Texas Leadership Summit Podcast
Empowering leaders with the courage, tools, and hope to ignite a revival of Christian leadership. In each episode of the Texas Leadership Summit Podcast, leaders bring you empowering insights and easy-to-understand takeaways you can use to lead yourself and others. You’ll learn practical ways to grow as a leader, get involved in your community, lead your family, and grow your faith.
Texas Leadership Summit Podcast
Victories in the Fight for Freedom and Faith with Steve Maxwell
When faith meets the frontline of freedom, sparks fly. This episode is with Steve Maxwell, founder of Citizens Defending Freedom and the Remnant Alliance, who imparts the story of a devout Christian to a valiant defender of American values. Picture this: a life-changing encounter with Senator Rand Paul, a dive into shaping local education, and a realization that the battlefield for our beliefs is closer to home than we ever imagined. Join us to explore the heart of a man who has taken up arms in the spiritual and societal arenas to protect what he holds sacred.
The specter of fear is ever-looming, a shadow that seeks to silence the brave. But here, we carve out a space to dissect this adversary, finding strength in solidarity and the word of God. In this episode, we share candid tales of stepping beyond comfort zones, illustrating how such acts shape our legacy and ignite courage in those who will one day follow in our footsteps. Steve Maxwell's personal stories and insightful perspectives challenge us to confront the challenges to our freedoms head-on, with faith as our shield and scripture as our guide.
Victory has a sweet taste, and in this conversation, we savor the triumphs of Citizens Defending Freedom, from legal battles won to alliances forged amongst 75 organizations. We emphasize the power of collective action, the potency of local engagement, and the resilience it takes to stand firm against well-resourced adversaries. As we wrap up, we extend an invitation to join forces with those already making a difference, encouraging listeners to contribute to this noble cause. Remember, it's not just about safeguarding our values; it's about nurturing the soul of our nation, one victory at a time.
Hello everyone, my name is Tim Webb and I'm the founder of the Texas Leadership Summit, and it is our desire at TLS empowering everyday leaders with courage, tools and hope to ignite a revival of Christian leadership, and I am very excited today to be able to speak with Steve Maxwell, a brother in the faith and someone who loves working to advance the kingdom of God, and I just I won't go into great detail, I'll let you do that, steve, but he is founder of Citizens Defending Freedom and then, after that, seeing some things that needed to happen, helped start the remnant alliance. And, steve, I really one just want to start off with our listeners to be able to have them the opportunity to hear just where this passion, this need, came from. I mean, it didn't just happen overnight and you just didn't wake up one day and say, hey, I think we need to start Citizens Defending Freedom.
Speaker 2:No, I got that right.
Speaker 1:As we have visited a couple of times in the past and just at some local events here in Brunham, Texas, it was really great to hear how God stirred your heart and I think I'd really like to start with that, first and foremost, just sharing with our listeners. Where did that passion come from?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, pastor Tim, thank you for the opportunity to speak and be on your podcast. And you know it really. That's a great question. I think it really began in a sense of my childhood and coming to Christ early in my life and I just always took the Bible literal. You know, in the world we live in, literal. So as you mature as an adult, you see things beginning to change and especially here in our country, we've seen this slow slide in our lifetime. You and I are close to the same age and no matter what kind of leadership stepped in place, it seemed we were still sliding. It was just either sped up or slowed down a little bit. So I guess it really came from this.
Speaker 2:You know, I believe in God's Word, I believe in the founding of this country and what it was founded on. I lived it. I got to be a business entrepreneur and got to see the goodness of the country. And then, when you realize they're taking this away and there's an orchestrated effort to take it away, it's just a natural reaction to want to defend my Lord, first of all, because this is a really it's an attack from Satan, and then to be able to defend and help our citizens defend themselves in our country. So it's just a passion that I've always just been ingrained in me and I was always taught, tim, that you know if you're being attacked or your family's being attacked, you defend. We're men. We're supposed to protect our families and protect. We're the protectors. And so it's just something is I could go all the way back to Scotland. You know my family's from Scotland.
Speaker 1:But we won't go that far.
Speaker 2:They fought way back in the 12th century, 13th century. So anyway, I don't know if that answers your question, but it's just it came natural to me to want to make things right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and not a lot of. Not a lot of men today understand that, and you know I've talked about just with being men who understand that role and we've got a lot of work to do in that regard, but we're I'm baffled by it.
