Welcome to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Senex, Senior Marketing Coordinator here at Vanderblumen. In today's podcast, Will Quotz talks with Pastor Jim Cymbala, pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for more than 50 years ago. Pastor Cymbala has a strong burden for the local church and has been blessed with the opportunity to encourage thousands of pastors around the globe. In this conversation, Pastor Jim talks about his newest book, Fan the Flame, where he provides encouragement for weary pastors. He focuses on Acts 20 as he guides pastors and church leaders towards renewal and revival. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Today's a real treat as uh I welcome Pastor Jim Stimbala. Now uh we're gonna jump into uh the book in just a little bit, but but Pastor Jim, I you know, I many people have been blessed by your ministry, but but would you mind just briefly introducing yourself um uh to our listeners?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um I'm Pastor Jim Cymbala, and my wife Carol and I started uh in downtown Brooklyn more than four decades ago in a rundown building um on Atlantic Avenue, and uh there were less than 20 people. There was no crack cocaine yet, but lots of heroin and uh alcoholism, gangs, homelessness. And uh that's where God planted us. I was a basketball player in high school and college, so I didn't have formal training. God brought me into the ministry through a side door. And my wife, who's a pastor's daughter, has perfect pitch and is a very gifted uh keyboard player, but can't read or write music. And she started a choir eventually that's won six Grammy Awards and has sung in the biggest venues uh around. And um we just started and one thing led to another, made a lot of mistakes. My sermons were so bad at the beginning that people were converting to other religions during my sermons, and that's not a good sign usually. And um we we just kept on keeping on and the Lord blessed, and um now, decades later, we find ourselves um um overseeing a bunch of churches that have grown out of our church, and we're in a ginormous theater, the largest in North America when it was built in 1918. I'm the only pastor, by the way. This theater was uh, well, it was vaudeville, then it was uh silent movies, then talkies. Uh 4,100 seats when it was built. And uh then in World War II, it it they tried to raise money for the uh war um uh World War II um effort, and they had the biggest movie stars and singers and of that day come in. So I'm the only pastor in America who can say the three stooges played live on my platform, which is one of my claims to fame, O'Larry and Curly. And um uh, but seriously, we're downtown here. Now Brooklyn has totally exploded. Uh skyscrapers everywhere, it's the new Manhattan, and um property values have just gone through the roof. But because subways and buses all stop within a block and a half of where we are, even though it's a much more dangerous Brooklyn since uh the pandemic, we're just seeing people baptized left and right who have found Christ as Savior. And uh God is good.
SPEAKER_00That's that's wonderful. Um, you know, you have uh a real legacy of ministry, a real example for for younger pastors to follow. And I think that that kind of um leads into a bit of the discussion we're having today. So uh, you know, we do want to talk about the book. The book's called Fan the Flame. I I encourage folks to go go out and and look at it. I've been able to work through it myself, but it's been so encouraging. But how how I'd love to open up, you know, this the discussion, Pastor Jim, is just a bit of sort of the current context we're in. So the past couple years, uh it goes without saying, have been especially discouraging for pastors. Um I'd love to hear from you. What are you hearing from from pastors that are looking to you? What's coming out of some of those conversations with how pastors are doing?
