Welcome to the Rod of Iron podcast, Fundamental Baptist, breaking down discussions, dogma,
and daily events. I am your host, Pastor Bruce Mejia of First Works Baptist Church here in
beautiful Southern California, and I'm joined by a good friend of mine, pastor friend of mine,
Pastor Jared Przarnski of Holdfast Baptist Church. He's actually going to be preaching for us
tonight, which for you folks that are listening, tonight has already passed. You're probably
listening to this the following week, and so he's going to be preaching for us tonight,
so we're just thankful to have him on. We're going to be talking about a couple of topics here,
and so good to see you, Pastor. It's good to be here. How you doing?
I'm having an impromptu trip, but really excited to be back in the big city.
Amen. And then you brought your family as well.
Everybody's with me.
You're out here on a particular mission,
but you're also coming here to kind of be a circuit preacher for us as well, right?
You would preach for us today. Now, you typically have your middle week service on Wednesday.
Yes.
Okay, so it worked out. I'm sure you preached last night,
and then you're here, and then you're heading back home on Friday.
Right. Yeah, we actually came into town to pick up a dog for my daughter tomorrow, so
we figured we'd make a churchcation out of it.
Churchcation, yeah.
And it's really nice that you have church on Thursday, because we can come,
and that's part of the experience is coming and visiting you all at first work.
Yeah, amen. Well, we're glad to have you. Well, folks, we're looking forward to a great episode
tonight, and we're going to talk about a couple of things. I'm just going to be asking Pastor
Brzezinski just some questions about his church, how he started, how the process was leading up to
him getting ordained, and some of the challenges that he's faced as a pastor, and what it's like
pastoring in California. Is it really that hard as people say it is? And he's also going to be
putting a plug for his new documentary that he just put out, and so we're looking forward
to a great episode tonight. Let's get started.
All right, well, Pastor Brzezinski, how old is the church so far in Holdfast? I know Holdfast
was Verity Baptist Church, and it was a church plan of Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist
Church, Sacramento, California, but then he eventually transitioned into being Holdfast.
Tell me about that process.
So we started out in 2019 as a satellite. So we were a satellite of Verity Baptist Church
for two years, and then I was ordained at that point, and in 2021, we became Holdfast Baptist
Church. So we just celebrated our two-year anniversary last August, so we're two plus,
two years, and a few months old as Holdfast Baptist Church.
Okay. And you said he ordained you initially. Was it an ordination as an evangelist or basically
as a sit-in pastor, or how did that work? No, so I wasn't ordained when I ran the
satellite. So I was just a satellite leader, just running the church in downtown Fresno for
Verity Baptist Church. So then I was just ordained as the pastor after that two-year point. I was
ordained as the pastor of Holdfast Baptist Church. So let me ask you, did you choose Fresno? Was that
something that Pastor Jimenez casted vision for you, or you just always had it in your mind that
that's where you wanted to go? How did that happen? Well, that was a blend of different
things. Number one, Pastor Jimenez had wanted to start a church in Fresno, and I knew that.
It was kind of a mutual thing. I had done some work in Fresno, so I was familiar with the area
itself, but mainly it was driven by Pastor Jimenez's desire to have a church in Fresno,
and it was just the proximity to Verity. Obviously, we're very connected with the people at Verity,
and we always still want to be connected to the people at Verity. So it was close,
and it was something that Pastor Jimenez had his eye on, and I was familiar with it. So it just
seemed like that was the place. And it's about, what, two hours away from Sacramento, is that?
Yeah, it's about two and a half hours, depending on conditions. Yeah, traffic and all.
Yeah, exactly. Well, that's good. So he casted that vision. He kind of always had an eye on Fresno,
and then he just kind of casted that vision, and you guys ran with it. Well, he wanted to
start a church there. And let me ask you, so how long have you been saved for,
and how long after you got saved did you start having a desire to want to be a pastor?
Boy, that's a good question. So I've been saved since 2011 or so, and I actually had no
inclinations to be a pastor when we moved in 2016.
Two Verity.
Two Verity. So we moved from North Dakota to California in 2016, and I was just trying to
get things right. You're a North Dakota man.
I'm a North Dakota man, yeah. Where is that on the map? I'm just kidding.
Yeah, well, it's somewhere in the middle. It's somewhere east of here and west of New York,
and there's, yeah, there's not a lot of people there. The entire population of North Dakota is
600,000 people. You can imagine that. Minus four now.
Yeah, exactly, which is a huge problem. They're always... Ever since I was a little kid,
they're talking about, how can we stop losing people from the state? I'm like, well, if it's
20 below zero, six months out of the year, it's gonna be tough.
20 below zero, six months out of the year.
Well, that's an exaggeration, but it gets...
It's kind of close to that.
Yeah, it gets cold. But anyway, back to your question. I came to Verity just to be a blessing
at Verity, and for the first year and a half especially, there was really no thoughts of
the ministry. It was just, I just wanted to... I was happy to be there, happy to be plugged
into a good church, doing what we can to serve, soul winning, just doing the things that we were
supposed to be doing. And then, Brother Pastor Stuckey now, and Pastor Jones now, it was kind
of funny seeing all these guys together at Verity. We were all kind of there at the same time,
and I kind of just started to get this nagging feeling like, yeah, I don't think we're all gonna
be together here for that much longer, because these guys were making plans. Obviously,
Brother Stuckey at that time was going to the Philippines and was like, man,
we're not just gonna chill out here for the rest of our lives and hang out with our buddies.
And it was actually Pastor Jones that said to me when he was getting ready to leave,
I had never even mentioned anything about the ministry at all. And Pastor Jones actually said
to me when he was getting ready to... He got ordained, he was going to start the church in
Idaho. He said, well, you're up. And I'm like, what are you talking about? So yeah, the thought
kind of like that duty started creeping in after a year and a half or so.
Would you say it's one of those things where you kind of...
