John Wimber's Daughter on growing up with Wimber as "Dad" and Women in Ministry (Part 1)

[Music] so i am sitting in the room with the one and only the only daughter of john we're going to talk a whims about john wimber and the vineyard and so i'm super honored to be with stephanie and uh your last name is not wimber though it's rupe yeah rube stephanie wimberroop stephanie wimba yes right so uh what was it like like let's just start there what was it like having uh you know you know one of the most influential uh church people in the in the 1900s as your dad he was just dad and he wasn't he to me i we grew up i grew up at the quaker church here in yorba linda so for me he was just you know he was daddy bear you know what i mean that was what he was to me i never i never knew anything past that until um honestly until i got older when i became an adult is when i really understood what the dynamic and what had happened in my lifetime um i was in junior high i think maybe just entering high school when we left the or when we were asked to leave the the quaker church they were when we were when they were very kindly escorted off yeah exactly exactly get out of here yeah but my best friend and i um we were actually hiding in the living room when my parents and penny and bob and all those guys met together and talked about leaving and going and starting this new meeting or this becoming a church and so my best friend lyla and i we hid like literally behind the chairs and they had the curtains and my mom said she remembers because the curtains were moving you know we were like giggling you know and um so we were we got to find out that we were that this thing was happening with all the adults right you found out that you were planting a church kind of um as they were discussing right so um so you were part of that closed door meeting exactly yeah it's not not not on their they didn't so one could say that it all started they all start with me all right cool so you said that you came to understand the significance of what god had done so it wasn't just john wimber but got what god was doing well yeah exactly so i you know i went through height during the early years i was in high school and um at being that i was in high school my dad made me go to church there was no there wasn't a there was no option you know if i was out saturday night it didn't matter what time i came home it didn't matter if i snuck in the door 4 30 in the morning and he was up studying i was going to church no matter what so that was never an option so for me it was always i was always kind of current with everything that was happening and so um it wasn't until i went on the first trip that they took to england that um i would say then is when i got spirit-filled would be on that trip and or at least saved i guess and then so it's like 1981 yeah uh 1981 yeah 1981 and you go to england and uh everything blows up lonnie frisbie is with you right and that's the that's in your folklore yeah and i forgot the part where my dad he made me go yeah i had no intentions to go and i didn't want to go and he said i need you to i want you to go on this trip and and he said i'm i want you to join me on a trip to england you'll enjoy it it's really fun and he never told me that he was bringing a team with him he never told me what we were saying yeah i thought i was going to break my dad a private jet yeah i was gonna say maybe 20. okay that's what i've heard about 20 people yeah i mean when i think of the pictures of everybody who's about 20. yeah yeah and they're all my friends or a lot of muscles you your dad and 19 others friends exactly yeah like that's where that's the trip that i met danny i already knew glenn schroeder i already knew i'm trying to think of anybody else you would know from that trip but of course penny and bob were on that trip i don't think you know any of the other people yeah i know i know a number of people that were like on trip number two and three you know four because it starts to explode yeah and i went on all those trips too yeah oh most of them did you think all those were gonna be private yeah me and my dad john me and daddy that's such a better perspective i like it i like it yeah uh okay so uh you know so you grew up in the vineyard um and you so you have uh you're the youngest and you have three other siblings chris was the first one and chris passed away um in 98 right after yeah 9798 somewhere around there i think it was like 10 weeks after my dad yeah my dad was 97 so yeah yeah okay and then uh and then there's tim tim and then there's sean and then there's uh what was what did john weber call luke oh yeah i do want to just hold on here but this is this is my one let everybody know that i have actually inserted myself into the wimber family i have i have grabbed the mantle of anointing from john and i just want to go on record right now with stephanie that stephanie agrees with that oh yeah absolutely absolutely i'm all in uh so you just call me brothers brother well yeah but then they'll think i mean spiritual uh oh yeah but you don't have to come over children i gotta come up with a bad game for you yeah uh how about brother bear i don't know [Laughter] bad about our new ministry that we've started that's your continuation of whimpers uh anointing um okay so so you've got three older siblings you grew up your dad is um you know extremely famous i mean