Speaker 2:I'm really baffled by it. I really am.
Speaker 1:Right. And now there was a point sometimes I call them a crisis of faith where we I don't know some people may not remember the old Popeye cartoons, but we're in that scene where he says I can't stands it. I can't stands it no more, you know. And so there had to be a pivotal moment for you when you just said you know what? Here we go.
Speaker 2:You know that's a great question too. There was a pivotal moment there's about three in a row, really. The election happened in 2020. That formed a group of other businessmen and other leaders in our community coming together to determine what was going on, and that led to a very important meeting with Senator Rand Paul down in Miami or Marlargo, and we got to spend some quality time with him and, to his credit, he told us the truth of what was really going on in DC. So that was a big. I remember driving home I only lived about an hour and a half from there and I remember weeping driving home that I just could not believe that this is where the country was and that was a pivotal moment. But really, the first investigation we ran in our county. So our county is a very conservative county. We have a great sheriff, greaty Judd.
Speaker 2:We began studying our own county here and it was about an eight-week study. We found there were 29 organizations in this county that were either funded partially or wholly by George Soros. That was a moment we went wow, what is going on? Our first investigation was a tip that we received from inside the school system one of our school systems here, a charter school system. We did an investigation, received over 1,900 emails, 264 attachments. What we found was there was a very wealthy individual that lived in a wealthy part of town that actually came here from the northeast, had a winter home here and this gentleman had purchased curriculum that was really bad, all the stuff you see in the news every day. Now he applied that into our school system. The only problem is he did not notify the school board or the parents. He had purchased this software from the Clinton Foundation. He moved some Clinton employees down to our county to implement it. The principal knew about it because she had a slush fund that we found that was awarded.
Speaker 2:In those 1,900 emails, tim, we found a conversation going on between like-minded people like this gentleman around the country and they were discussing things like well, the cities we already have and we've got to get into these rural counties now, once we get them. And it was like this cannot be happening. This is an orchestrated effort to take down conservative counties and in their mind, that's all they have left and they'll have the nation. So that was a big, pivotal moment. We realized, man, it's kind of like Apollo 13 movie when they got in trouble and NASA was trying to figure out what was going on and Jim Lovell says how much time do we have? And I said well, we only have 15 minutes. We got less time than we think we got to get it. We got to get going right getting that lunar module. So that was the feeling we had. It was oh my gosh, this is, this is really entrenched, and we got to go.
Speaker 1:So it really created a sense of urgency and I think that's part of the battle. You know, I've talked about this apathy that's out there and in leaders today. I think they they don't have a clear concept of what's going on and how much time is actually left before we take back some of these areas. I think you also mentioned doing some polling and doing some research and finding in finding out these results. Could you, could you? Would you be able to nail down just the biggest? And now I know you're gonna say, of course, tim, yes, we know, but our biggest enemy right now, I mean, I think, because we've we've really compartmentalized the struggles in different areas and and really divided leadership in many aspects, but when it comes to the kingdom of God, there's really only one enemy. And can you just share with us kind of your approach with citizens defending freedom, freedom and identifying this enemy that really should unite all of us in our faith.
Speaker 2:Exactly well, the enemy of Satan. We find that in Revelation 12, this battle we gained before humans were ever created. The tip of the tentacle that we see is multi-headed. It's a multi-headed monster in our lives. It's everywhere, from LBGT group that's going into your school system and going out to your children, to the censorship in our, in our, in our institutions now, and our in our, even private companies that are being orchestrated by. Really, it's not even our government, it's the agencies that that our government are responsible for. Our elected officials aren't necessarily doing it, but the, so, the, the, the enemy as far as repelling this, I think, was your question right.
Speaker 2:What is the enemy? It is I don't even call it apathy anymore. It's, I think it's founded in fear and and in the fear of losing comfort, if that makes okay sense. You know I go home today and you know I live on a 50 acres and we got. You know things going on and you know a garden going, or I go see my wife. My life doesn't change today.
Speaker 2:An inner city person may have a different perspective, but their life is really not changed all that much either, other than illegals. You know, setting up in the tent, right, but our lives have not changed this. The the pain of what's happening has not hit us. Okay, and that has a human nature effect in that. Okay, I see the tidal wave. I think I see the title. If I can't really see that, I don't want to look at the tidal wave, but it hadn't hit yet. But it's going to hit and when it hits then you know. It's kind of like when you know my wife when her first child and she's having those contractions as little we call the early contractions, and all of a sudden, when the water broke, the next contraction was serious business it's right, it went from boom to boom, right and so.