It's not necessarily that you had a desire, but you're there in a church that's very active,
and it's not only active in the work, but it's actively showing everyone the need for churches
and evangelism. And so it's one of those things where a need arose, and there's men around you
who are serving the Lord. There's men around you who are devoted and committed, and so that begins
to rub off on you, which is probably one of the reasons why Pastor Joe Jones says, you're up.
He probably saw that you're being faithful, and you're a man who loves the Lord. So it's one of
those things that everything just kind of fell into place with that, right?
Yeah, and it was... I don't wanna preach the sermon that I'm gonna preach tonight, okay? But
it's about influence, right? They say that you are the sum of your friends, and I mean,
that's Proverbs 13. I'm gonna read that tonight in the sermon. But you get influenced in a good way
by that, and that's what's missing in our movement, in biblical Christianity, is what's missing
is... It's not the desire of people that wanna go soul wedding. I mean, what's missing is men
to lead ministries. And it's not that I didn't have the desire, I did have the desire. I just
wanted to make sure, and I mean, I prayed on it for many, many months, that I was doing it,
it was what God wanted me to do. And I was cautious, because I didn't wanna do anything
self-willed, because I was cautious, because here I had just made this major move,
and brought my family there, and I knew we were in the right place.
And to break out from that, I just wanted to make sure it was God's will. So I spent a lot of time
just in prayer, like, God, if this is what you want, I'll do it.
Was there ever a time where... Because eventually you shared this with your wife,
and brought that up. When you did, did she have an inclination?
Let's go, that's what she said, right away.
Did she feel... Did she kinda... Was she along for... Obviously, she's gonna support you in
everything that you do, and allow herself to be led of you, but was there a time where she felt
like, I feel like this is what God is calling us to do type of a thing?
Definitely, definitely. My wife was 1,000% on board, and she knew it. She knew it. And as
soon as I told her about it, she's like, yep, let's go.
That's great.
And I'm really happy about that, because as the ministry has been hard at times,
she always can remember back on that, that her heart wanted to go into the ministry too,
because it's hard... Ministry is hard on a pastor, but it's hard on a pastor's wife as well.
And so we always remember back to that moment. We have our moment in the car when we were both
talking about it, and it was that let's go moment. Let's go talk to Pastor Jimenez, and I think you
should do this. And she's always been behind me, but she knew, she knew.
And it's really important, obviously, to have your wife behind you, and on board,
and on the same page, because what if you had this God-given desire, this noble desire to go
and start a church, and preach the Word of God, and disciple people, and start a church, and step
out in faith, but then your wife's not on board. She doesn't want that. And so you could be greatly
hindered from doing something great for the Lord, and filling a need that this world needs if your
wife is just not on board. And obviously, we're leaders, but it doesn't necessarily mean we can
force our spouse to do the things that we're doing, and to serve the Lord. They have to be
willing. They have their own heart, their own mind, their own volition. And so it's a blessing
to have a spouse that is not only supporting you going into the ministry, and 100% on board,
but also desires to be in the ministry as well. And so I'm sure you experienced that.
And I guess what I was trying to get at is, basically, we lead our families, we lead our
wives. There's times when... I'm a planner and a schemer. I always got plans, and I always got
ideas and things. And there's times when I persuade my wife into my plans, and this is what
we're gonna do, and all these things. But what I'm trying to say is, with the decision to the ministry,
she was there. And her heart was there too, and I'm really happy about that. I'm really happy that
I didn't have to, like, hey, this is what we're gonna do, and oh, but I wanna stay at Verity,
and this and that. Yeah, she loved Verity, and we still miss being church members at Verity,
as weird as that sounds. But we knew that we were being called to something greater,
because there needs to be people to start churches. That's awesome. It kinda reminds me,
when we started the church, prior to us starting the church, and Pastor Anderson just kinda
pitching the idea to me, and saying, would you be willing to be a part of this? And I said yes,
and I told my wife, and she said, let's do it. It was one of those things where it was just 100%
behind it, and it was just a matter of, this is basically what we're called for as Christians,
is to serve Him, and we need to take advantage of the opportunities we have, if we can serve
Him at a greater capacity, which I would say, being a pastor, you can serve God at a greater
capacity than most, because it's basically what you're doing all the time. And so it made me
thankful that my wife was on board as well. So that's a good message to give as well,
the importance of a wife not only being behind what her husband is doing, but also developing
a heart as well that is in tune with the Bible, in tune with the Holy Spirit, and if God is moving
the husband to do something great, that the wife is in tune with that as well, and she would also
have the desire to serve the Lord, no matter what. Whether it's here, or it's in a different country,
or something, that they're always on board, that's great. So then you guys talked to Pastor Jimenez,
and then did he right away pitch the idea to you about Fresno, or how did that work?
I think I brought it up, but I think I mentioned Fresno first in the conversation with Pastor
Jimenez. Is that because he's talked about it? But I mentioned it in the context of,
since you wanted to start a church in Fresno kind of thing, so it just kind of fit for us.
And quite frankly, Fresno suits us. A lot of people are down on Fresno in California.
Why is that? It's more industrial, it's more agricultural, it's more blue collar,
but that's kind of my background. So I love it. That's great. Yeah, I remember when I first got
saved, my father-in-law was really big on church planning, and specifically in California. He
always wanted to start churches in California, and he felt like California was the place we needed to
start the most fundamental Baptist churches, and he would always talk about the five. Agreed, yeah.
And he would say Modesto needs a church, and he would say Bakersfield needs a church,
and he goes, and Fresno needs a church. And in fact, that was the first place he wanted
to start a church. It ended up being in Los Angeles, just because, you know, the way things
worked out. It was just, a building was available, there's people who lived there. But he initially
wanted to go first to Fresno, and in fact, any time he would go on a vacation with his family,
they'd go to Fresno, just so he can get vision, and he would go sowing there with his family,
and knock on doors, and meet the people. And he just had this really strong desire to go to
Fresno. But of course, it never came to fruition, which it makes me ecstatic and happy that,
I'm part of a movement where I have a pastor friend who went to Fresno, you know, because
I just don't know if there's a lot of churches that are trying to, or fundamental Baptists,
that want to go there for whatever reason. And so, you went there, you started it.