like i mean i've said this before but his his classy taught at fuller seminary one one um one person once said and this is based on just the reality is that there's only been one other seminary class that have that much popularity with paul bart and carl bart was like you know one of those prolific theologians of the 1900s right uh so you grew up with famous daddy bear exactly what was that like i didn't call him daddy bear his face just so you know just behind him he was such a he looked like a bear so i always thought of him as like a bear but go ahead but what was that like i mean you know because you've said a lot about his kindness and you know you grew up and you just love your dad well it's interesting is that sitting over there getting ready to heckle my brother tim but then he was too nice i can't heckle him i didn't want to give him a hard time his interview was too nice or yellow liar or anything like that um but it's but when i'm listening to him talk i realize you know i think we're six seven years difference you know i'm not sure i can't morality is no maybe only like five years of difference but his perspective of growing up in that household from his eyes is so different than my because i was the last and by the time i was in high school my parents were traveling a lot so i probably had a lot more freedom than he had um and my dad was gone a lot and but i got to say this i don't think there's anything that they ever did that they wouldn't have taken me with him if i wanted to go so it was never like we're gonna go i'm gonna go work i'm leaving it was always you know and i'm talking about later when he did ministry trips but um but he had a job where he traveled and he did his uh consul consulting and all that that was his real job my mom was home all the time um but i feel like uh my perspective and i think also tim and tim as a man would see it differently than than i would see my dad my dad to me was honestly honestly he was kind he was available he was um he was just very there was a very strong sense that everything was okay all the time as silly and maybe that might sound or sort of like a fantasy land for a little kid but he always made things feel very secure and very stable in our home even if he was gone working there was never this feeling like you know like things nothing felt strange i always felt very secure at my house and with my family and with my parents um of course there was just normal things that went wrong and we've talked about those things but um and i was a stupid kid i got in trouble and did some things and he started he still doesn't know about him my mom will know if she watches this but she won't watch as you know unless i send it to her yeah exactly yeah so he uh but other than that i mean he was just really kind he was more of a dad that kind of with me at least it was more like you're going to do this let's go do this yeah it was not like he wasn't dominating he wasn't absent it was more like hey stephanie i need you to do this come on and it was like you kind of tricked me into getting into things like hey come work at my office and i just met like probably so i would stay out of trouble yeah i mean like so i just worked for him for years and then it was and i did i worked for most of the time i worked before i got married had kids was before my dad wow i didn't do anything productive but i didn't work for you you wrote all his talks and i wrote all of it all of his talks i wrote most of his music and i would like to have some of the publishing um well let me okay so let me think about um let's talk about this uh we we talked a little bit about how um john uh has a complex i mean it's complex like figuring him out on some things it's like there's wimberisms and i always would i'll tell people when they tell me a wimberism i'll say okay i want to know when he said that to make sure he did say that because there's all these things he probably didn't even say but now he lives in folklore but he also changes his mind on things and i i talked with your mom about how um you know in your mom's book she clarifies like where he was at with spirit baptism whether it happened after salvation or if it was that conversion and she kind of talks about how at the end he came down this way uh let's talk about women in ministry let's just get into it your father was um what we call a complementarian on paper he would say that women can serve in ministry that everybody gets to play but they they wouldn't be able to be senior pastors or elders except for when he inconsistently ordained jackie pullinger and watson and there's another woman who i know that he ordained too do you think john wimber today were he still alive um would he still be a a complimentary no i think he absolutely would um he'd be pulling women up on the stage left and right and i think he would uh i think he i think because he had very i felt like he had very strong like what he believed each day were very strong very very strong uh guidelines and and like boundaries but honestly i felt like he could down you know a week down the road if he was wrong he turned right around and say i was wrong about that now um i think part of it is that probably because he this was as new to him that so much of it was new to him so he probably didn't know any more than he knew who the guys were that he was going to ordain you know what i'm saying yeah and so