When Bob Dylan, the rock music legend, discovered Christianity, his conversion rocked the world of music.
No one saw it coming. No one, that is, but the members of the budding Vineyard Church in California.For John Wimber, Kenn Gulliksen and other Vineyard founders, Dylan's "leap of faith" looked more like a short step. They had built the Vineyard movement around modern music and poetic thinking, so Dylan didn't need to leave his world for Christ. Vineyard had already taken Christ into the heart of Dylan's world.
Today, the singer's faith has withered some while the Vineyard movement itself has blossomed and grown. Locally, the ministry has already "planted" churches in Park City and Salt Lake City. A Cambodian Vineyard is beginning to bloom, and a fourth church in Bountiful is in the works.
One reason for the religion's growth? Followers say it has to do with its "naturalness."
"Our motto is 'come as you are,' " says Casey Clark, a drama coach and local children's minister. "My family comes from the Assembly of God Church, but the first time I attended a Vineyard service, I loved it -- the music, the language, the dance. With the Vineyard movement, God is taking back the arts. I love working with drama. I want to show that theater doesn't have to be about self-glorification, it can be about glorifying God."
If Clark sounds enthusiastic, enthusiasm is a Vineyard trademark. It is a ministry for the young at heart and the young at art.
"We're still orthodox evangelical," says senior pastor Darrell Evans, "but I think we're also culturally relevant. In the beginning, the median age of members was between 21 and 25. Today, our core membership is between 40 and 45."
That youthful vitality shows up in the worship services.
Last Sunday, the Vineyard took its verve to a Salt Lake City neighborhood. The atmosphere was festive -- a holy day that felt like a holiday. A band performed Christian worship songs, including several composed by local members. Dennis Domingo brought his box of paints and went to work on young hands and faces. Volunteers grilled up dozens of hot dogs. Balloon art appeared. A roving photographer took free family portraits.
The centerpiece for the "outreach" afternoon was one of Clark's original plays, "Puppetmaster," a piece of pantomime about the wiles of Satan. The neighborhood had such an array of languages and cultures, he said, a pantomime seemed in order. His "drama ministry" is the church's latest foray into the arts and into the community at large.
"There are about 25 of us in the troupe," Clark says, "We perform everywhere we can. This winter we'll be visiting detention centers, nursing homes. The message of the Vineyard movement is 'Don't try to do it all on your own. Come and let God help you.'"
In short, Vineyard faithful do more than commemorate Christianity, they insist on celebrating it. And that was the focus the day the first vine took root.
In 1976, John Wimber and his wife Carol launched the California Vineyard movement with 12 souls and a solo guitar. The musical religion became an instant hit. Within months the membership climbed to 100. As members left to "plant" other churches, the ministry quickly went international with 200 churches by 1986. It has continued to flourish.
When John Wimber died of a brain hemorrhage in 1997, it sealed his legacy as a religious visionary. But it also opened the way for "The Columbus Accord," a document that "reframes the corporate culture" of the Vineyard Ministry and moves it toward a new millennium.
It is a church, says Clark, that not only stands on the arts but stands on biblical truth.
Today, the movement's foundation is its "Statement of Faith," 15 articles that begin with the phrase "We Believe." The statement, featuring 166 scripture references, was 10 years in the making.
Among the articles are references to the fall of Adam and Eve, the acceptance of the Bible as a document "without error in the original manuscripts" and the faith's central tenet: "We believe that in the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with Israel and his prophetic promises of salvation by sending his son, Jesus, into the world. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man in one person."
It was that fervent witness of the divinity of Christ by Wimber and Gulliksen, in fact, that led Bob Dylan to declare he felt a presence in the room that could only be Jesus. Afterward, Dylan would compose three albums of Christian worship songs, including the hit "You Gotta Serve Somebody." But the movement has produced so much music, so many songs, Dylan's work hardly makes a blip today. (Entire racks at the LifeWay Bookstore in Salt Lake City are lined with Vineyard tapes and CDs.)
In fact, for many, the movement's the true rock 'n' roll legend is Keith Green, a young man who blended the world of rock music and Christianity with breathtaking genius before dying in a tragic accident.
Green's life was heroic and tragic. It would make grand material for any bard, composer or playwright.
In short, it was a very Vineyard life.