Tell us about the first year of, obviously you weren't the ordained pastor as of yet,
but you were pastoring the people. Tell us about that first year. How was it?
Well, it was, there was a lot of things that were surprising about it to me. We got a building
in, the soul winning was super receptive, because we had a building in downtown, so I found kind of
the cheapest, best deal I could find for a building, and we were right in downtown Fresno.
If you know anything about Fresno, it's like nobody really goes to downtown Fresno, because
it's kind of the bad area. So it was bad in the sense of, not so much the neighborhoods and the
people, but just homeless and bums everywhere. I mean, drug addicts everywhere. So it was,
it was a battle for the whole two years we were down there. It was a personal battle for me,
just keeping the building in order, keeping the messes out of the, it was...
So were these homeless people just really aggressive or...?
Oh, I mean, where to begin? I mean, it's...
Tell me about, okay, out of all the stories you have, what is the craziest thing that
just sticks out when it comes to just some confrontation with the homeless person there?
I, they threatened to kill me on a regular basis, I think, and...
That's kind of extreme.
One, I mean, you get to the point where you don't really take it seriously anymore, but
I mean, one guy threw a bottle at me, and then I kind of went through a little bit of an ebb and
flow where I got kind of aggressive, trying to get these people out of there, but the whole part,
the whole front of our building was glass. And the problem is I'm not there to guard the place 24-7,
and we had one guy threw a whiskey bottle through one of our glass walls, and it cost us $2,000
to replace the glass. So I put up fake video cameras, I can't tell you how many messes I
cleaned up in front of the front door of the church. Like I said, I've told the church people
it's a good thing I grew up on a farm because it's just unbelievable that the wickedness...
Taking care of the livestock, cleaning up for the livestock kind of prepared you for that, huh?
Exactly. But I mean, the craziest story was, I think some of the kids came to me... We had an
old stove in the back of the church, and I had unwired this old stove so the kids
couldn't accidentally turn it on kind of thing. And so the kids, they came to me in the ushers
after church one day, they were all playing in the back and playing around in the church
fellowship area, and they said, we smell something burning. And I was like, how did they get that
stove going? I had unwired it and taped up all the ends and disconnected everything. And we walked
around, we couldn't find anything burning in the church. And so finally I walked outside with the
ushers, I'm the satellite leader at this time, and walked around, and there's an alley in the back
where there was a dumpster. And the dumpsters, they attract these folks. And here's a guy, and
we've got the gas mains coming into the building, the gas meter coming right into the building, and
he's sitting right... His back is up against the gas main, and he's got a campfire going right
underneath the gas lines. And I mean, I just... I don't really even remember the next few seconds,
but basically I kicked that campfire. That thing was like a meteor flying through the air, and that
guy was like... I kicked his campfire about 20 yards, and he's just like, whoa, bro, calm down,
like calm down. What's the matter with you? You know? I mean... You're about to blow us all up?
What do you mean calm down? You see what you're doing here? You know? And yeah, I mean,
the dumpster was a problem. I mean, throwing trash everywhere constantly. And another story I
remember, I went fishing and I caught like 150 fish with the people I was fishing with over
the weekend, and this dumpster was... That's normal for us. We're really good fishermen
at Hold Fast Baptist Church. Really? So you're good at being fishers of men, but also...
Also real, like literally fishing, yes. So anyway, I caught all these fish, and I cleaned these fish
on Saturday, and I just put all these guts in this big garbage bag, and I'm like, I'll show these
guys to make a mess in front of the church, and I put all these fish guts in the dumpster in
these garbage bags. If you know anything about fish guts, they start to smell almost right away.
So I figured... Especially if it's hot. They're not gonna touch my dumpster ever again. And here
I come to church Sunday morning and everything's gone. Somebody took those bags. So I mean,
I don't know. It was a constant battle with the homeless and the drug addicts downtown.
The Fresno police tried to help us. They were cool. They were really good. They helped us out
in a lot of different situations that we had with these people. So most of the problems you're
experiencing, as far as the people are concerned, are homeless. No problems with gang members or
anything like that. I don't think you should join a gang, but gang members have never given us any
trouble at all. I don't know if it's the same for you, but we're out soul winning, and I don't
really even... They're always the most receptive. Yeah. I mean, I don't even really know who the
gang members are, but people from Fresno will tell me, that was a gang member. But they're
usually very respectful and very receptive to the gospel. Even when you feel like you're out
soul winning and you feel like maybe you just walked into a situation where something weird's
going on, even then, the gang members never had any trouble with those folks. I'm not for gangs,
obviously. I'm not trying to make it sound like it's a good thing, but my thought on gangs after
being in California for a few years, I think it's probably a few bad apples leading the majority of
normal people down a bad path. Well, the years that I've been in ministry, I've witnessed to
hundreds of gang members, and in my experience, they've been some of the most receptive people.
And I joke around a little bit about it, because I always say, maybe it's because they're always
near death. They're just in gangs and they're drive-bys, you just never know when they're
gonna die. And so, they're more open to the idea or thinking about what's gonna happen when they
die. And most of them are God-fearing people in the sense of when they meet a man of God,
a pastor of sorts, they have a tendency to show some respect, and they never wanna be...
