I was saddened to hear of the passing of Carol Wimber -Wong this past week. I am also so grateful for her faith legacy and wanted to post a tribute to her for the way in which her life and ministry impacted mine. I am praying that the blessed hope of the resurrection would comfort and all who mourn her death and that her life would inspire thousands to keep following hard after Jesus. This is something I wrote about Carol in 2013 and it remains as meaningful as ever to me today.
"While I have always wanted to see leaders raised up to make a kingdom impact, my vision for cultivating young leaders with profound character was catalyzed and clarified over a cup of tea in 2013. I don’t even like tea, but I was excited at the privilege of having a cup with Carol Wong, who had been married to John Wimber—the founder of the fellowship of Vineyard churches. John died in 1997 but, by then, God’s work in the Vineyard had left an indelible mark on the worldwide church in terms of worship, healing and the prophetic.
A number of years after John died, Carol married Ken Wong, a close family friend who had also been wid
owed. In fact, Ken was the doctor who treated John during his battle with cancer. I visited them with a friend named Carl Tuttle. Carl had joined Southlands a year prior and was a worshipleader who had first met John and Carol as a teen. Even though at the time Carl was a young Christian who could barely strum three chords on the guitar, John asked him to start leading worship in the Bible study that would one day become the first Vineyard church.Carl eventually grew to be a prolific songwriter with a number of his songs becoming Vineyard standards around the world. He was also the man who took over leadership of the Vineyard in Anaheim after John became ill. Carl eventually had a breakdown and left the Vineyard under a cloud of suspicion and resentment.
He lost his marriage, his ministry and many friends during that tragic season—including his friendship with Carol. Fifteen years later, Carl was penitent and hoping to ebuild some of the bridges that had been broken. I reached out to Carol in the hopes of being a bridge builder. I got more than I bargained for because having tea with Carol was like having tea with the queen.
Sitting in their Yorba Linda home, Carol and Ken told me how they had recently been invited to Yorba Linda Friends Church’s 100th anniversary. It’s a remarkable thing to be able to celebrate a century of gospel impact. Yorba Linda Friends has an amazing record offaithfulness, extending as far as India, where they are the largest builder of schools among the Dalit caste.
Like any church, though, their tapestry has a few dark strands woven into the stunning pattern of their history. One of those strands was added at the end of the 1970s when the church asked the twelve families from a single Bible study to leave the church. The group had been meeting in the home of Carl’s mom and was led by John and Carol. They had begun exploring intimate worship, saturated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was an intoxicating time for these folks but uncomfortable for a church more cautious about the charismatic. In these rather messy circumstances, the Vineyard was planted.
Sitting in their lounge, Ken and Carol told me how delighted they were, more than thirty years later, tobe invited to Yorba Linda Friends’ centenary celebrations and to be publicly honored as a movement that God had birthed and multiplied. I believe this kingdom gesture will have immense redemptive ripple effects in the time to come.
But here’s the part that arrested me. Carol tells me that they were sitting there at the 100th anniversary when she turned to Ken and had the following conversation.
“Kenneth, these people haven’t seen the miracles we’ve seen. They haven’t enjoyed the worship we’ve enjoyed. They haven’t heard the prophecy we’ve heard. But they’ve done something we didn’t really do.”
“What’s that?” asked Ken.
“They raised sons and daughters who love and serve God. They discipled their kids,” she replied.
Then she turned to me with royal fire in her eyes and said, “We thought if we loved our kids enough and if they were anointed enough, it would be enough. But it wasn’t. We didn’t really discipline our children. Don’t choose between powerful encounters and discipling the next generation.”
It was a statement of honor towards Yorba Linda Friends, and a humble admission that as a people hungry for the power of the Spirit, we’ve often been guilty of valuing anointing over character, sudden over slow, converts over disciples—breakthrough now over maturity one day.
I don’t believe we’re called to ignore one at the expense of the other. An expectation of God’s power breaking in now is vital to capture the imagination of the next generation. But I wonder how differently we would live and lead if we thought, “What would this mean in a century’s time?” And I wonder how different our churches would look if we placed as much value on a lifetime of anointed plodding as we did upon one moment of power."
An excerpt from my book,"Broken for Blessing : the underrated potential of the medium-sized multiplying church."