SPEAKER_02Well, on March 8th of 2020, well, my wife and I went down to Florida. We rent an apartment about a block and a half from uh the church here, so we don't have to commute, we can just walk 275 steps. But uh we have a home in Florida that we never get to, unfortunately. It's what's supposed to be a getaway. We went down on March 8th for five days, ostensibly, and it turned into 16 months because the next day the pastors called here and said, Don't get on an airplane. You remember back to those times, March 2020. Don't get on an airplane, church is shut down, office shut down, uh, school shut down, uh banks are shut down, everything's shut down. So, how long? What would I do? I don't, we didn't know. We hadn't been this way before. So I started meeting some a very kind pastor down there, uh, gave me his auditorium and his videography team so I could provide Sunday sermons and Tuesday night devotions uh for the prayer meeting and daily devotions. So uh that was very good. But then pastor started calling me and saying, could five of us come over uh to the house and just meet with you? And it was a lot of turmoil in their lives. So five Baptist pastors would come one week, five Assembly of God pastors, Church of God, Nazarene, uh Independent, new church starts, just name it, every week, five, sometimes with their wives. And we would go in my study, and I would say, okay, so how were you called into the ministry? How's it going? What's going on? You know, Florida was different, every state was different in in terms of spikes and when they were going to reopen. So they started pouring out their souls to me in front of one another, and the the discouragement, the confusion was palpable. And uh I'd already known that a high per an alarming percentage of pastors were looking for a way out of the ministry before the pandemic. But the latest statistics are 42 percent of all pastors in America, no matter how they act in the pulpit, would leave the ministry tomorrow if they could just get a job with benefits to cover their family. So these guys started to talk about the problem, social media, them being roasted by their own congregants, their own members. Why? Uh, what do you mean you're we're gonna reopen with masks? You demon, oh, you're one of those masked people. And then the guy in the same room would go, No, that couldn't happen. I sent out an email blast and said we're gonna reopen and we won't remask if you don't want to, and and this, and and people, you know, not only emailed me back or texted me, they went on social media and just fried me, like, oh, you're one of those no mask people. And then the politicalization of everything. Uh, you couldn't buy a hot dog without getting in an argument with someone, and then the racialization of everything after the murder of George Floyd, um woke enough, too woke, this, that, and but it threw the pastors into no matter what I do, uh, everyone's in an attack mode. And it revealed something to me. Number one, pastors need encouragement, but it revealed the soft underbelly of the evangelical church that most people who go to church, I'm afraid, don't identify as Christians first. They do not. They're white right-wing Republicans, they're black left-wing Democrats, they're they're uh Fox News, no, they're CNN. And if you disagree with them on anything, it doesn't matter that you're supposedly a brother or sister, they will attack you. They will go after you. Church is splintered everywhere, not over biblical things. Was Jesus really uh the Son of God? Did he die on the cross for our sins? No, they're not discussing that. They're discussing all these other things. So a lot of people who went away never came back. So pastors don't know what to do. So uh sitting in a chair praying there and hearing from leaders around the country who are my friends, um I got this burden to take Acts 20, the backdrop of Paul's uh farewell address to the Ephesian elders, and use it as a backdrop and say, pastors, maybe we'll have less burnout and have more fruit. If we go back to Paul's selfie of himself, three years in Ephesus, here's how he did ministry. Maybe we're so enamored with the latest church growth uh formula and skinny jeans and the fog machine, and really it hasn't produced fruit. Less people now go to church than at any time in the history of the United States of America. And the people in the pew don't live much different than people who don't profess to be a Christian. So, whatever these methods have been, and I'm all for technology and doing whatever we can, but maybe we need to humble ourselves and check ourselves and say, wait a minute, maybe we're not doing God's ministry, God's way to build God's church for God's glory. Maybe we're into marketing and branding and PowerPoint presentations being um uh the the end-all of ministry. Maybe we need to go back and look at Paul. Why did the Lord give us that in the New Testament? Maybe we can learn a lot and and relieve pressure. And you know, Jesus didn't say he's building the Brooklyn Tabernacle. I hear people say that. What's your vision for your church? I have no vision for my church, it's not my church. I didn't die on a cross. Haven't you noticed that? I didn't die on a cross, it's his church. So he would then give me in the Bible his way to build his church. But we had a lot of ego now, and really marketing techniques and Madison Avenue and technology have totally invaded so that prayer, a prayer meeting, the gospel, calling people to repent, aiming at baptisms of new creations in Christ, that is not the goal. I learned because it was an awakening to me. It's strictly a numbers game. And that will always trap you. It's how do I keep them coming back next Sunday? I know, but they could get run over by a semi uh during the week, and you haven't told them how to become a Christian, repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus. So sorry for the long uh uh sermon there, but that's why I I I got alone and said, Lord help me so I could write something uh encouraging the pastors. If we do this right, God won't help us. If we follow the book, He He's not gonna bless us. Not that's impossible.