And they view it as like, well, I don't wanna be irreverent towards the Lord, and this is someone
that the Lord is sending. And so, in my opinion, that's why they're so kind and respectable
towards the man of God, because they wanna learn about what's gonna happen when they die, and
maybe their mom or their dad was religious at one point. And I don't know what's the
ethnic background in Fresno. Is there a lot of Mexicans? Is there a lot of black people,
black gangs, Mexican gangs? The overall typical... With the gang members,
the thing is they believe the Bible. And in Fresno, it's Hispanic, Mexican,
Catholic. That's a big, big cut of the population rate. Obviously, there's black neighborhoods, and
those are very receptive, too. But as far as the gang members that I've seen and run across,
they tend to be Hispanic gangs, whatever gangs those are, I'm not even really sure.
But they believe the Bible. And when you start showing them what the Bible says, they wanna know,
they're interested, they believe what it says. You don't have to jump that bridge, right? You don't
have to cross that bridge with them. It's just like the Catholic, right? They believe the Bible,
they just don't know what it says. And then you show them what it says, and it's an easy...
It reminds me very much of the Philippines, actually. So you got a bunch of people that
believe the Bible is the Word of God, they've just been lied to about what it actually says.
The funny thing is we'll get new church members and we'll get new people that are from Fresno,
and then they'll start soul winning, and we'll go to some of these neighborhoods, they're like,
do you understand the neighborhood we're in? And it's like, it's cool, don't worry about it. I'm
from North Dakota, I got you. I'm from ND. Yeah, exactly. I'm just like, here's this guy walking
around like there's no problems, but there's no problems, because the Lord's with us.
That's awesome. So you've had fightings without, but just like any other church who's doing the
will of God, you're gonna have some fightings within as well. And I'm sure you've had your
share of bad apples. And I think pretty much I believe that any church has the bad apples,
it's just that there's some pastors who are not willing to deal with it, or they just overlook
them, or they allow themselves to be manipulated by the bad apples, because every church has
infiltrators, or will have infiltrators. It's just our job as shepherds to spot out the wolf
and deal with them, right? And so you've had some pretty crazy things happen at the church there
with people who have crept in unawares. Can you share some of, you don't have to drop names or
anything, but tell us about some of those experiences, because this is a legitimate
issue that comes up with churches, and pastors need to be aware of this. What's going on?
Well, it really started with us the first year, like right after, like immediately after the
ordination. And there was just a lot of trouble in the church. I mean, there had been some
previously already, and there was obviously some questions about certain people and things like
that, but I did learn a lot that first year. It was a very difficult first year, because there
were just a lot of people that did a lot of very bad things. And I don't want to give any airtime
to anybody and all that kind of stuff, but it's funny because Pastor Jimenez, and I've talked to
him about it since actually during the first year that this happened, but he basically, during the
ordination sermon, he preached a sermon that was, and here I just run the satellite for two years,
and I'm getting ordained, and I'm kind of like, all right, you know, made it. Yeah.
And he preaches a sermon like, you're going to be attacked, and people are going to lie about you,
they're going to lie about your family, they're going to do all this stuff, and we say, man,
it's kind of dark, you know, the sermon, you know. I'm thinking at the time, right, and now he asked
me, now I'm like, the man's a prophet, you know, and, but anyway, it was like, it was like a switch
flipped. It was crazy. I mean, I started getting... It's almost as if they were just waiting for that
moment. Yeah, I mean, I got accused of being a oneness Pentecostal, and like, anybody that goes
to my church knows that I'm a little over the top on Pentecostals, like, I'm a little hard on them,
but just because, you know, some of them are very difficult people, you know, when you start giving
the gospel, but I just got... I mean, my family was attacked, my wife was attacked. It's like,
you know, come at me, but we're through all that, but it was a lesson, and it was a lesson that
this is what, you know, it takes to go into the ministry. It was a lesson for my wife and I,
you know, we... How could we, you know, handle people like that better next time? We did,
you know, we always like to learn from... I always like to learn from whatever I can, and
look, the ministry, I had no idea. And Pastor Jimenez had preached about this stuff before,
so to all the people, you know, listening, you're sitting in church, and if your pastor gets up and
preaches a sermon about, you know, the difficulties of ministry and things like that, I had heard
those sermons before. I had heard Pastor Jimenez preach that many, many times. I'm like, oh, I'm
sure it is difficult, you know, and this and that. And, you know, as a church member sitting in the
in the chairs... You don't really know until you live it. I just had no idea. Yeah, I really had
no idea. It's really a spiritual war, and it all comes back to, you know, I'm glad that I prayed
to God for months to go into the ministry. I knew we were doing what we were supposed to be doing.
My wife was on board a hundred percent, and it always came back to that. We just got to ride
through these hard times, and you know what? I mean, the people that are with us, the people
that rode through those hard times, I mean, like, we just came out of it stronger. And there is
an important principle that, you know, as you grow as a church, as a pastor,
you are going to have to get rid of people. Because if people in your church are going to thrive,
if you're going to thrive as a church, you have to get rid of the individuals who are going to
hinder that growth. And I just, obviously, you can think of an extreme of, you know,
Satan sewing a tear, right? Where it's just a full-blown reprobate who hates the Lord and is
there just to cause conflict. But then there's individuals who are saved, and they're not
reprobates, they're saved, they're Christians, but they're just problematic people, and can't seem to
fit within a local New Testament church, or they're just problematic for whatever reason.
It's like you have to learn how to deal with all of those categories of individuals.
But you've had to take out the trash a couple times, and there's people who went after you
and attacked you in your ministry. You know, what was your initial thought when that started
happening? Well, I mean, at first I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. Like, were you getting the,
you know, especially, like, the weird accusations, you know? I was just like,
where are you getting these things from? I mean, it's like, I feel like you could see
an evil spirit from the Lord really hitting people, because it was like, people went mad.
I mean, I sat across from a lot of these people, and I'm just like, what happened? What's going
on? And it's an attack. It's a spiritual war, and it's one that needs to be fought.
