Meet The Team
Andrew & Mandy Myatt
Founders & Church Leaders
Worship - Matt Durber
Explorers - Anna Howey
Connection Group Pastors - Louie Allan & Mandy Myatt; Dave & Anna Howey, Karen Hann; Matt & Jo Durber
Admin - Ellie Carman
Bookkeeping - Helen Keeble
Trustees - Simon Morris, Jo Durber, Andrew Myatt
We want to see worshipping communities across the Oxford area, which reach out with the transforming love of Jesus for every life.
What Is Vineyard?
The first Vineyard church was 'planted' (started from scratch) by Ken Gullickson in 1974. The name came from Isaiah 27:2 "Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the LORD, watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it."
Within a few years Ken had 4 or 5 Vineyard Churches on his hands & didn't know how to develop them. So he asked in John Wimber to take over - John had also been planting churches in the Los Angeles area. The Vineyard spread rapidly across N America & then into S Africa & UK. The appeal was a different style of church, which was aimed at people who had no previous experience of going to church.
John Wimber had been a musician, and described himself as a fourth generation pagan, knowing nothing about Jesus or the Bible - 'I didn't even know God had a book out!' So he started churches that his musician friends would feel at home in, and where the cultural barriers had been removed so that people could easily meet with God.
When Wimber first visited the UK it was just to do renewal meetings at first. It was years later that the first Vineyard church was planted in the UK, by John & Eleanor Mumford in SW London. Soon 3 other Vineyards had been planted in London, St Albans and Manchester. There are now more than 2,000 Vineyard churches in over 100 countries, and about 150 Vineyard churches in the British Isles.
We are part of the Vineyard Persian Partnership - a group of Vineyard churches from the UK, USA, and Germany working in the Persian world. Go to www.persianworld.org for more info.
Our Story
Oxford Vineyard was planted in April 1992 from the SW London Vineyard by Andrew & Mandy Myatt. We started with a Key Group (a mid-week meeting in our home, to worship, minister and build relationship), a prayer meeting and a monthly outreach event. God gathered people, so we started more groups. When there were 3 Key Groups we also met at the weekend once a month. After 2.5 years we started weekly Sunday meetings with Kids work.
As society changes, the practice of the church needs to change. We don't change the Bible, but just how we do church together.
We have moved away from a Sunday morning Attraction model to a Disciple Making Model, using Discovery Studies (Discovery Bible Study) as our main tool and meeting point. The aim is to spend time with unchurched people, recognise those who are spiritually hungry and invite them to see what the Bible has to say about God and about life. The Discovery Studies lead people to Biblical discipleship before they come to faith. We also gather in different places to worship, have lunch together, reach out, etc.
To understand more about what’s important in Vineyard practice and beliefs, we’d recommend the books Doing Church by Alexander Venter, & Empowered Evangelicals, by Rich Nathan and Ken Wilson.