they
view elderly but see in a Hispanic or an Italian culture they love
honoring the older people and so having a party for you know Papa such-
and-such is a big deal then get everybody off of that I know a guy in
Long Island that lost an island that's built a huge church that way just
constantly winning people to Christ beautiful work of God built around
the culture and its natural interaction the way it naturally relates so
they love to get together and they love to talk big about one another so
he lets him do that and he just puts Jesus in there has one of the
granddaughters get up and give her testimony he's telling me about
winning one of the mafia people there that old man was sitting there and
the tears are running down his face let him do the Lord about a month
later you see the entree that's his heart that's his grandchild there he
loved what was going on so go back to the Methodist and so I said to him
introduce it by doing it you see you are the change agent they will do
what you do they'll do what you do not what you say to do but what you
do years ago when we we were worn out Pharisees and we had a Bible
answer to everything Bob I really witnessed to that this morning we did
we had an answer to everything anything we didn't have an answer to
wasn't worth knowing and we would tell you that oh don't worry about
that that's not important here's what's important and but we were just
burned out on it we were dry as dust we knew everything but we couldn't
even like each other couldn't hardly get together we were so quickly and
so I'm stinking mean trained to talk bad about everybody I haven't
gotten over that yet I still lapsed into that from time to time and this
breaks the father's heart and breaks mine too because it just comes out
of me it's just entrained in me so I don't think I have to stop and
repair because I did that last week so my point is this is that you
you're working with the people and you're bringing them along and you
bring them along by what you do more than what you tell but there is a
point we have to tell them what Jesus both began to do and tell acts 1 1
and so there's a point in which you must give an explanation and that
that point came in our own church as we we were a bunch of worn-out
pharisaical legalists conservative evangelicals and I remember people
trying to raise their hand in a worship service all that was painful
still painful for me I still can't do it I still can't do it it just
shuts me down to be in a setting where everybody's open and having a
good time but I just close up get quieter and quieter can't make it yet
you know I'm still working on it I hope to before I go to heaven because
I understand they do it all the time up there but in the as the church
grew in its acumen you see we started seeing some healings we started
seeing people empowered by the Spirit baptized in the Spirit we saw
people be being released and then they said what is this you taught
against this in the past I said well I think I was wrong you know but
let me show you this this is something I've been reading or let me give
you this chapter out of this book but read hey read such-and-such that
was really helpful to me and so just by pointing them to sources and
feeding them on the basis of their hunger as over against clamming it
down their throat saying you need to know this so that we can move ahead
because bless God you're stopping the cause of God among us that won't
get it I believe that there's a great harvest being prepared and it's
being prepared among the poor but why by the poor I do not only mean the
those that are the Jetson and the Flotsam of society those that are
homeless and incapable of functioning and uneducated and economically
deprived we live now in a nation that's largely fatherless and all about
us there are literally hundreds of millions of people who have grown up
in households that have been dysfunctional to use the current popular
term and so we have a nation of people that don't know who they are they
don't know what they're all about they've got all kinds of shiny
glittery things and there's no happiness in it and they're impoverished
they're poor in spirit and broken now some of them are still so excited
about the glitter and the glamour and the thing the new thing they got
that their heads aren't down you walk around the streets of your
communities and you'll see those heads down and if you go and minister
to those folks you're gonna find a ready receptive group for the gospel
they may not be the group for you to land but you can land them
somewhere you can find a church or make a church that they can go to and
as you start doing that you'll see an impact on your community on your
culture three and a half years ago our church went to its lowest ebb
during that period of time I had had a heart attack just part of that A5
I went through a lot of difficulties with with lots of issues I was
spiritually deceived by something the enemy had put together in which he
told me that I was to give my church up and to walk away from it and it
was wrong it was a lie the Lord showed me that but in 1987 we only had
52 converts baptized now for some churches that would be a lot you know
in a year's time to have 52 baptized converts but for us that was just
absolute miserable failure and I was so broken over it but sometimes you
see we need these quantifiable measurements to see where you really are
and I was looking at it we'd only spent about six thousand dollars on
the poor that year you know all we had an international reputation we
grew 2,000 people that year we were put in some magazine as one of the
fastest growing churches in America I was sick I almost vomited when I
read the article not because the man that wrote it was wrong but because
it was so dishonest we weren't the church I didn't want to go to that
church I don't want to be part of that people and then I realized whose
fault it was they were in the condition they were and so I had to repent
now God has turned that around last year we gave out over a million
meals in Anaheim we had over 1,700 baptized converts this year to be
considerably larger than that God is stirring us again we're planting
churches again we're ministering again God is causing us to flourish the
people are studying the word again the people are growing the small
groups are growing by every measurement I know how to measure except one
which has to do mainly with Bible study I think we're biblically
ignorant in our church and how we've gotten that way I don't know but
again it probably comes back to me somewhere I'm probably not doing
enough Bible teaching my point in saying that is simply this there is a
market out there and we're testing that market for you and I tell you
there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in America that are
hungry for God right now and later you know tomorrow I want to show you
empirical proof that revival has started in America I'm absolutely
convinced it's underway but let's just close and it gives you a little
break time before dinner father thank you for these your people and we
ask O God you'd richly bless them and strengthen them in their
understanding of who they are and what they're for and Lord give them
eyes to see the heart

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/OjfQGoP6Q2g.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/john-wimber/planting-growing-churches/
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