Let me just say that one of the lessons I took from it is that giving people the benefit of
the doubt is a good thing, you know? But if you do that to a certain point, you can actually damage
other people in the church. You know, the shepherd is there to protect the flock, and we're under
shepherds of Jesus Christ. So you know, I took some from that. I also feel like, I hate to say
this, but you know, it was a lesson that was good for me to learn on what other people have gone
through, as far as pastors. Because like, you just, as I said, sitting in the, listening to the
preaching, you just don't know. You just don't know until you've seen it. That is true.
When it comes to giving people the benefit of the doubt, you can sometimes do that too much,
almost to a detriment. And I think the natural default setting for a pastor is to give people
the benefit of the doubt, because you believe in people. You want to believe that people are here
for the right reasons, that they love you, they love the Lord, they love the people here.
And quite frankly, you have genuine love for them. And so, you know, we want this to be a fairy tale
story of a church where there's no problems. And sometimes that causes us to give people
the benefit of the doubt who do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. And in fact, they actually
merit scrutiny, and you know, a watchful eye. And you know, I learned the same thing as a pastor,
where it's just, you trust people, or you think people are good people, and then they just kind
of do a 180 on you. It's funny you brought up the whole Pentecostal thing, or the oneness thing,
because even years after I was already ordained, we're actually here. There's a couple who was
here, and they've been gone for a while now. But one day, the husband just took me aside into the
office, and he said, hey, I'd like to talk to you about something. I'm like, sure. And they've had
issues in our church before, and nothing crazy. Sometimes they didn't get along with certain
people in our church, but then he just kind of accuses me of being a heretic. And it was
something out of left field that's like, what? And it was over like an interpretation of scripture,
and this was like a second or third doctrine type of a thing, where it's an obscure passage
type of a thing. And so he said, I think you're teaching a workspace salvation. I said, well,
you know I don't believe in a workspace salvation, because I preach about salvation all the time,
and you can scour my sermons. This is just an interpretation on this particular passage,
and it's not even about salvation. He's like, well, I think you're a heretic kind of thing.
And it was one of those things where it's just like this guy, and I tried to placate him,
where I thought to myself, well, you know, if you think that I'm misinterpreting the scripture,
that's fine. Everyone can have their opinions and their interpretation of the Bible,
and so that's up to you. But then when he started calling me a heretic, it's like,
oh, this guy's a bad person. Because a reasonable individual is not just going to come to you and
say, you're one that's Pentecostal. And just accuse the pastor of such, especially when
there's so much evidence to the contrary, sermons that you preached and things of that nature.
So when a person does that, it's like a switch goes on where it's like, oh, this person's bad.
Something else is going on here.
There's something else below that. I'm trying to deal with the doctrinal issue,
but this is not a doctrinal issue.
Yeah, and that's a mistake I made. I'm an engineer. I want to solve the problem.
It's like, okay, this guy thinks I'm a oneness. This is easy, because I'm not.
Yeah, I'm just going to show him why I'm not.
Yeah, exactly.
Let me just quote verses of the Bible and point to sermons, and see, I'm not a oneness.
But that really had nothing to do with it.
It had nothing to do with it. And so I've learned as a pastor that a lot of problems that people
bring to me about myself or my family, whatever it's coming out of their mouth is actually not
the issue. There's something, there's some root problem, and they're just using that as an excuse
to come and attack me. But yeah, I like the point that you made, because I think to a certain extent
I did that, where I gave people the benefit of the doubt who didn't deserve it. And I think
it's a lesson that every pastor needs to learn. But I mean, your church is doing great. You guys
moved out of that building, right? You guys are in a different location now. No homeless people.
Right. Pretty much no homeless people. Yeah. And the kids can play outside, and we got basketball
hoop for the kids. That's a benefit of being in that. I always tell the church family, I'll never
forget the downtown church, because it'll always make me appreciate where we are now. And I see
the kids running around outside. It just brings joy to my heart, because they could have never
done that downtown. That's awesome.
Well, that's great. So how is the Fresno area as far as, I know you mentioned that it's really
receptive when you're in the downtown area. Is the area they're in now, is it pretty receptive,
or you have to go a little further out when you evangelize?
Well, now we're in an area that's a little bit, it'd be less receptive, still receptive though.
I mean, it's around the church is more middle class. It's not going to be the poorest
neighborhoods in Fresno, but it's not the richest neighborhoods in Fresno either.
So it's just like any other city. Once you get into the upper class areas,
it's going to be less receptive, just like the Bible says. But we still mix it up, and
we haven't knocked every door in Fresno not even close. So we're working towards that,
and some neighborhoods are more receptive than others. But we've gotten a lot of new church
members from around the area that the church is at through soul winnings, and follow-ups
on soul winnings. So we're just doing what we're supposed to do, and the Lord's taking care of us.
So would you say there's a need for churches in California, Pastor Brzezinski?
Oh, definitely. I mean, regardless of what people say about California, this is where the people
are. And there's 39 million people here, and they're from all over the place. Every time
you go soul winning, I'm sure in this area, it's like soul winning around the world, right?
It's people from all different parts of the world, all different countries, all different
backgrounds, all different cultures, and they're all in California. That's the thing. That was a
problem in North Dakota. There's no people there, and I was literally living in a place that there
was no people. So I always say that to people. They're like, I want to move out into the middle
of the woods. And I'm like, no, you're supposed to be where the people are. And the people are
in California. And we just drove into LA today. Let me tell you, there might be some that are
leaving, but there's still a lot here. Oh yeah, there's a ton here still. Well,
here's the thing is that a lot of people will talk about... California catches a bad rap because
of its liberal leaders, and it's a quote unquote liberal state. But when you actually speak to the
individuals though, a lot of them... I'm not saying they're conservative, but in my opinion,
because they're so receptive to the truth, there's something there. And I've been doing ministry for
about 16 years, 17 years, soul winning for about 17 years, and I'll be honest with you, I've just
met so many receptive people here in California, in different cities. I've ministered a lot in Los
Angeles, Los Angeles County, and now of course Anaheim. And in those areas, I just find a lot
of receptive people to the gospel. And whether it's poor areas... And obviously, in any area
you go to that is rich, so to speak, they're not going to be as receptive. But in general,
the population in California has always been receptive to the gospel. And I just wish more
Christians would stop being so afraid of California by either leaving, or they would just
kind of come back and strengthen the spiritual warfare that's going on here. Because I think we
need more laborers in California. We need more people soul winning in California, churches that
are starting in California. Well, I mean, I've said this in a sermon before, and I'm going to
touch a little bit on the conservatives tonight in the sermon, but here's the thing. First of all,
where did this attitude come from that when things get tough, we run away? I mean, what is... I mean,
aren't the conservatives in this country, aren't they the John Waynes and the Cowboys and the...
