Wimber was ACCESSIBLE
One of the important things that I learned from John Wimber was working hard to make the Bible, theology, and ministry accessible for common people. On this episode of Wednesdays w/ Wimber...
One of the helpful things that I’ve learned from John Wimber is related to both presentation style of church leadership as well as related to pedagogy, the method of teaching. If I had to summarize the entirety of John Wimber’s legacy in regard to equipping the Church, which was a huge feature of his ministry, I’d have to say it was ACCESSIBLE. Though Wimber was a brilliant leader, well-read, theologically informed despite minimizing his credentials with suggestions that he was just a fat man trying to get to heaven, John consistently worked hard to make his teachings accessible to audiences all over the world… and on this video, I want to dive a bit more into that aspect of Wimber’s leadership.
Now before we talk about some of the ways that Wimber made his teachings accessible, let’s just situate his ministry contextually. The common person in America, and many other countries, was that spiritual things were for religious people and uppity people and that the more somber and reserved and not funny you could be, the more spiritual you were. And this seemed to cause a great divide between common people and church leaders. Not to mention that the Church had been… and continues to be today… marred by moral failures from church leaders who had presented themselves as having it all together and from hypocrisy and lots of other characteristics that caused many people to be suspicious of church leaders. At that time, and its continued today, there was a growing cultural divide in America that was influencing more and more of society to not only be suspicious of the Church but to also have less of a spiritual framework or biblical worldview.
Enter John Wimber… who was not only PERSONALLY accessible to people as a likable guy, his teachings were palatable and caught people’s attention and were understandable and somewhat easy to apply. Those qualities, coupled with the genuine work of the Holy Spirit, helped thousands of followers of Jesus become not only more receptive to the Holy Spirit’s work but also to being more willing to put into practice the ministry of the Kingdom of God.
So what made Wimber accessible? What helped him be such an effective communicator? Well as I’ve already hinted at, there’s a couple of characteristics that I think we can learn from Wimber and that still apply today.
First, Wimber was funny. He didn’t present himself as a pretentious know it all and he had no problem using humor to connect with his audience.
It wasn’t that Wimber wasn’t serious or that he just told jokes… Wimber just knew how to read the room and how to connect with his audiences. Rather than giving off a vibe of superiority, he did a great job of using humor to disarm those who listened or read his work. He didn’t come across as knowing everything and his self-depreciating humor helped people turn their ears to what he was saying because he generally seemed to win people’s trust with his honesty and funny stories. Put simply, John Wimber was relatable.
Second, Wimber made his teachings accessible with real life experiences and easy to understand examples. Rather than using illustrations and stories that people couldn’t relate to, Wimber used stories that the common person could relate to… stories about marriage and relationship issues… stories about being afraid to pray for people or experiences of being unsure of what to do next… and all of these stories illustrated perfectly that the hero of the Christian journey is always God. One couldn’t listen to Wimber’s stories and not walk away thinking about how marvelous and wonderful God was and is.
So I think there’s a lot to learn from Wimber here. Are we helping make Scripture, theology, and ministry accessible for every day people? Are we working hard to embody the full range of emotions and characteristics of how God has wired us? I mean… Wimber was really just good at being himself… he didn’t try and present himself in a different way when he was on the stage that was different than the Wimber that enjoyed ice cream with his grand kids. What you see was what you got… and what the Church got was a lot of wisdom.
About the Author
Luke Geraty is a pastor-theologian in northern California. With a few theology degrees and nearly twenty years of pastoral leadership, Luke loves the Bible, theology, fly fishing, coffee, and books. All opinions are his own and not the views of any other organizations he’s affiliated with. You can follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe to his YouTube.