An Informal Approach to God

In Lancaster, the Desert Vineyard Christian Fellowship two months ago moved into a vacant supermarket, turning it into a church facility so informal that some of the 1,500 worshipers take their coffee and muffin with them into Sunday morning services.

In Reseda, the Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship of 700 strong meets in what used to be a bowling alley, feeds about 500 needy in the area monthly, and only this week put up large signs on its nondescript facade facing Reseda Boulevard.

They are two of the oldest congregations in one of the fastest-growing Christian denominations--described by a new book as the type of church that will set the pace for Protestantism in the next century. The churches offer unpretentious pastors, contemporary music and openness to new spiritual experiences.

The Vineyard Christian Fellowship, along with the Calvary Chapels and the smaller Hope Chapel movement, represents a “new style of Christianity . . . that responds to fundamental cultural changes that began in the mid-1960s,” wrote USC religion professor Donald E. Miller in “Reinventing American Protestantism” (University of California Press).

“These churches are contributing to what has been called a new era of postdenominational Christianity in America, reflecting a general disillusionment with bureaucratic hierarchies and organizational oversight,” Miller wrote.

While declining to call themselves denominations, the three church networks are introducing more structure, Miller said, in part to continue their leaders’ visions.

Calvary Chapel, founded in 1965 by the Rev. Chuck Smith in Costa Mesa, counts more than 600 affiliates in this country and another 100 abroad. Vineyard, founded in the mid-1970s and given decisive new leadership in 1982 by ex-Calvary Chapel minister John Wimber, has more than 400 U.S. churches and nearly 200 overseas.

The Hope Chapel, started in 1971 by the Rev. Ralph Moore of Hermosa Beach, has given rise to 50 other churches--all of which remain a part of the Los Angeles-based International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Of the trio of charismatic/Pentecostal churches, the Vineyard has had the biggest share of controversies. Wimber was criticized for teaching a class at Fuller Seminary that included healing sessions in class. His movement at times has had to sever ties with overly demonstrative congregations, such as a Toronto church that attributed apparent uncontrolled laughing at services to a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

“Wimber is a risk-taker; he also brought charismatic leadership and a vision to Vineyard,” said the Rev. Bill Dwyer, pastor of Valley Vineyard.

Though Wimber, now ailing and semiretired, is routinely called the Vineyard movement’s founder, the credit actually belongs to Kenn Gulliksen, said Dwyer. The first Vineyard Christian Fellowship--vineyards were a sign of divine blessing in the Bible--was started by Gulliksen in March 1975. It met at the Beverly Hills Woman’s Club.

The church changed locations frequently between the Westside and the San Fernando Valley in the next few years.

Meanwhile, assistant pastors to Gulliksen left to form new Vineyard churches in Lancaster and the Valley. Because the Rev. Brent Rue, the founding pastor of Desert Vineyard, died of cancer in 1993, and Gulliksen left the Vineyard churches in a 1992 dispute with Wimber, Dwyer is the senior minister in the movement in terms of service.

“Our church started with 70 people in 1979 and serves about 700 now,” said Dwyer, whose lean, boyish face belies his 48 years.

After renting space in a Tarzana junior high school, Valley Vineyard found a home in 1992 when the church spent $800,000 to renovate the vacated Reseda Bowl and later purchased the property for almost $2 million. Worship services are now held where the sounds of strikes, spares and gutter balls once reverberated.

About 60 to 70 youths hold their services in a room that served as the bowling alley’s bar.

Dwyer said he has no desire to provide a comfortable, large church such as Bel Air Presbyterian Church on Mulholland Drive or Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch.

“This is not a ‘good area,’ ” Dwyer said, noting that gang activity occurs only a block away and a handcuffed youth briefly tried to break into the church only a few weeks ago as he was pursued by a police helicopter.

“We have many people who come to our services who are without social skills,” he said, gently referring to some churchgoers whose mental or learning handicaps are compounded by drug, job, family, financial or other problems.

Nevertheless, “we feel God wanted us to be here. We are reaching people in the streets,” Dwyer said.

Valley Vineyard provides space for a Los Angeles Police Department program that works with youngsters thought to be at risk of joining gangs. Besides its weekly food delivery to nearby families, the church holds an annual food and clothing giveaway that draws 2,000 people.

Dwyer said he takes a balanced approach to worship services, which can be disturbingly strange to newcomers to charismatic churches like Vineyard that endorse speaking in tongues, prophecy, healings and other “signs of the Holy Spirit.”

While saying he doesn’t want to control religious expression in worship, Dwyer noted that it is rare for someone to rise spontaneously in his services to speak in tongues. And three months ago, Dwyer said, he announced that if anyone had “a prophetic message” they wanted to share with the congregation, they should give it first to him in written form.

Worshipers have also been known to shake, dance and fall down at charismatic churches, but those practices are discouraged in most Sunday morning services. The Foursquare-affiliated Church on the Way, for instance, recently cautioned members that dancing is a legitimate form of worship, but is more suitable for private devotion at home than during a Sunday service, when it might be misunderstood or inappropriate.

Likewise, the Rev. David Parker, senior pastor of the Desert Vineyard Christian Fellowship, said that the Vineyard movement at times “has taken some detours with more demonstrative aspects of ministry that haven’t always been conducive to welcoming newcomers.”

Parker, who became pastor of Desert Vineyard four years ago, said, “We take the casual approach in trying to lower barriers for those without a traditional church background.” That means not only fewer crosses, a lack of stained glass and other customary church trappings, but also the possibility of taking a coffee and muffin to the church service, he said.

Attendance has picked up since Desert Vineyard moved from its longtime Sunday meeting place on the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds. “We were pretty invisible on the fairgrounds,” Parker said.

After buying a closed-down Alpha Beta market and adjacent empty stores in December for $1.1 million and spending $1.6 million to redesign the 7-acre complex, Desert Vineyard Christian Fellowship looks more like a church, complete with a chapel and a day school.

Yet, some passersby who notice the church’s roadside sign--showing a bunch of grapes and the “Vineyard” written large--wonder about the new occupant.

“They ask if it is a winery, or something like a Hooters restaurant,” said Parker. The occasional confusion doesn’t bother the pastor, who said the church is geared to “creating a comfort level for the unconvinced, the uncommitted and searchers.”