Supposedly.
And the draw the line in the sand type people? But the problem is... And here's another thing,
I've actually met some people in the last year, year and a half that actually did move out of the
state. I've talked to them and I talked to them why. They weren't church people, they weren't
Christians, but they were conservative, they're your Trumpers or whatever. And they're leaving
the state, we're getting out of here and Gavin Newsom and this and that. And here's the thing,
like Gavin... And I thought so many different things, I could talk about this for an hour,
so just cut me off when you have to. But I thought so many different things about that.
First of all, Gavin Newsom doesn't really affect my life. And I have my people here.
And I was thinking when these people were leaving the state, I was like, what about your people?
Where are you gonna... But they didn't have any people here and they're gonna go to Tennessee
or live in the woods or wherever and they're not gonna have people there either. You're gonna be
just as miserable. And the problem that they're gonna find is that the conservatives here,
it's not Gavin Newsom that's the problem. The problem is that people have left the Bible.
That's the problem. And guess what? People have left the Bible in North Dakota and Tennessee
and Oklahoma and all these places across the country. They're gonna go to these places
and they're gonna find the same problems. Yeah, it's like the question I have is what
are they looking for? When they move, what exactly are they looking for? Are they looking for a sense
of security that they feel they can find in a red state, in a conservative state? Are they looking
for churches? What is it that they're running from and what is it that they're looking for?
Well, they're not looking for churches, the ones that I've met. They're looking for more money
to keep more of their money. And one of the things that the policies do do in California is make it
more expensive to live here, I get that. But the point is they didn't have people here
because they're leaving everyone and they're not gonna find people there. What they're gonna find
when they go... Trust me, what they're gonna find when they go to these small towns where nobody
lives is they're gonna find one culture there. The beauty of California with all its problems
and all its messes is that you can find your people here. And that's what we're doing is
we're going out and we're sharing... When you say looking for people, are you saying that people
leave California to go to a different state to find a community? Is that what you're...
They think they're gonna find a more like-minded community. Oh, I see what you're saying. And
I've lived in small town America, Nowhereville, USA. And like I said, if you're not...
What people don't understand about small town America is if you're not from there,
you ain't never gonna be from there. If you didn't go to the high school and you didn't
have your kids in sports there, you're always gonna be an outsider. We became an outsider when
we started homeschooling. Oh, wow. In North Dakota. In North Dakota, because it's the town,
it's the school, it's the basketball team. And I've seen many people from the East Coast and
the West Coast move to these small towns and they're out of there in a couple of years,
because they don't fit in. Wow. And they're never gonna fit in. So a lot of the reasons people go
is because they wanna be around people who they think are like them, but then they come to realize
that the community that they find, they don't even want them. Exactly. Or they don't fit in
with that community. Exactly. Because that community already has its roots in, they were
born there, they've gone to school there. They associate community with growing up in that
particular city or town. Exactly. And they're not gonna just accept overnight some outsider
who is from California or something. Right. If you're from California, you're starting
off on a bad foot already. Yeah. So you have to kind of lie about it or something.
Say over from Nevada or something like that. Yeah. But the point is that there's more
conservative Christian people in California than any other state. I've told people that
and they don't believe me, but I've... I live in Orange County, and Orange County is considered
a very conservative part of California, and particularly Huntington Beach, areas like that,
they call it Trump town. It's just where they have all the Trump rallies and nothing closed
down during COVID or whatever. And some of these people I feel like are more radical than the
people that I've met in other states. And the only difference between the two, in my opinion,
is it seems as though the people who are here, the conservatives, are a little closer to the Bible.
They actually esteem going to church, they esteem reading the Bible, because I interact with these
people all the time. Sure. And a lot of them, whether they're leaving or not, I'm not sure,
but I've noticed that there is a spiritual difference between the two. Whereas I've gone
to places like Georgia, Tennessee, Tennessee in particular, where a lot of the churches are dead.
And I visited those churches, fundamental Baptist churches, not new IFP churches,
fundamental Baptist churches that they're not necessarily... It's just they're not really
reaching anybody, they're not really big on soloing, they're just big on their little
community kind of a thing. And so the culture, that community culture that you're talking about
kind of infiltrates the church as well, and they stop being loving towards those who are on the
outside coming in type of a thing. And so even church culture is different in other states,
in my opinion, than the cultures that you have here. And I'm not referring to new IFP churches,
because I feel like new IFP churches are the exception to that rule, because of the fact
they're soloing churches, they're doing missions, and we interact with each other.
But churches in general that are fundamental Baptist churches, I feel like a lot of them are
dying in other places. And I've been to other churches in different states, and it's just not
the same life that I see even in liberal California. And so I think the answer is,
you know, obviously we could look at the Bible and see that God commands us to flee to another city,
if you're being persecuted. To the extent where your life is in danger,
you gotta flee into another city. But the wicked flee what no man pursueth, though.
And if you're just running because you think Gavin Newsom's coming after you, or because you
think you're being outnumbered, you think there's a boogeyman, that's not a good enough reason.
Yeah, and you know what? I'm able to homeschool my kids in California.
Oh yeah.
I mean, California has very good homeschooling laws.
They're very lenient.