SPEAKER_00Well, amen. And what I what I love about the book is as you're as you're alluding to, this is not a book with seven steps to come out of COVID, you know, with higher church attendance, four new marketing strategies. We're going to the pastoral example of the Apostle Paul. And I think if we were to lay him, uh, Paul the Apostle, you don't understand, I've been through COVID and I've had this political thing and this and this struggle, he could lay out his own struggles that he went through, and yet he continued in the ministry that he ran his race. Um now, what what I might I don't want to give away the whole book because I really think people need to read it. Um Are there any aspects from that Acts 20 addressed to the Ephesian elders that in your mind, even today, really stand out that pastors need to hear or that we need to learn from Paul uh and the words that he gives to those Ephesian elders?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, at the very beginning, he says something well, which I don't think any pastor would say, reviewing their ministry anywhere. We wouldn't think of it. Uh, when he starts off, and he's never gonna see them again. The Holy Spirit has shown him he'll never see them again. He's being led by the spirit to Jerusalem, where he knows only trouble awaits. But he's like a kamikaze, he doesn't care. My life means nothing to me. There's so much in every phrase. But um, one of the things that really jumps out at me there is he says, you know, constrained by the spirit, compelled by the spirit, I'm heading to Jerusalem. And it reminds us that Paul's ministry was the gospel, was his content. But he was constantly looking to the Holy Spirit as his guide, leading him, and then anointing him with power so that when he preached, he wouldn't put people to sleep or just give them uh Pablum. He would give them good food and it would make a difference in their lives. And I think um in all of the church growth formulas that you alluded to, the Holy Spirit has been left out and because of that has been grieved, because the Bible says, even though God, the Holy Spirit is God, uh he can be grieved. That word means vexed or made sad, and he can be quenched. That's hard to imagine. He's the spirit of God, Almighty God, who created the universe, and yet you can pour water on him, and his influences are gone, and you have church without the Holy Spirit. So, like A. W. Tozer said decades ago, uh, in his opinion, uh, the Holy Spirit could leave planet earth and go back to heaven. And a lot of churches wouldn't notice it for a year or two because they're used to doing church without the Holy Spirit. And ministers uh aren't looking to the Lord like, God, what should I preach this Sunday? You know the secrets of everyone's hearts, you know where we're weak, you know where I'm where we're strong. Now, Lord, if you had the microphone this Sunday, what would you speak? No, no, we plot out our, we're going through this book and this series and that series with no thought that Jesus put the Holy Spirit in charge of all matters pertaining to the Christian church when he left planet earth. When he was on planet earth, he led the disciples, they had no plans of their own. If you would have gone to Peter and James and John in Capernaum and said, Hey, hey guy, how long are you staying here? Hey, I don't know. How would I know? When he moves, we move. When he leaves, we leave. When he stays, we stay. We tell him our problems, and and he speaks to us. So when he left, he said, but I'm sending another helper. I've been with you, but he'll be in you. And I think the spirit's guidance and help and influences have been greatly uh disregarded, and we're paying the price. So if you do church without the Holy Spirit, what kind of fruit would that produce? Yes, we need good Bible gospel content, but oh, do we need the Holy Spirit's help?
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SPEAKER_00Amen to that. And I think Paul's entire ministry is an example of that. Um I'm wondering, you know, again, because I want people to read the book, and I want to shift off of that a little bit, maybe, maybe personally to you a bit, Pastor Jim. This is kind of out of out of the blue, off the cup a bit, but in your several decades of ministry, there have been low moments, moments I'm sure that you were ready to uh throw in the towel. Uh I heard someone talk about um Monday mornings for pastors as uh bread truck Mondays, meaning it's the morning you wake up uh feeling like you got hit by a bread truck, and number two, wondering if you should drive one uh instead of instead of pastoring. It's good good material. Maybe you've had a few of those, and yet you know the Lord sustained you. Can you share any moments like that and just what has helped you um continue in the work that God has has called you to?
