Are Calvary Chapel and Vineyard virtually the same?

crixus said:

Vineyard is more charismatic. Calvary Chapel restricts speaking in tongues to after the service, while Vineyard doesn't. Vineyard is more like a Pentecostal church. That's basically what the split was about. That and John Wimber was a homosexual, which did not rest well with Calvary Chapel.

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Do you have proof of this. I was part of Wimbers church and never heard such a thing. I know there was another minister (not with Vineyard but Calvary Chapel) that was found out to be homosexual but from my knowledge John was not homosexual.

SpiritPsalmist said:

Do you have proof of this. I was part of Wimbers church and never heard such a thing. I know there was another minister (not with Vineyard but Calvary Chapel) that was found out to be homosexual but from my knowledge John was not homosexual.

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Oops! I was thinking of Lonnie Frisbee who was also involved in the early days of Calvary Chapel with Wimber and Smith. My apology to John Wimber. Thank you for catching my error SpiritPsalmist.

Lonnie Frisbee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Simon Peter said:

As others have said, CC and the Vineyard used to be the same church, but they split because of theological differences.

CC took a more conservative path and the Vineyard a more charismatic direction.

CC want a more orderly Sunday morning service and usually discourage the use of most spiritual gifts in the service. CC's stance is that they believe in all gifts, but they don't want them causing disruption in a service.

CC claim to allow more freedom in other meetings, say small groups, but in practice you will see a lot less of the gifts of the spirit in CC than you would in the Vineyard.

However, you will see more 'charismania' and 'abuse/misuse' of the gifts in Vineyard that you would see in CC.

FTR: I've spent many years in both CC and Vineyard churches.

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Actually BOTH are break-offs from the FourSquare Gospel denomination. Chuck Smith was a FourSquare pastor of a small congregation called "Calvary Chapel." One of his temporary (college student) members was Ken Gullickson who started the Vineyards. (he cut a single and 1 album on Maranatha) When he graduated, he started the first Vineyard congregation, which started multiplying. He did not want to lead an entire denomination so he called in John Wimber who refashioned the doctrine and practice to his own liking.

Parallel to that, Smith had more and more difficulties with the Foursquare structure over "Hippies" and Contemporary Christian Music; so he broke off his congregation which also started multiplying and became the CC denomination.

So CC doctrine and practice are more in line with FourSquare (which is classic Pentecostal) than Vineyard is.