Title: Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire – What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People
Author: Jim Cymbala
ISBN: 0310251532

Title of Review:
A Balance between Biblical Truth and Personal Experience

Book Review:
This book should be a must-read for anyone who is planting a church, has planted a church, or is currently the pastor of a church. The entire premise of this book is PRAYER and the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT.

Jim Cymbala starts off with his unusual call to ministry after finishing college. With no seminary degree or formal pastoral training, he followed God’s calling to become the pastor of a very small church in the slums of Brooklyn. From the very beginning of his ministry, he was in a position of complete dependence on God to provide for everything through prayer. It was then he discovered an astonishing truth, “God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately the need him.”

Sometime later, while Jim is somewhat burnt out and is on a vacation trying to recover from a lingering illness, and he cries out to God, “Lord, I have no idea how to be a successful pastor…” and the Lord responds, “If you and your wife will lead my people to pray and call upon my name, you will never lack for something fresh to preach. I will supply all the money that’s needed both for the church and for you family, and you will never have a building large enough to contain the crowds I will send in response.” This was the fresh wind that ignited the flame of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Jim comes back from vacation he lays out what will be the future of this church, “From this day on, the prayer meeting will be the barometer of our church. What happens on Tuesday night will be the gauge by which we will judge success or failure because that will be the measure by which God blesses us.”

PRAYER, not human cleverness, would be the driving factor of the success of this church. From that point on, everything changed for the congregation at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. God suddenly had room to move and they were graced with more of the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT. The rest of the book follows a cycle of Need > Prayer > Power of the Holy Spirit. Jim recounts dozens of stories of the POWER of PRAYER.

After reading this book, I walked away inspired and ready to pray!

[tags]Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Jim Cymbala, Brooklyn Tabernacle, 0310251532, Prayer, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Revival, Power of Prayer, book review[/tags]