Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire (book)

I actually read this book a while ago but decided to post about it because I had to post about something so that those of you on this blog would be inspired to post something too, or maybe just comment. I have actually this book twice. The first time I liked it. The second time, more recently... (like in about the last year,) I didn't.

Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire is by Jim Cymbala, a pastor well known for his work in a powerty section of New York. His church is called the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and his wife is the director of the "Grammy Award Winning," Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. This book is one that I have heard people refer to as a great book to read, people including my pastor who also used Cymbala's quotes on handouts over the last year. Jim Cymbala has written over 40 books, which I think is quite a few. The subtitle to the Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire is, "What happens when God's Spirit invades the hearts of his people."

I barely got to page two, (Well, it really was the second page of my reading, but it was actually numbered page 12 in the book due to the table of contents and other miscellaneous pages,) when I started hearing ideas that I believe are incongruous with what I know to be true and began questioning what I read.

Foe example, Jim Cymbala talks on (pg 12) about how his father in law believed that he was being "called" by God into "full time Christian service." Now, I understand the principal here, that perhaps Jim is referring to, but as I read this, I was struck with thinking, "wait a minute... aren't all Christians, called into "full time Christian service?" He did not say, "called to pastoral ministry" or "teaching," but o "full time Christian service", and this sets itself up as opposed to... what?..."part time Christian service?"

Also, I think this kind of statement he made about being in "full time service," unlike the rest of Christians who are not full-time, not as devoted to God and serving him, is the very thing that sets people up to think that some in the Christian community are more holy or "closer to God" than they are. It also works two way in contributing to a "pastor" not being a brother in Christ, nor a fellow servant, but instead more like Christian code for "superior" or "CEO."

If you are in full time church business, and being a pastor is a job, a profession from which you derive your paycheck, a career choice like being dentist or an electrician, it follows that how well a pastor does his "job" equates itself to the size of building a church meets in, the number of books a pastor has in print (even better if they make the best seller lists of course!) and how many programs and people are under their particular pastoral management.

Next, Cymbala made a big deal about receiving "a sign,"(pg. 17) from God. His sign was two fifty dollar bills in a white envelope, which he described as a sign that "God was near and faithful." The note I made in the margin of my book asks, "What about the mere fact the God's word declares he is near and faithful." Are we Christians to believe God because we believe what God's word says or because he gives us signs to prove himself?

Cymbala here, was not an unbeliever, he was a Christian man who was trying to learn about leading a church congregation. At this time of his life he was however really wondering, sweating about how to pay the bills, crying out to God for help and drying his tears, even feeling like God had abandoned him because the pianist knew only one song and the collection plate was slim.

Let me say here that I believe God does answer our prayers and show himself faithful, he even does things we consider miraculous, meeting our needs in ways too wonderful for us to understand. I certainly do believe that he does, but Cymbala's enthusiastic inference about how God had given him a "sign" when the money he desperately needed mysteriously appeared via a white envelope on the foyer floor, and I note that it was nothing supernatural, nothing that went against nature, like a wet fleece or floating ax. No. The suddenly appearing money in a while envelope incident is reported to be so much more than just a documentation of God answering Jim's prayer. It was much not only a mystery, but a miracle.

And after making sure the reader thinks that God did a miracle by providing the envelope on the floor, Cymbala leaves the reader with an air of mystery about it all, saying, "To this day, I don't know where that money came from." The reader has no option but to believe it was a direct answer to Cymbalas pray and pleading,a direct result of prayer, and directly to Jim from God.

I guess what bugs me about this is that I have read how Jesus "sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation." (Mark 8:12 , see also, Luke 11:29) I have read also where Paul talks about how they do not simply believe in signs or in knowledge, but in the person of Christ. ( 1 Col. 1:22-24) He says, "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

I take a bit of an issue with Jim pointing the reader to look for or trust in signs.

On another note, I know that Pastors are to pray for people, but I never thought a pastor would actually pray for people to leave the church, as Jim Cymbala said he did on page 21. He says that he even had to help answer his own prayers by suggesting that members consider another church and he talks about how this was because they "were out of step with the flavor of the church."

Do not get me wrong, I know sometimes people need to be confronted on issues, released from "duty" when they are not working toward the same "goal" as the person in charge, but if I think about someone praying for God to make people leave their life, and resorting to answering their own prayers , I cannot help but wonder, "Who, (in this situation) IS in the role of being God?" I have heard somewhere that God is longsuffering toward us, patient. Outside of meaning not of a personal preference or liking, I have no idea what it means for a person to simply be described as a "different flavor."

Jim doesn't say that these people that he prayed out of his congregation, were in habitual sin and would not change; nor does he say they were not Christian or that they were unwilling to help and be a part of the church. In fact Jim, who in his own words, had "a very hectic schedule" and "thousands of problems" he was dealing with, speaks with a bit of distain as he describes how this man offers his assistance and declares that this man's spiritual life was opposite of what it should have been for the task. Furthermore, Cymbala says that he wanted these people to leave because he "knew" that if they stayed, "the Lord would never bless the mess with the spiritual power they so disparately needed."