Speaker 2:But you know the it is a human nature thing. I don't know if I'm even making sense of my explanation, but it's a combination of not wanting to see what's coming versus I don't want to mess up my comfort zone, because if I realize what's coming, I've got to change something in my life to help. And people struggle with that. I mean I've struggled with that. I mean I don't want to have to be on the road all the time. I don't have to be about. You have five, five grandbabies now.
Speaker 2:You know businesses were going. I mean we were, we were, we were, we were happy and content. But but when you see this thing coming and you have to ask yourself the question what am I gonna do about it? And I asked myself the question a lot because I mentioned my Scottish heritage. I've got a great heritage, and from way back. But what are my grandkids gonna say about me one day? When are my great-grandkids, if the Lord Teres is coming, when they will have the benefit of hindsight and they're gonna see where? Well, wait a minute. The signs were there, the communication was there. You knew what was going on. There's an invasion on the border. All these things are happening. What did my granddaddy do about it? I want to provide them the example to Christ, and he provide them the example of how to fight for liberty and freedom and why it's worth it. So I don't know. That's a long answer to a short question. No, I think.
Speaker 1:I think it's great. I think it's great what what you've said. I think also one of the things and just in some of our conversations previously, when we talk about fear is is one of the biggest things that holds back the people of God from doing what they know is the right thing to do. And and so I think you and I have both seen this, and we at TLS, what we're trying to do is encourage people, give them courage, and we know that comes from God's word. We know that also comes from leadership coming together. And I don't know if you've seen well, I'm sure you've seen this in the local community with what your church has gone through, what you've been through, but this fear of putting yourself out there in the possibility of your family being attacked yeah, your reputation, and so you know. Could you speak to that for a little bit? Because we, we go and we're trying to encourage the local, everyday leader and how, how can they have that courage to get into the fight?
Speaker 2:I believe it comes down, at least for me, it comes down to faith and realizing I don't report to anybody but God one day, and that removes the fear. Now I hate, I don't like the idea of my family being drug in. I don't like the idea of myself being drug into these controversial issues, or or maybe they're gonna shadow, ban your church or whatever they're gonna do. But you know in the Bible what is it? 365 times it says do not fear. What mission am I on? Am I on a mission to make sure my family is safe or my mission to extend the kingdom of God, no matter what happens? Am I Daniel on the lines then you know, or am I am a weak leader, that that that chose not to fight? Am I the guy with the talents that took it and apply those talents, taking a risk on those talents, or am I the guy that buries the talents? I want to be the guy that takes the risk, not for myself, but I wanted to. I wanted to honor my master right. And so you've got those two people.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting, jesus said in that parable, the guy that buried his talent had two characteristics he was, he was lazy, number one, and he was wicked, right. So what made him wicked, it was the selfishness, basically, of worried about himself and what the master was going to do to him if he messed up. Basically, right, right, self-preservation, it's self-preservation. Self-preservation is the opposite of courage, but it's in bread and a human nature to self-preserve. But if you think about a personal battlefield, you probably, like me, I love to watch these old World War II guys that were in Normandy or whatever, and you hear them talk. They're scared but they just accept that I may die, I will give it my all. And that little decision inside that heart of that individual makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1:It's difference between courage and fear. If we can just get 10% of our leadership, our Christian leadership, to understand is about self-sacrifice and not self-preservation Just 10%. And I know you've had to have seen this because you travel all over the country. You've had to see, if we get 10% of Christian leaders in the fight, that 80% on the team are going to say, hey, we can do this too, let's join with them.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. I'm seeing it now as pastors are standing up and taking a stand in the communities. All of a sudden you've got more pastors, you have more people standing up Again. It's human nature. Great book written. I always forget this guy, the author, but it's called True Believers.
Speaker 2:This gentleman took a study of every mass movement in the history of the world, good and bad. It's always a minority. It's always a minority that lead and the rest will follow. Most of us are followers, most of us are not leaders, but it only takes a handful. Then look at all those Bible stories. You know Gideon, you know God. He always had a remnant. He always had that many times, just in time. But he had that person or that prophet or an army that was a minority. Then he did something major with that minority situation five loaves and two fish.