SPEAKER_02Well, I touched on on that on that in the um in the book Fan the Flame because you know you wonder, as you alluded to, Paul in 2 Corinthians is giving a list of what he's been through. Uh, beat up, thrown in 39 lashes twice, thrown in an open sea, and trouble in the country, and trouble in the city, uh, you know, left for dead, stoned. And he never mentions two words. He never mentions burnout, and he never mentions discouragement that that really nailed him and got him down. But yet he was human. So it behooves us pastors and Christians, like maybe he had a power source that we're not familiar with. So for myself, here's what's helped me so much. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, as he talks about his trials and tribulations, which which make um uh the the COVID um era uh seem like an ice cream Sunday in a way, not to downplay it. But he says, outwardly, you know, I'm falling apart in many ways, but inwardly I'm renewed daily. So here's a good word for you, Will, me, and and everyone watching. Your whole life is one day. That's it. That's your life. Yesterday, gone. You can't change one thing. You can learn lessons, you can get a song of praise from God's goodness, see what the Lord has done. Oh, yes, but you can't change anything about yesterday. Tomorrow, don't count on it. Don't worry about it because you don't know if you'll see it. Bible says several times, warns us about that. So many times we, and this is what causes discouragement, we look back and with regret or anger what someone did to us, and so on and so forth, or we look ahead with fear and consternation. What if, what, oh, I and we miss the only day of our lives, which is today, not manana, oi, today. So Paul every day said he was getting his batteries recharged by being alone with God through the word, his mind renewed, his spirit recharged, so that you know you keep doing that every day, suddenly you look back and you go, look what the Lord has done. But it was just on a daily basis. So um I've had those moments every pastor has, but I find when I get along with the Lord and my Bible, remember, I talk about this in the book Fan the Flame. The first calling Jesus gave the people he called was not to preach or write a book or do podcasts or build a building or build a brand. Oh, yuck, build a brand. Um, but rather to be with him. He called them that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and that they might have authority over evil spirits. So the first calling on the 12 was communion, relationship they already had. And people in churches today, if you're born again, you have a relationship with Jesus, right? You don't get saved by going in a church, but you get a relationship, but that's different than communion. A lot of people that I've counseled here, they've been abused growing up by, let's say, a father, and uh they have a relationship, they're born, got a birth certificate here, downtown Brooklyn, proves that that's their father, biological relationship, fellowship, communion, sharing? Nope. So uh it behooves us pastors so we can build it on our own people. The Christian life has to be lived out on a daily basis, just walking with Jesus. That's why the last word that we see Jesus give, shall we say, on planet earth in the book of Revelation? He writes to those seven churches. The last one is Laodicea, end of chapter three of Revelation. And what's the last picture we see? Lo, even this church was lukewarm, not hot nor cold, had relationship, obviously it was a Christian church, but he was about to vomit them out of his mouth, and he goes, I'm knocking at the door. If anybody hears it, gets up and opens the door, I'll come in and sup with them, which speaks, of course, of fellowship. Just pouring out, casting our cares upon him, letting him pour in fresh grace. Uh, that's the that's the cure for all of us on a daily basis to avoid discouragement that causes you to want to run away and then run down and then just quit.
SPEAKER_00Amen to that. And I, as you were describing that as Paul's source, um, you know, I was reminded, I believe it's Acts 18. It's just this passing comment, but it highlights exactly what you're saying. Paul was in between kind of uh ministry call stations, I suppose you could say. He was he was traveling and it says he's in the city of Philippi, and he simply went looking for a place to pray. Uh, you know, we think of Paul leading and preaching and all the rest, but he was simply looking for a place to pray. That was a moment where he wanted to be alone. And what did the Lord do out of it? Well, he met Lydia, uh the Philippines church is planted, and that's just another example, I think, in my mind, of exactly what you're talking about. That was his power source, that was his way of life, and that's where ministry flowed flowed out of, as we see with that.
