“How Can We Catch Fire?”

Chapter 5 explores the Vineyard movement, one of the fastest-growing church movements in the United States, which is committed to holding together the “already” and “not yet” of the Kingdom of God in worship. In addition to looking for a dramatic, miraculous inbreaking of the Holy Spirit, there is a less dramatic but equally formative influence at work in worship: the Quaker notion of “gospel order” and its accompanying understanding of ethics. These commitments are tested at “Koinonia Vineyard,” a congregation located in the Pacific Northwest, where one African American member wrestles with her vision of activism and her Caucasian pastor’s desire for the congregation to remain politically neutral during a time of national racial unrest.

Dynamics and Stability in Globally Expanding Charismatic Religions: The Case of the Vineyard Movement in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

This article examines processes of religious transfer taking place in the neo-Charismatic Vineyard movement by analyzing the development of the German-speaking branch, Vineyard Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz (DACH), in comparison to its American sister association. By drawing from first-hand interviews with congregational leaders and analyses of websites and other digital and print material, the article shows that Vineyard DACH is pursuing an unusually collaborative strategy to integrate into the German-speaking Christian landscape by forging close ties to both the Christian mainstream and its periphery. At the same time, it accentuates its identity as part of the international Vineyard network as a global charismatic movement. In this way, it negotiates the tension between the dynamics of expansion and the stability of a coherent self-identity, which is a distinguishing trait of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. This development may be indicative of broader changes occurring in the religious landscape of German-speaking Europe in the early twenty-first century.

Kenn Gulliksen, John Wimber, and the Founding of the Vineyard Movement

John Wimber is traditionally credited with founding the Vineyard movement, but the issue is far from clear because of another leader named Kenn Gulliksen, who started the first Vineyard and led several others. Most of the history of Gulliksen’s Vineyard is not known. This article argues that, when the historical gaps are addressed, not only does Gulliksen emerge as a significant figure in Vineyard history, but he should also be considered founder of the movement.