 Official Logo | |
| Formation | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Founder | John and Eleanor Mumford |
| Location |
|
| Website | www |
Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland (or VCUKI) is the national body for the Association of Vineyard Churches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. There are more than 100 churches under its direction. The organisation is both a registered charity (number 1099748) [1] and a registered company (number 04839046). [2]
The Vineyard church was established in the UK by John and Eleanor Mumford. After visiting John Wimber in the US, the Mumfords returned to the UK to establish the first British Vineyard church, South West London Vineyard in 1987. VCUKI became its own national organisation in 1996, when it was released by the international body.
The Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland is headed by its national directors, John and Debby Wright, who officially took over from John and Eleanor Mumford in September 2015. [3] There is then a Leadership Council, with members responsible for different specialisms within the church (church planting, church development, and financial and legal issues).
In addition to the central leadership, the UK and Ireland are divided into 13 areas. [4] Each area is run by Area Leaders, who are responsible for that area of the country. Areas tend to hold their own training and events for the local people, leaders and churches.
One of the first academic studies of a Vineyard church in the United Kingdom was Cory E. Labanow's Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church: A Congregational Study of a Vineyard Church. [5] Within the congregation studied ("Jacobsfield Vineyard"), there was a common identity as an "emerging church".
However, Labanow reports that the meaning of this common identity was contested within the congregation. Even more significantly, the decentralised, non-creedal nature of the Vineyard churches in the UK and the Republic of Ireland makes it such that one church cannot be seen to be representative of the whole of the Vineyard movement in the UK and Ireland.
There have been a number of accusations that the Vineyard organisation attracts narcissistic leaders.
The founder and trustees of the Causeway Coast Vineyard in Northern Ireland have been the subject of a number of internal and external media investigations. Founder Alan Scott has been accused of having a messiah complex, [9] and in 2023 several of his family members had to resign from leadership positions in the church following historic allegations of spiritual abuse. [10]
The church's founders, Alan Scott and his wife, the famous worship leader, Kathryn Scott, had left and moved to Anaheim Vineyard, California, in 2018. Before Alan and Kathryn left, Kathryn's sister, Janet Young, along with her husband, Neil Young, were made joint senior pastors. [11]
A prominent Theologian, Dr. Luke Martin, attended the church as a teenager before achieving a PhD at Oxford University and teaching at the famous Eton College. He has criticised Alan publicly and pointed out that there was no open recruitment between Alan and Kathryn Scott leaving Northern Ireland, and the appointment of their family members Neil and Janet Young. Dr. Martin also noted that neither Neil and Janet had any theological qualifications. [12] , [13]
After Alan and Kathryn's departure, reports started to emerge that Alan had been an abusive leader in Northern Ireland. The trustees of the church eventually commissioned an independent report. In this, respondents alleged that Alan Scott had appeared ‘all knowing’ and that he had told them God would tell him if anybody spoke about him, even in their own homes, and that he knew people's sin by looking at them. [14]
Neil and Janet Young resigned in 2023 as they could not support the findings of the trustee's independent report against their family members. [15]
At the same time, in California, Anaheim Vineyard took Alan to court for fraud due to his decision to take the Anaheim church and its $62 million worth of assets out of the Vineyard movement. The Vineyard movement alleged that Alan had promised not to do this during the recruitment process, and they alleged he had been fraudulent in this promise. [16]
Alan renamed the now independent Anaheim church 'Dwelling Place', where he remains as pastor. [17] Similar concerns have continued at Dwelling Place under Scott, and in 2024 their worship leader was prohibited from attending a Christian conference following allegations of spiritual abuse while under Alan Scott's leadership at Dwelling Place. [18]
In September 2024, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland stepped in and have decided to run another investigation into the Causeway Coast Vineyard. The focus of this new probe is around the church's governance arrangements and its response to the allegations made against Alan and Kathryn Scott. [19]
Like the senior leadership of the church, the trustee board is dominated by one family - the Lynas family - and their spouses. [20] The Lynas family are one the wealthiest in the area, who own a major food distribution operation. [21] The Chairperson, Peter Lynas, is also works for Evangelical Alliance, [22] a controversial lobby group who have been criticised for their conservative stance on a range of issues. [23]
A leader within the Causeway Coast Vineyard, in Northern Ireland, Mark Marx, started a branch of the church called 'Healing on the Streets'. [24] This organisation made promises to cure medical conditions through faith healing, first on the streets of Coleraine and then training other churches. [25] These claims - including the claim they could heal cancer - have been challenged by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) who concluded that the claims were 'misleading'. This led to media stories around the Bath group, [26] and the Nottingham group. [27]
The Evangelical Alliance policy arm is led by Peter Lynas, who is also Chair of the Causeway Coast Vineyard board. [28] Evangelical Alliance supported Mark Marx organisations and believes the regulations should not apply to the Healing on the Streets activities. [29]
Mark Marx and Causeway Coast Vineyard founder Alan Scott have now moved together to Dwelling Place, California. [30]
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that puts primary emphasis on evangelization. The word evangelic comes from the Greek word for 'good news'. The Gospel story of the salvation from sin is considered "the good news". The process of personal conversion involves complete surrender to Jesus Christ. The conversion process is authoritatively guided by the Bible, the God in Christianity's revelation to humanity. Critics of the conceptualization of evangelicalism argue that it is too broad, too diverse, or too ill-defined to be adequately seen as a movement or a single movement.