Nobody's chasing me down when I go to church on Sunday morning and Wednesday night.
Oh, there's a lot of messed up stuff going on in California. Well,
there's a lot of messed up stuff going on everywhere. And it's just California,
I mean, they that are whole need not a physician. This is where we're needed, right? This is where
we're needed, where there's so many people that are searching for the truth.
Well, even whatever problems that they're actually talking about, I personally don't see.
And if I come across it, like you mentioned, it doesn't really affect my life.
Right.
My life, my quality of life has not been affected living as a Christian in California. Obviously,
we had that persecution, but that's because of the Bible, right? That's because I'm preaching
the Bible. But just our quality of life, regardless of what president is in the White House,
regardless of what mayor we have or governor, I have not been affected by these things at all,
and neither have my church members. The only people that get affected by whatever's going
on in California are those who keep up what's going on in California. And the people that
I've noticed who are always affected by what's going on in California are people who don't live
in California, but they keep up with what's going on in California.
Exactly. I know a lot of these people. They sit around. It is weird. They sit around,
they watch the news, and they're all whipped up about immigration and all this stuff and
California this and California that. I'm like, what are you talking about?
I'm here. I mean, the Central Valley is politically red.
I mean, where I live. And the vast majority of people whose doors we knock on are conservative,
hardworking people. And like I said, they're happy that you're there with the Bible in your hand.
I have people tell me all the time from different states,
they tell me about the problems that I'm facing here. They always say, well, this is what you guys
gotta go... And I'm like, I don't see that. No. Yeah, you do. And I'm like, how can you tell
me that? I literally live here. I've been in Los Angeles, I'm in Orange County, I'm in a metropolitan
area, and I don't see these things. And they just don't believe it.
Yeah. We have the Second Amendment here. Yeah.
You can conceal carry here. Oh, yeah.
I mean, you know. It's America.
Well, that's another thing. It's like they move because they wanna be able to
open carry. And here's the thing, I've talked to people and they're like, yeah, but you can't open
carry. And I always ask them, I'm like, why do you open carry? Do you think that God has given you
the right to open carry? And he's like, absolutely. And I said, so why do you need to go to a
different state where they allow you to do so if it's your God-given right? Shouldn't that be a
right that you have everywhere? So at the end of the day, it's this mentality of like, oh yeah,
God gave me the right, but I need to go somewhere where they allow me to actually exercise those
rights or something. If you really believe God gave you that right, you should just do it wherever,
but that's not necessarily the case, or you don't believe that.
You know? And I've had friends who moved out of California and now they're coming back.
Because where they went was not that it was all cracked up to be. And they realize then they're
like, this is terrible out here. We're going back. Yeah. I mean, California is a beautiful place.
It's unbelievable. The places we saw today, I mean, just the kids and my wife and I,
we always say the same thing. We're driving through the state or visiting somewhere.
We just can't believe we live here. I mean, we always say that. The kids said it five
times today. We can't believe it. Look at this bridge. I mean, look at these mountains and
these flowers. I mean, it's a beautiful place. Yeah. That's undeniable. I mean,
people have told my wife, or they've asked my wife, like, how do you homeschool there?
It's California. How do you do it? And my wife's like, we have some of the best laws when it comes
to homeschooling. They're like, what? I'm like, we're thinking like, who have you been listening
to? I think last year or the year before, there was like an exodus of like 300,000 students
that left public school to be homeschooled in California. Praise God for that. That's a lot of
students. I mean, even the school that's right around the corner from my house is closing down
because all the parents are pulling out their kids and they're homeschooling.
Exactly. And it's friendly. We just went to a bookstore today
in your town, Anaheim. I forget the name of the bookstore, but this place was like a gold mine.
We could have been in there for hours, but we're just bringing stacks of books up today. It's all
these old books. And my wife collects these readers. She collects these readers from
like the 1920s and 30s and 40s and 50s. The literature books that they used to,
they literally have the Department of California Education stamped in them still.
And it's great because she wants to give them to our grandkids when they're being homeschooled.
Because all the girls are wearing dresses and just like you get to see what America was like
back then. And it's just this really wholesome literature book. But we picked up all these books
and we put them on the counter and all these books are like $3 a piece, $4 a piece. And the guy says,
he's like, are you an educator? And I was like, well, she is because he was going to give us a
discount for being an educator. And he's like, homeschool? He's like, you bet. He's like 15%
off. Oh, that's awesome. We'll take it. They're friendly towards homeschooling.
They're friendly towards homeschooling. We see that everywhere. People see my kids at home all
the time if people are around us during the day and they're excited that we homeschool. And you
know what we get a lot in California? We wish we homeschooled. We get that a lot. I think that's
a big driver. And I tell people at Soul Winning that when you get somebody saved,
tell them we're family integrated. Talk about the church. Talk about how we're a homeschooling
church. Because I actually think that there's a ton of people. You said that 300,000. I think
that there is millions of people in California that would love to homeschool, but they don't
think they can do it. And if they knew that there's a church that your wife doesn't have to
start at ground zero and there's ladies that could help her. There's a community. There's
a community. You can get your foot in the door by talking to that person.
Your people are there. You just don't know. That's a great idea. I never actually even
thought about that. But yeah, we see that all the time. Homeschooling, I say it's not just
for weirdos anymore. When I was in high school- Well, the weirdos actually are in the public
schools now. Exactly. It's kind of went like that. It's switched. Yeah. But when I was in
public school, there was that one kid who was homeschooled and then he was homeschooled one
year and then his parents put him back in school and then he was homeschooled.
There was definitely a stigma that homeschoolers had. Even when I was in my old church,
they would talk about homeschoolers and they lived up to the reputation because they were
a little weird. They were antisocial or whatever, but I think it's changed now.
Oh, definitely. I think it's almost like a flex to be able to homeschool. It's a luxury to people.
