Book Review – Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

Well, not technically a review, more of a gushing as to the significance of this book and its impact on life and ministry. If I could, I would just copy and past the entire text of the book because it really does say it all. Instead, I will try to keep it to a few quotes. I cannot overstate the coolness of this book and what Jesus has done through His servant Jim Cymbala.

I first heard about this book from a neat lady named Becky back in 1998 while I was a youth pastor. Becky was the mom of a couple of the kids in the youth group. Understand that she was a very soft-spoken, gentle, and proper Southern woman. She came to me one day and in all seriousness handed me a copy, and in that Georgia accent said, “You have got to read this book.” Just from that I knew it was kind of a big deal. And she was right. Especially because I was getting tired in ministry. Very tired. No fruit, no energy, no mojo.

And then I read things like,

That evening, when I was at my lowest, confounded by obstacles, bewildered by darkness that surrounded us, unable even to continue preaching, I discovered an astonishing truth: God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need Him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for His power.

Wow. Really? He is attracted to weakness? You mean, I don’t have to put all my effort into something and be good at it before He will bless it or approve of it? Really? But I’m a pastor. Aren’t I supposed to be all pastoral? Apparently not.

In a parallel vein, people are not put off by honesty, either. I didn’t have to keep up a ministerial front. I could just preach God’s Word as best I knew and then call the congregation to prayer and worship. The Lord would take over from there.

This is something that hasn’t sunk in and become real for me until the past four years. I don’t have to be Pastor Corby, I can just be Corby, with all his quirks, odd sense of humor, verbal constipation, introverted-ness, and social anxiety. You don’t have to be Christian You, you can just be you in Christ. So, God is attracted to weakness, I can be weak, I can be who He’s made me to be. But I want to see Him work. Jim puts it this way.

I knew God wanted to do much more … and He would, if we provided good soil in which He could work. I was tired of the escapist mentality I had witnessed since childhood – always glorifying what God did way back in some revival, or else passionately predicting “the coming great move of God” just ahead.

As a Calvary Chapel pastor I can completely identify with this. I hear about the old chapel days, the tent days, the concert days, the beach baptisms, the masses coming to Jesus. But what about now? Doesn’t God still want to do the same stuff? Isn’t He still in the business of saving lives? Absolutely and unequivocally, yes. But how? What do we do? In short, nothing. We can’t do anything.

What we needed instead was a fresh wind and a fresh fire. We needed the Holy Spirit to transform the desperate lives of people all around us.

And there you have it. Jim further goes on to express my heart when I didn’t even know how to define it.

I despaired at the though that my life might slip by without seeing God show Himself mightily on our behalf. Carol [Jim's wife] and I didn’t want merely to mark time. I longed and cried out for God to change everything – me, the church, our passion for people, our praying.

That’s me. That’s where I’m at even as I write this. While on a break, Jim had a word from the Lord.

“If you and your wife will lead my people to pray and call upon my name, you will never lack foe something fresh to preach. I will supply all the money that’s needed, both for the church and for your family, and you will never have a building large enough to contain the crowds I will send in response.”

Here’s the rub. Is that promise universal? Can I claim that promise for myself? Or was that specifically for Jim Cymbala in that place at that time? I think it was both for Jim and for anyone who would step up to the same dare to prayer. God clearly says in His word in a variety of ways and places that He wants people to seek Him, to call upon Him, that He is looking for people to work through and to bless. Maybe God is pulling you in the same direction. Jim’s response to this was,

It was what I already knew, but God was now drawing me out, pulling me toward an actual experience of Himself and His power. He was telling me that my hunger for Him and His transforming power would be satisfied as I led my tiny congregation to call out to Him in prayer.

And that’s exactly what Jim Cymbala did then and continues to do to this day. In the book he quotes C.H. Spurgeon as saying,

“The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if He be no there, one of the first tokens of His absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.”

Do you see where this is going? It isn’t just the act of prayer, it is the sincere seeking of the power of the Holy Spirit to change things. This power is activated, tapped into, accessed, whatever you want to call it, through seeking Him in prayer.

Coming from a Calvary Chapel background, this next bit was hard to swallow, but it is absolutely and Biblically true.

That’s why the great emphasis on teaching in today’s churches is producing such limited results. Teaching is good only where there’s life to be channeled. If the listeners are in a spiritual coma, what we’re telling them may be fine and orthodox, but unfortunately, spiritual like cannot be taught. Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, “We are not New testament Christians if we don’t have a prayer life.” This conviction makes us squirm a little, but how else will there be a breakthrough with God?

Again, wow. Most Calvary Chapels have an “if you teach it they will come” as if just teaching the word were enough all on its own. Anyone can teach the Bible, but it takes the Holy Spirit working in the lives of the teacher and the hearer for the Word to do anything, and this is accomplished through prayer.

I could quote, and quote, and quote this whole book. Instead, you should just read it. I’ll try and wrap it up with this. I recently attended the Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference 2010. The theme was, “Continuing in the Spirit.” Calvary Chapel was born from a move of the Spirit. The danger is to “take it from there” in the flesh, to do things in our own strength, to come up with formulas and programs to attract and keep people without ever being changed into the image of Jesus as we are supposed to be. Instead, we need to continue in the Spirit. We need to continually seek His face, His power, His grace, in our brokenness. One more quote from Jim.

In fact, Carol and I have told each other more than once that if the Spirit of brokenness and calling on God ever slacks off in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, we’ll know we’re in trouble, even if we have 10,000 in attendance.

That’s continuing in the Spirit. That’s how genuine prayer is achieved. That’s what it accomplishes. Prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit are the only way we are going to go anywhere and do anything as individual believers, as pastors, as churches. Do you need a fresh wind, a fresh fire? Ask, seek, find.

Pray.

If you are interested in ordering a copy (those in our church) just let me know and I will hook you up. You can also order it online.