Vineyard Community Church - Central Maryland

255 Najoles Road, Millersville, MD  21108

P.O. Box 1170, Millersville, MD  21108

410.987.3440 office | 410.987.8369 fax | office@vcccm.org

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Copyright 2008 Vineyard Community Church. All Rights Reserved

History

History of the Vineyard Movement

The Vineyard Community Church has its roots in the Jesus movement of the late sixties and early seventies where tens of thousands of young people came to Christ during a powerful time of spiritual awakening. The first Vineyard began in 1974 with a small Bible study in Los Angeles led by Kenn and Joanie Gulliksen. This Bible study grew into a large church of musicians, business people, students, actors, homemakers, and many others who were simply hungry to know God in a genuine way. The group grew and planted ten other churches in California. The Vineyard's philosophy and values today reflect that powerful time in which many were so deeply impacted.

In 1982, after having been powerfully impacted by the Holy Spirit, John Wimber and several other pastors involved in the Calvary Chapel movement led their churches to join the group of Vineyard churches in Southern California. John was soon asked to serve as leader of this movement. In 1987, the Association of Vineyard Churches was formed and has, since that time, grown to over 1500 churches worldwide. The Association of Vineyard Churches promotes evangelism through church planting, church renewal, and ministry training conferences around the world. God however, has shown us not to seek to build the Vineyard, but instead to seek His kingdom and to build His church, to bless what He is blessing, to love what He loves, and to give ourselves away freely.

History of Vineyard Community Church - Central Maryland

In 1982 after working in pastoral, administrative, and counselor positions for some years with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of West Los Angeles, California, John Odean and his team received direction and vision from the Lord to go to Maryland for the purpose of establishing a church. Upon receiving the approval and blessing of the church leadership a group of believers met weekly in Los Angeles (for a 10 month period) to pray and seek the Lord for the birth of the new church that would begin in Maryland. From that gathering a ministry team was formed of ten individuals willing to take what they had learned of the gospel of Jesus Christ from the western to the eastern part of the United States. Packing up their belongings and caravanning across country the team left Los Angeles on June 1, 1983. Midway across country, an accident occurred that took the lives of 2 team members (Bill Owens and Dawn Hansen) and caused the loss of nearly all material possessions of the remaining team members. In the midst of that initial difficulty, God’s grace, mercy, and favor reined. On July 1st, 1983, the first meeting of what has become the Vineyard Community Church of Central Maryland was held in Annapolis.

Since that time our small group of eight individuals has multiplied and multiplied...salvation has gone forth, people are healed, and people are coming to know and love Jesus more as we are growing into a united force!The Vineyard Community Church of Central Maryland is an independent church, but part of the “Association of Vineyard Churches”. It is a church recognized by the state of Maryland as a non-profit corporation. Each Vineyard is autonomous and independently incorporated, but joined by shared values, priorities, goals, style, and love to all other Vineyards. Our similar doctrine and philosophy, as well as our personal relational ties are what join the various Vineyard churches together.We also love and see ourselves joined by the Spirit to all other churches that profess Jesus Christ as Lord.The Association of Vineyard Churches (A.V.C.) is a church planting and missions arm that is associated with over 1500 Vineyard churches globally. It too is a separately incorporated non-profit organization based in Houston, Texas for the sake of mutual submission, training, and fellowship. The Vineyard Community Church of Central Maryland is part of and in submission to the Association of Vineyard Churches of which Bert Waggoner is the National Director.