Speaker 2:Back to the fear thing. If you think about it, it doesn't make sense, especially for the Christian. It's a point of the man wants to die and after this is the judgment. Then the Bible also tells us that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints. Our best days are after we die, not here on earth. So what is it that we fear. Think about the COVID thing, think about every the fear of what. What is fear? Fear is the anticipation of pain, the anticipation of harm. So if my savior's got me and the Bible says he does and my savior, as long as I'm aligned with him, is not going to allow anything to happen to me that's not already preordained, then I'm going to have faith in my savior and do the right thing. Now that's just me, that's just how I was raised, and what I believe.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that falls right in line with Scripture. James, peter, paul they talked about that refining of our faith that produces that perseverance, that character and hope Our teaching pastor shared a couple of times, and we kind of take this approach. Well, not kind of, we do take this approach. And our church is that we are in the land of the dying, moving toward the land of the living, and our world has it backwards. We live as if we're in the land of the living, going to the land of the dying, and that is not true for the Christian we are. We're all, as you said, death rates, one per one, and we are on that track. We're going to all die. That's God's answer for this curse and this cursed body. He's going to resurrect it. So what do we have to fear? And so, I think, just reminding our Christian leaders, our pastors, that this is the call of God on us as believers. And so, when you frame it in that light and what you're sharing, it gets really exciting, it does. It really does. It gets exciting, it does.
Speaker 2:And you know, in business you know, I've experienced so many times you know God is in business as well and you face something that you look like it's the end, and every time you're on your knees and you say Lord, if you don't show up, we don't make it. I can't tell you how many times Right now we're one of our companies, lord, if you don't show up. But he always shows up, but he gets the credit and that's just a pattern. It's through scripture. Again, he shows up when we thirst after him, long after him. That's why I'm excited about the Christians in America, not the ones that are not engaged, but there is a good shot. I'd say 20, 25 percent of the leaders are engaging and a lot more of their members are engaging or want to engage. They're just looking for leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah points in the right direction. That's a big number in God's book. You know that's a huge number. Let's talk for a moment just about the elements of citizens defending freedom, because you found that there were three areas, three things that needed to be provided Citizens defending freedom and I'd like for you to just share just briefly you know, each one of those things because I think, as our listeners, our viewers, as they, as they catch hold of this, they're going to, they're going to be connecting the dots and that's what we want them to do at the local level. Would you mind sharing some of that?
Speaker 2:with us. No, I'd love to we again, I'm a. I'm a business guy. So if you're going to go in business, you got to study the market and got to determine what products are needed to service that market. So that's the approach we took, and so we were able to get in contact with one of our board members, new General Flynn. General Flynn helped us put this together.
Speaker 2:We brought I think we invited 83 organizations to our headquarters here in Florida. I think 75 showed up for 76, but we locked the doors for three days. Basically, I mean, we had them on buses going to the hotel and back squat teams on top of the building. It was crazy. My wife cooked 600 meals, my wife and a few of her friends, and we ate all our meals here, but we locked it down for three days and we were just going basically around the room.
Speaker 2:We had workshops trying to find out what is missing, and when you look at the machine, we truly have a goliath on the other side. It's well organized, well funded, looks overwhelming. And then you look at our side We've got heart. Most of these folks were Christians, matter of fact. I think all of them were. But you had pastors here, we had organizations here, but what was missing was, we found, was three basic ingredients and it goes back to we've got tons of citizens, we outnumber these people by a lot, but we don't have the tools to fight the machine. So I always use the example If you're a mom or a dad and you're going to a school board meeting to fight back against something nefarious going on there, you know you look to your left and there's three attorneys here from the ACLU right and you look at the school board attorney and he's shaking his boots or her boots, because their job is to avoid lawsuits.
Speaker 2:Then you've got six or seven or eight school board members that are part time and they're facing the same goliath and so their job. What do we do? What do we do? Then you got this mom speaking for three minutes at the meeting and then she writes an email. And how did she fight that? So we said there's three main products we saw. We saw really needed. Number one was real intelligence. When I say Intel, that's human intelligence. In other words, what's going on in my neighborhood, what's going on in that school board? Take that example. You can multiply this out and anything going on in your community. So find out what's really going on, but also having an arm that can do some deep dive research. Okay, where's this money coming from? Who's behind all this? It's happening right now in my hometown. We had a great success story in our hometown the last 18 months. You heard that when I was with you the other day. Well, the elections are coming back. Well, George Soros is funding two opponents on the same little town in Polk County, florida.