he probably and remember he grew up in a you know i don't even grow up in it but he he was uh became a christian in a very traditional church you would never have had i don't think you would have ever had an ordained pastor as a woman uh so for him he's just probably coming off of what he just learned yeah and now he is uh learning right as he goes along but no i think today i think he would be absolutely different so in debbie somewhat based off of the fact that he would have studied the best scholarship and and read up on it and studied on it and then come to a conclusion that yeah the bible does encourage yeah well i think that's partially it but i also think that my dad was a people person and he loved people and i think he just knew people's hearts and i think he would have there's a lot of women i know there's women today that i know that without any doubt he would be he would be thrilled to have them by us inside and up there talking and teaching and he would be yeah yeah how do you think that do you think there'd be any hesitation um in having the next vineyard national director of a abc be a woman are we talking about president united states are we talking about the next direction you know the next like you know national person and leading the vineyard he's been dead 22 years ago i want to know why you didn't ask me if i'm writing his sermons why he didn't why he wouldn't know what he thought because you obviously knew it tell us what he thought i think that um that's a hard one that's a really hard one to answer because i feel like you gotta remember i i've had them in my life for 35 years right 35 years their child is pretty young to know your dad do you know what i'm saying as a man other than your dad and so for me it seems like i don't know what 22 years would have would have have would it probably would have evolved right i don't know what that would have done um he i mean my mom i mean you know they what's the same behind every good man is a great woman right oh yeah we've already firmly established okay so yeah so we can't pretend that my dad you know did this was a solo flight yeah so do you think after 22 more years of his life if he'd stayed alive no i think he would even make the vineyard that's what i was gonna say that's well that's exactly it he would be like hey debbie wright and yeah ellie and and and penny and carol get up here and do this because i'm gonna i'm gonna go take a nap now i'm tired no i'm gonna go off and go tonight gonna go watch golf i think that's true uh because it seems like one of the things that um i've observed with um people who don't think that women can do things is they always want to throw well you know john wimber wrote an article on that because there's this equipment i think there's equipping the sans article where it talks about women men and uh and then i always like to reply i'm like oh yeah it's too bad that john wimber didn't actually follow those exactly exactly he seems to actually have come down if you saw the holy spirit empowering somebody and working in someone's life he had no problem with lot in them exactly exactly and he was i mean at least from my perspective he seemed like he was so quick to like just start laughing and go i kind to blew it on that one or i didn't see that one or maybe i called that wrong he was that to me that's the kind of thing he would have done so we can put this to rest yeah according to john wimber's one and only you can't have a relationship with my mom penny fulton and i say again ellie mumford debbie wright all these women they were hit people women he loved like really truly love the kingdom of god yeah truly left and i'm leaving out so many others you cannot look at them and know them and not think 100 that he wouldn't be like yes i'm all in let's do this yeah so here let's let's talk about me for a minute okay i knew this i knew we were going to get to you eventually if if you were allowed today what did you this is the last wednesday with daddy [Music] so uh so like john um has all these powerful women involved in the in the movement in the early early years he also sees them all throughout um like the ministry ministry that's happening in the 80s and 90s and so for you it's not a non it's not even an issue like it's just the future yeah god you would have kept on growing and yes yeah that's amazing yeah i mean was he 63 when he died uh well since you've got three i recently became a winner oh that's right you weren't there yeah yeah i think he was 63. i think it's 63. i'm 57. that's about right and i feel like i have i feel like i don't feel like i'm i mean i think i'm 57 63 is around the corner i don't even feel like i've lived half my life but yet of course i have but i'm just saying 63 he was an old body i mean he was an old boy he's a worn down tired body but um 63 is not very old and i feel like you're still changing at 63. you're still thinking differently you know what i mean yeah get in your you know your 80s then you're like okay now i'm gonna start undoing you're starting you start getting well exactly you start getting you know you start shutting off things that you thought were so important before yeah

Channel: Luke Geraty

Views: 2,555

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: John Wimber, Come Holy Spirit, Wimberisms, Charismatic Theology

Id: updZyLwxcK0

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020