SPEAKER_02And more than that, more than that, picking up on that, that's what a church is supposed to be. My house shall be called a house of prayer. Why? Not legalistically, you gotta pray, but God is saying at the throne of grace, that's the only place I pour out mercy, which you all need, and grace. God's love in action, which we all need. So it's so sad that it's hard to find any church that has a prayer meeting. It's fine, hard to find services where there's seasons or moments of real prayer. We're too busy, we got that cue sheet, we got the meeting down to the minute. I go to conferences and I'm just staggered by it. I mean, they pray before they walk out. Oh, God, take control and bless. How? There's no time. You just laid out the hour and 20 minutes down to the second. So we're so organized, there's no room for God to move and bring people to prayer because I have found I try to preach the best I can, but people, five minutes in prayer, where God is blessing and they open their heart to the Lord, have communion with him, more gets done than in five of my sermons. The Bible never says, therefore, come boldly to the sermon or boldly to church. It says come boldly because of Christ to the throne of grace, that you might receive mercy and grace to help you. Hebrews 4, 16. That's where the action is.
SPEAKER_00That's that's that's absolutely right. And so I'm wondering, you know, uh, just shifting a bit practically. So, you know, let's just say, Pastor Jim, I'm I'm I'm a pastor, and I hear you, I I know I need to find time for communion. Um, can you please help me practically? Because I've got this hospital visitation coming up, and then I've got Wednesday night service, and I'm not even started my sermon yet, and it's Thursday, and I found no place to pray. As you felt the pressures of ministry crowding in on you through through the years, is there anything practical that that comes to mind that have helped you to just keep your communion with God just at the forefront amidst everything else going on?
SPEAKER_02Well, a couple of things, uh, not to disagree with you, but um I forget who it was. E.M. Bound said, I think, if you're too busy to pray, you're too busy. Change your schedule. Because if you don't pray and spend time with God, you have nothing to give people. I know I don't. If I don't spend time with God, I ain't worth nothing. Just that's the truth. So, and I have found talking to pastors, they're not overwhelmed by duties. Visitation, yeah, there's a few hospital visits, but between the phone, TV, sports, movies, hanging out, golf, and everything else, which all of it has its place, all we have to do is go to God and maybe start the day every day with God and just say, God, give me the discipline and give me the wisdom to spend time with you because that's my first calling. My calling is not to go to a hospital, someone else could even do that. My calling is to be with you. Remember in Acts uh six, uh, when the widows were complaining about who was being fed, Grecian versus uh Jewish widows. Uh so who is gonna serve at the table and hand out the food? And the apostles said, No, no, no, choose seven men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom that can do this work. We have to give ourselves to the word and prayer. Was handing out and serving the women a good thing, the widows? Yeah, of course it was a good thing, but it wasn't the main thing for them. So, pastors who have been called into ministry, how can you minister uh about the Lord if you haven't spent time with the Lord? Sure, it might be doctrinally right, you'll get a clever opening, you'll add a little humor and all of that, but that's that's communication, that's not ministry. You know, when those two men spent time with the Lord on the road to Emmaus after he rose from the dead, do you notice, Will, what they said when it was over? They said when he had disappeared, didn't our hearts burn within us when he opened the word along the way? And we need burning words, not condemnatory, not hammering people, but words that bring conviction of sin, words that that that warm a heart that's cold and hard. And that comes only by spending time with the Lord. So what they didn't say was, wasn't that clever what he said? His intro and the middle part, and then the end with the poem. Oh, that was so no. Did you know that most look at every sermon in the book of Acts? Check it out for yourself and those watching this. Not one sermon did the man who preached it know he would even speak that day, much less have notes and prepare. So it's possible if you want to think outside the box and be radical, maybe the whole thing is twisted. We've created um these techniques and methodology where everything is neat and and mostly mental. And if you preach from your head, you reach people's heads. But if you preach from your heart, and it was the you reach hearts, it was the Lord who said, When you stand before kings and judges, don't give any thought to what you'll say. Hello? What seminary teaches that? Name one, no one, and yet that's the Bible model of preaching. When Paul got killed almost in Jerusalem in Acts 21, Peter on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2, Peter again in Acts 3, when they heal the layman at the at the at the temple gate, in in Peter in Acts 10 at Cornelius' house, they didn't know they would speak that day. They didn't check on notes, they didn't have a time limit. In other words, as we've departed from that spontaneous, spirit-led, filled, I'm not talking about now shooting from the hip. No, filled with the word in your heart, and then with the spirit's help, pouring it out to the people. That's better than I believe this artificial system we've developed.
