Editorial healing. Change is a certainty of editorial life: rewrites, revisions, schedule shifts. When the August issue was first planned, the cover was to have emphasized a three-article series on the black church in America. Research and writing moved along smoothly until staff determined more time was needed. Editors and writers wanted to make sure the articles addressed more than needs that had been reported on a hundred times before.
All of this was fine and good, but it left us without an August cover story (and a deadline breathing down our necks)—until senior writer Tim Stafford submitted his piece on John Wimber and the healing ministry of California’s latest boom church, The Vineyard. After one reading, we knew our editorial problem was solved.
In typical Stafford style, “Testing the Wine” is more than a simple collection of facts and figures about a person and a movement: It is a personal look at what makes this controversial ministry tick—complete with sights, sounds, and the charismatic personality of John Wimber.
“Exorcisms. Physical healings. Resurrections. Frankly, I was skeptical,” Tim said, reviewing with us the makings of his third cover story for CT in two years (all, interestingly, featuring cover caricatures). But after spending some days with Wimber and others at their “Signs and Wonders” outpost, Tim felt he was able to look objectively at a ministry that is changing lives, but not without its outspoken critics.
As for that three-part series on the black church, it will appear in the September 19 issue.
Love letters in the sand. Just in time for the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer—sand evangelism. A look at the man who sculpts the Scriptures is the focus of this month’s Church in Action.
HAROLD SMITH, Managing Editor