Speaker 1:That's not a big town?
Speaker 2:right, it's not, it's 20,000 people. So what's George Soros doing? Funding two LBGT candidates to go knock off the two church members that got on in the last election? See, there you go. It's a war, right, it's a battle.
Speaker 2:So, having the real knowledge of what's going on, number one. Number two, having a media department that can at least get your narrative out there. So the enemy again, they control the media and they are dogmatic and they can, and they use the media as a brown shirt. Almost they will activate activists out there that a lot of people fear they're gonna come after me. So we needed to get our story out there and most of the time we know the story before anybody else knows the story because we're doing the investigating. But the biggest piece of this is local lawfare. So having access to that mom in front of that microphone, having access to lawyers on the ground that can help defend anything that breaches a statute or any kind of policy in that school, we can address it immediately and have a counter punch to those three attorneys sitting on the other side. So those are the three main products that we put together with the Citizens Defending Freedom and Mike Ferris.
Speaker 2:The Alliance Defending Freedom at the time was one of our mentors and he really helped us put that model together. And he told us he said, steve, if you'll show up, have a Christian attitude, be professional, have a media team, have a good legal team and stay the course. Don't quit. This may take you 10, 15 years. You just stay the course, you'll win nine out of 10. And so far he's been exactly right. We've won almost everything. I think I don't know if anything we've lost yet and it's just standing firm with those tools. That's our sling and our rock against Goliath. And so far we've killed a lot of Goliaths.
Speaker 1:And so if someone at the local level say we're in Texas and, but here in Texas if we needed your help, how would we go about getting that kind of help?
Speaker 2:I just come right to our website and ask the question. We're gonna hook you up with our Texas State Director and he's Goliath's gonna hook you in to the local regional leaders and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Well, I've heard some of your successes and some of the battles that you've been in. Would you mind sharing some of those? Just a couple of wins, and then maybe some things you're working on now currently?
Speaker 2:Sure, but love to Well. Our first win was early on. We had a family here. It's back when the mask on the kids at school. Remember that. Yes, no masking policy. I think we all do. Yeah, y'all remember that. Everybody remembers that. Anyway, we took that to court. We had a citizen that was willing to go to battle and she and her husband did, and we got them and their story in front of millions of Americans. Behind the scenes, our attorneys went to work. That wound up as a win in the Florida Supreme Court ruling mask unconstitutional. So that was our first win. Man, we got a Supreme Court win over the mask. Soon after that was Walt Disney World. I love to tell this story.
Speaker 2:We had a global company that was mandating the vaccines. Our position was that was a choice, that was a freedom. No one should be mandated to take a vaccine and especially lose their job if they didn't. And that's what Disney was doing. So we had one gentleman called me on a Sunday afternoon. I can tell you right where I was parked, right down the road here. He says look, I'm a waiter at Walt Disney World. I've been a waiter for 17 years. I want to fight Walt Disney World. So in 24 hours. Our media team had a website built for him called GoofyVaccinecom. We began getting his story out. Estimated 90 million households took about 15 days getting him on air and getting his story out.
Speaker 2:Behind the scenes, our attorneys went to work, writing legislation, working with the governor's office. This all started at the end of August and by December the governor signed four bills. We had a special session. We joined other groups, like-minded groups. We called a special session in November. They passed four laws. Two of those laws our attorney's road. Our attorney was standing next to the governor when he signed those bills in December of that year. That was a tremendous win and proved the system works. One citizen with no tools given the tools and we beat a global company back and Disney had to back off. That's amazing. One of our latest ones and I could tell story after story this is the one that really taps into the rim of the line is what we're all about.
Speaker 2:It was down in Corpus Christi, Texas, Big Texas win. We had a George Soros district attorney there that named Mark Gonzalez. A bad dude had Bandito's chapters reporting to him. He had over 200 felonies he didn't prosecute Just a typical George Soros district attorney where laws were not being enforced and you know what happens the society goes down in that area. So in Texas you guys have a wonderful law. Every state in America needs to have this law. It's called Section 87. It's a part of your constitution where a local citizen can actually sue to have an elected official removed from office in that county. If all you had to prove is that about eight things on the list. But the big thing is just derelicts and a duty are not following the constitution. We had a six month investigation on this guy, so we're going to take him to trial. We filed suit in January, the trial was scheduled for September and right before the trial he resigned. And so that was a great win and all that.