It's a homeschool. It's a flex and it's definitely superior. I mean, it's biblical,
but it's just a superior way of life. I've noticed that just a lot more people are starting to do it,
especially in California, and I think that's great. But I'm going to take that into consideration
just mentioning that when we talk about our church because you just never know how many people are
out there do want to do it and they're for it and they don't realize that there's a church that
promotes that type of living. Yeah. It's a bridge that people don't think they can cross. Yeah.
Oh, we'd love to do that. They talk about it all the time because look, nobody likes what's going
on in the public school. I mean, it's crazy town there. Absolutely. And nobody likes that.
But they're like, we can't do it. We can't do it financially, they think, which is wrong. And they
think that the wife thinks, I couldn't do that. That's too hard. And how would you start that?
It's such a foreign idea to people. I think it's good that... Because there's some laws that
Gavin knew some past regarding schools and what time everyone starts and some people are starting
later and getting out earlier. And people are really mad about that, but I think it's great
because make the public school as just distasteful and horrible experiences as you possibly can so
their parents are open to homeschooling. And then through that avenue, they'll find themselves
a church that is doing homeschooling, supporting homeschooling, and there's a community there.
And then you can... Obviously, through that, we give the gospel, the people get saved.
It's just another door where we can get the truth in there to the families of California.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a great idea. So you recently, actually this week, you came up with a documentary
on Scientology, right?
Yes.
Tell me a little bit about that before we close off here.
Well, I've been doing... Over the last few years, I've been bouncing in and out of a
series I call American Heresy. And I go through a lot of the heresies that you're gonna run into
at the door, soul winning. So I've gone into Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, JWs,
all that stuff. This time, I jumped back into it for the last couple of weeks, and I decided
to do kind of a one-off on the Church of Scientology because I have seen it several
places in California. It's really big in the LA area, big in Florida. And so I did a sermon,
I did a lot of research for the sermon on Scientology. I did the sermon on it. And then
I gotta give credit to Garrett for the documentary. He just really did a lot of work on that.
But it just got to be such a rabbit hole of this mind control cult that we figured it... We decided
that we need to make something more than just a sermon out of this. So we took a lot of
testimonials from... One good thing about Scientology is that a lot of people have
gotten out of Scientology in the last 10 years especially, and they're telling a lot of upper
level people, because it's kind of a thing where they really want people with a lot of money,
because you gotta pay to get to these different levels. And a lot of these people at these upper
levels have gotten out, and they're kind of exposing these secrets. So that's what the
documentary really shows a lot of, is just what the whole thing is. You don't have to pay...
If you're thinking about Scientology, you don't have to pay millions of dollars.
Just watch the documentary.
You're gonna get it for free here. And it's really mind blowing as far as how people can let
themselves be... Christianity is based on free will and belief, right? And just how people just allow
themselves to get grabbed by these wicked evil people. Well, I was watching it, and there's
a segment of the documentary that highlights some of the things that the Church of Scientology will
do in order to resolve past issues in a person, right? They'll use certain tactics. And it made
me think about, there's a cult that existed, and the name is fleeing me right now, but it was in
the 1960s and 70s, and they're actually associated with Manson and some of these serial killers of
the 70s, like the Son of Sam. Well, they were a part of a particular cult that was called
the Church of Something. It came from Europe, but they also used those same tactics where they
would kind of... They would have them revisit certain traumas in their life, and they would
kind of use that to try to heal them. And I don't remember exactly the... What is it they call the...
The audit sessions?
The audit sessions. But they were to examine... I wasn't referring to the audit sessions. What
is it that lives in you? I forgot.
Oh, the Thetans.
The Thetans. And it's just trying to examine the Thetans in you, and it's just like,
what in the world? But there is a cult that existed during that time, and I'm trying to
think of the name. Is it Jim Jones? Is that him?
No, it's not Jim Jones. I think he was prior to that. The church that I'm referring to was in the
60s and 70s, and they greatly influenced Charles Manson and his psychopathic ideologies that he had
and also the Son of Sam and other weirdos out there. But yeah, they used some of those
same tactics.
But it's interesting because all these cults... And I didn't have time to get into this in the
sermon and in the documentary. We didn't really touch on it, but L. Ron Hubbard was very tied up
before he started the Church of Scientology. He was in the Aleister Crowley crowd. He was in the
occult stuff. It's all tied back to the same thing, right? It's all run by Satan and his
demons, right? And these guys are all experimenting and playing in that world,
and then he created this religion out of it. The science fiction religion.
Yeah, exactly.
Thetans. Although I forgot, I'm thinking to myself right now, a good way to remember it is
just satans. The satans in you, the devils that you possess here or whatever. But yeah,
it's a great documentary. Go on Hold Fast Baptist Church on their YouTube channel, Hold
Fast Baptist Church, and you can watch the documentary there. I know that Pastor
Brzezinski, you put out a couple of documentaries, but basically they're your sermon,
and then your son basically puts the content within there as far as whatever subject you're
covering. And so they're great documentaries. I want to encourage everyone to go watch that.
We're looking forward to having you preach for us tonight. Thanks for making time. I know you're
here anyways, but we'll take it.
I'm excited to be here.
Pastor Brzezinski, thank you so much for being on the show tonight. Is there anything else you
want to say? Want to make a plug-in for your channel, for anything, for your church?
No, no. Just if you're ever in Fresno, come to Hold Fast Baptist Church. We'd love to have you.
Give the address. What's the address?
The address is 4323 North Golden State Boulevard, Fresno.
And you have Sunday morning church at 10 30?
10 30 a.m.
Sunday night?
5 p.m.
And then Wednesday night?
7 p.m.
7 p.m. If you're in the Fresno area, make sure you visit his church. It's a great church,
awesome pastor, awesome people. Pastor Brzezinski, thank you again for being on the show tonight,
and Godspeed tonight, and Godspeed when you go back home, all right?
Thank you very much.
God bless you.
Thank you.