"Never" seems like a pretty big word to me.

Trhoughout the book Cymbala talks a lot about money and finances and understandably, so for money is a necessity... and a shelter, like wisdom. Interestingly, Jim says that God came to him and personally spoke, (pg 25) giving him promises about how he wold always have something fresh to preach, all the money that he needed for the church and for his family, and that he never having a building large enough to contain the crowds he would send to Jim," if....you and your wife will lead my people to pray and call upon my name."

I found myself wonderingat this part too. It sure sounded to me like some sort of prosperity doctrine as God's promise here to Jim seems to be one of "you will never suffer hardship," (IF) "if you lead my people to pray and to call upon my name."

As promising as it may be for God to bless Jim financially because he leads the church to pray, as spiritually sounding as it is, it sounds quite UNbiblical to me. Cymbala's primary job is now not to evangelize the unbelieving world for Christ, but to evangelize the church, and this in exchange for money and a following of people as he is "leading them to pray and call upon" his name." My thought is that this directive from God himself to Jim is a bit redundant for the church, if it is those who believe upon Jesus, those who are saved, is made up of those who have already called upon his name.

The book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire can be considered a call to prayer, a call to ask God for forgiveness for sin, a call to repentance... and in that regard it does have value, but in telling his congregation about what God told him, Jim says, "No matter what I preach or what we claim to believe in our heads, the future will depend upon our times of prayer" (p.27) and this takes me aback because I do not ever remember reading anything like that in the scripture either.

When I read the Bible I notonly see the directive to pray, "without ceasing" but also a directive to "preach" so people can hear the word of the Lord. And I wonder as I read this book," if it does not matter what you believe in your head," as Jim says, "why does the Bible say, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.'"

I also am reminded that Moslems, pray, Hindus pray, Buddhists, pray, Jews pray and some folks were even rebuked by Jesus because they prayed simply to be seen of other men. If what a person believed and preached were not important than Christianity would basically be on a parr with all these other religions who pray too. No different really than those who believe and preach things other than Christ. So, I wonder, "how can it not matter what you believe in your head?"

I ask, is this the voice of my master? Quite frankly, I think not.

I attend a church where my pastor preaches the word of God, and I would say, he does so quite faithfully, filling his hearers with knowledge of who God is and what he has said and done, often pointing out that the point of doing so is that we then allow God to change our hearts. His faithful preaching allows God's Holy Spirit to enlighten our dark minds with truth from God's holy word, light, and the result is that we gain understanding of who God is and open out heart to God's Holy Spirit, (who by the way, does not simply "invade" like a maruader. I am so thankful for a pastor who preaches from the Bible for how can people hear the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, unless someone preaches?

As I think about my own answer, I am confounded again by Cymbala's word, this time on page 138, when he writes, " What gains unbelievers’ attention and stirs the heart is seeing the gospel expressed in power. It takes more than academic rigor to win the world for Christ. Correct doctrine alone isn’t enough. Proclamation and teaching aren’t enough. God must be invited to ‘confirm the word with signs following."

There is that "signs" thing again.

I really am saddened over how many times Jim Cymbala dismisses the importance of doctrine and preaching contextually throughout this book. He says unbelievers need not hear, but to "see" power, and signs. This stands in stark contrast to Jesus saying to his disciples... blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. I am reminded too that people were not just amazed at the miracles of Jesus, they found his doctrine, his teaching, quite amazing too.

My particular copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, has a study guide in the back, and "silly me ," I thought the study guide would be a little bit like a Bible study. Nope. (Shows how much I really know.) It was a study guide on the book Fresh Wind Fresh Fire, and Jim Cymbala. It is all about the things he said in the book the things that happened in the story, as well as all about what the reader thinks and whether or not the reader agrees or disagrees with Jim Cymbala.

Jim Cymbala is marketed to the church at large thhrough this book as someone the church should embrace and listen too. After all, we just learned that he has heard directly from God on the matter of prayer. We learned from Jim that prayer, not doctrine or belief is what will mpve the church into the future, and this as we watch a new kind of spirituality unfold before our eyes in the world, one where people of all faiths, not just all denominations of Christianity, pray together.

For this reason, I believe the book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, deserves the Christian's careful consideration as they read it, after all, as David Wilkerson says in his endorsement, "reading this book will change your life forever." That it may do, and hopefully for the best, and hopefully it won't change your mind about the importance of doctrine, the necessity of preaching of God's Word, or about loving God above all things.

Hopefully it won't leave a person looking for signs in order to believe in God. Hopefully we will not find ourselves praying people out of our lives, or out of our congregations, but praying for them and building them up and encouraging them, washing them with the pure water of the word. And hopefully Christians are praying for patience, endurance under difficulty and trials, and praying for wisdom as they find themselves dealing with those peculair multidimensional relationships with seemingly dysfunctional, " unusually flavored," people, praying for them, not against them as they encounter with a loving and compassionate, holy God.