SPEAKER_00I I think that's absolutely right. And um, you know, I'm I'm just reminded in in closing, you know, Paul's words. Um, you know, you you have many guides, but but not many, not many fathers. And I, you know, I know I can speak for myself, other other younger guys who who have been in ministry. Um, what we need is kind of the voice that you're giving us right now of a fatherly voice on how to walk with God, how to continue in ministry. Um, and I think this book is just such a a testament to that. And so um we're so appreciative of you jumping on and just sharing some of your heart um and just your care for younger guys in ministry, uh, to be able to be filled with the spirit and continue in the work that that um the Lord has called them to. I I suppose just in closing, just with your book, um, any any place that you would point us to get it, uh you know, this is not about selling copies. I know that. This is an essential resource that people need to read.
SPEAKER_02A couple things about that. So all the royalties from the first book I wrote, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, go to the church, including the royalties that will be upcoming from this book. So I'm this is I'm not to be melodramatic. This was born out of me really being concerned, and I felt burdened by the Lord to write something that would be helpful. So it sells the $29.99 on Amazon. Christian Books has it for uh uh already $17. But if they go to Brooklyn Tabernacle.org, they we give it, we sell it for $15. But um my point is just get it and read it and give it to another pastor uh because it is hard to pastor today. The half has not been told because we we're we're we're guarded. We we don't want to get up and say, yo, congregation, man, I'm discouraged. No. So praise God, he's on the throne and all that. But underneath all of that, there's a lot of discouragement. 42% who admit it they'd leave tomorrow. One last thought. A recent poll two weeks ago came out of Arizona, and it said that 34% of all the pastors in America believe if you live a good life, you'll go to heaven. And they're very wishy-washy on the authority of scripture. And if there's really such a thing as sin. No, you decide what's sin. Truth is what you make it. That's ministers, that's not the pew. So we need a revival. And the Lord is we don't we have to bend his arm to get more of God. He's the one waiting, saying, Come to me, oh, you that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest and help you. So let's do it and see God do a new thing in our Christian churches.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Well, I um we don't always conclude our podcast this way. I'm just just wondering if you would mind praying for people you have in mind, just these people. This book was written too. Would you would you just pray for them in closing?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Thank you. Father, we thank you that we belong to you and we've been saved by your grace, and we're all sinners, but your blood was shed on Calvary so that our sins could be forgiven. Forgive us our trespasses today as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. I pray, God, that you will encourage every pastor who's touched by this podcast. I pray that they'll be encouraged and drawn by your spirit back to the word, back to you, fellowship, communion, openness to the Holy Spirit. Help us to turn away from methodologies that are not in the word of God and don't depend on the power of the Holy Spirit. Give us a fresh start. And we pledge today, by your grace, we will give you all the glory, no denomination, no brand, no pastor's name, no church name. You will get all the glory for you deserve it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. Thank you again, Pastor Jim. To our listeners, please go out. Uh grab this book. It will bless your ministry. That's that's all that's all I can say about that. Have a blessed week, and we we so appreciate you jumping on with us.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Will. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com to learn more, and subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.