I ran across one of my favorite John Wimber quotes reading this article about his daughter-in-law Christy. I personally heard John tell this story on a number of occasions when I attended Vineyard CF Anaheim while Wimber was the head pastor:

“A professional musician who played the Las Vegas circuit for 5 years, John later signed with the Righteous Brothers. When John was gripped by God in 1963, he was a “beer-guzzling, drug abusing pop musician, who was converted at the age of 29 while chain-smoking his way through a Quaker-led Bible Study.”

He soon became a voracious Bible reader and after weeks of reading about life changing miracles in the Bible and attending boring church services, John asked a lay leader:”

“When do we get to do the stuff?  You know, the stuff here in the Bible; the stuff Jesus did, like healing the sick, raising the dead, healing the blind – stuff like that?”

He was told that they didn’t do that anymore – only what they did in their weekly services. John replied, “You mean I gave up drugs for that?”

Response: “Doin’ the stuff” became the marching orders at the beginning of the Vineyard movement.

Another famous Wimber quote: “Everyone gets to play”–which meant that all the members participated in “doin’ the stuff” not just the pastors and preachers. Those two quotes became part of the guiding foundation of the Vineyard Movement in the early years.