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement that emphasizes direct personal experience of God through baptism with the Holy Spirit. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, an event that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Jesus movement was an evangelical Christian movement that began on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and primarily spread throughout North America, Europe, Central America, Australia and New Zealand, before it subsided in the late 1980s. Members of the movement were called Jesus people or Jesus freaks.
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches with 600 million adherents that was founded in 1846 in London, England, to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest international organization of evangelical churches. It has offices at the United Nations in New York City, Geneva, and Bonn. It brings together nine regional and 143 national evangelical alliances of churches, and over one hundred member organizations. Moreover, a number of international evangelical denominations are members of the WEA.
The Association of Vineyard Churches, also known as the Vineyard Movement, is an international neocharismatic evangelical Christian association of churches.
Coleraine is a town and civil parish near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is 55 miles (89 km) north-west of Belfast and 30 miles (48 km) east of Derry, both of which are linked by major roads and railway connections. It is part of Causeway Coast and Glens district. Coleraine had a population of 24,483 people in the 2021 census.
The Foursquare Church is an international Evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in 1923 by evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California, United States.
The charismatic movement in Christianity is a movement within established or mainstream denominations to adopt beliefs and practices of Charismatic Christianity, with an emphasis on baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the use of spiritual gifts (charismata). It has affected most denominations in the United States, and has spread widely across the world.
Lonnie Ray Frisbee was an American Charismatic evangelist in the late 1960s and in the 1970s; he was a self-described "seeing prophet". He was known for his hippie appearance. He was notable as a minister and evangelist in the Jesus movement.
John Richard Wimber was an American pastor, Christian author and musician. Initially ordained as a Quaker minister, he became an early, pioneering pastor of charismatic congregations, and a popular thought leader in modern Christian publications on the third person of the Christian Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's action in modern churches through miraculous phenomena referred to as miracles, or signs and wonders. Wimber was a founding leader of the Vineyard Movement, a Christian movement that Kenn Gulliksen began in the United States and that later became a wider denomination.
The Toronto Blessing, a term coined by British newspapers, refers to the Christian revival and associated phenomena that began in January 1994 at the Toronto Airport Vineyard church (TAV), which was renamed in 1996 to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) and then later in 2010 renamed to Catch the Fire Toronto. It is categorized as a neo-charismatic Evangelical Christian church and is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The revival impacted charismatic Christian culture through an increase in popularity and international reach and intensified criticism and denominational disputes. Criticism primarily centered around disagreements about charismatic doctrine, the Latter Rain Movement, and whether or not the physical manifestations people experienced were in line with biblical doctrine or were actually heretical practices.
The Evangelical Alliance (EA) is a UK organisation of evangelical individuals, organisations, and churches, which is itself a member of the World Evangelical Alliance. Founded in 1846, the Evangelical Alliance aims to promote evangelical Christian beliefs and advocate for evangelical Christians in politics and society. The Evangelical Alliance is based in London, with offices in Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and Stockport.
The Neo-charismaticmovement is a movement within evangelical Protestant Christianity that is composed of a diverse range of independent churches and organizations that emphasize the current availability of gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and faith healing. The Neo-charismatic movement is considered to be the "third wave" of the Charismatic Christian tradition which began with Pentecostalism, and was furthered by the Charismatic movement. As a result of the growth of postdenominational and independent charismatic groups, Neo-charismatics are now believed to be more numerous than the first and second wave categories. As of 2002, some 19,000 denominations or groups, with approximately 295 million individual adherents, were identified as Neo-charismatic.
New Wine is a not-for-profit Christian charismatic evangelical organisation based in England, United Kingdom. It equips Christian churches and leaders in spiritual renewal, worship and church planting.
The Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) is an Anglican evangelical mission agency that works across Ireland and the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1836.
Kathryn Sarah Scott is a contemporary worship music songwriter and worship leader from Northern Ireland. She has written songs such as "Hungry", "At the Foot of the Cross", and "Search Me" for the worshipping church. She released her first album, Satisfy, in 2004, and followed it up with I Belong in 2007 and We Still Believe in 2010. She returned in 2020 with Speak to Me, released in partnership with Watershed Music Group. The worship experience was recorded live at Causeway Coast Vineyard in Northern Ireland, which was produced by Martin Smith and features, both, Martin and his daughter Elle Limebear.
Adrian McQuillan, is a former Northern Irish unionist politician who was a Causeway Coast and Glens Councillor for the Bann DEA from 2019 to 2023.
The Caleb Foundation, created in 1998, is a creationist pressure group in Northern Ireland. It also lobbies on a range of social policy issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage from an evangelical Protestant perspective, and has been particularly influential with Democratic Unionist Party ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive. The organisation has described its mission as "promoting the fundamentals of the historic evangelical Protestant faith".
The Romanian Evangelical Alliance is an evangelical Christian organization that comprises three distinguished denominations that are in full communion with each other: the Baptist Union of Romania, Apostolic Church of God and Christian Evangelical Church of Romania.
The Church of the Resurrection is an Anglican church in Wheaton, Illinois. It is the cathedral parish of the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest, whose first and current bishop was Rez's longtime pastor. Since its founding in 1954, the church has had a significant and complex role in the Anglican realignment in the United States, the charismatic renewal movement and the growth in the so-called "Canterbury Trail" of evangelical Protestants moving toward Anglicanism.