Speaker 2:But really what happened behind the scenes? Pastor Tim is, is our people. We're a faith-based organization, so we're witnessing everywhere we go, Every opportunity we get. It just so happens, one of the lieutenants that work for this district attorney found cry, came to Christ and and he began went from Saul to Paul, he began testifying to the rest of that group Banditos group down there, and a bunch of those guys came to Christ and the network of support was eroding under this guy so and he finally resigned before we went to court. So to me, that's the beautiful thing of what we're doing and a promise from God if we'll engage, He'll join us. Right, if we'll just take our stand, He'll join us just like Daniel, just like Chad Rekhme shaking a bender go, and he will do what we cannot do. So that's just three quick wins. We we got a lot more. You know if we could spend all day on them, but yeah, you get the idea.
Speaker 1:Well, we get the idea. I definitely get the idea. I think it's, and that's a beautiful way of just Combating where people are saying, well, this is just political, you just want your, your guy and they're your gal in office. But, as you've said before, our enemy is Satan. This is a battle between good and evil and I love how you all are. You you've established this in a way that you can share the gospel and, as I've heard Colby talk about this at the local level and engaging the church and people, actually Going to those in protest, yes, and and showing the kindness and the love of Christ and bottle water and Information and seeing and hearing how that is, as the people are protesting your movement or a battle that you're in. When they get the Information, they're amazed and walk away many of them, they're blinded.
Speaker 1:They're blinded right.
Speaker 2:So we've got about 18 churches down in corporate set of joined together, okay, and they've rocked corporate Christie in a good way. It's a great thing. But yeah, instead of instead of you know we first of all to your point. You know well, this is politics. You're just trying to get your guy in. Go tell the mother who was raped by a doctor that this district attorney Did not prosecute. Go tell the family who lost a loved one to murder who this district attorney did not prosecute. See, satan works through people, mm-hmm, just like Christ works through people. That's right. He worked through Herod to kill, slaughter those babies when Jesus was born. So we can talk politics all we want that.
Speaker 2:I've changed the word politics to leadership. It's our responsibility. We give an account to God, right, we have to. We are supposed to select godly leaders, that's right. And and if you can't control Washington, how about right around your church, right, right around your community? So we focus that church. Just take care of your community, right? I just got a text while I go from a election that happened in Detroit. This is past week, inner city, don Easton. You'll get to meet Don he's one of our.
Speaker 2:Liberty past of one of our Remnant Alliance pastors. But they had a 5%, 4. Something percent turnout. Out of 20,000 voters, only 1100 showed up to vote. Wow, and those precincts around that church if that church would have run Someone in that office, there's two or three thousand people in just a couple churches right in that same district. That's what happened in Lake Wells. That's how we did it. We took, we took a couple of precincts, went from 9% turnout to 66, 66% turnout and we want every. We won third 16 positions in 18 months. So it's a matter of just engaging. And then, yeah, are we? Are we elected leaders? Is it Paul? Yeah, we're getting, we're getting godly leaders that that make godly decisions. Right.
Speaker 1:So I don't know you and I've talked about this as well that that we have got to engage the church, has got to engage our culture and prepare men and women for leadership. We've got to do that. There's such an urgency for that, and that's that's why our mission has been just trying to encourage Everyday leaders, empower them, and I think that's what I get excited about. You push my pastor buttons while you're talking, because this is an opportunity to empower and equip the church for action. Yeah, I've had many people just talk about this to where they they go. It's not just you're talking about the issues. You're giving us something to do. You're giving us a way to engage and the tools to do that, and so I think it's very powerful.
Speaker 1:Just in our last few minutes, just kind of what are you looking forward to? I know you've mentioned remnant Alliance. I know you're doing some work at the national level trying to bring pastors together. I mean, you've been on the road, or should I say you've been applying the air miles, so to speak. What's going on there? If you don't mind sharing Well?
Speaker 2:our goal originally was to have a thousand churches and ten battleground states that are activated. I think we're gonna surpass that. I'm really excited about our Latino Market now. We've we've we've been hiring a Latino pastor, pastor Louise Brabara, who's doing a great job, going to do a great job for us. The Latino markets big.
Speaker 2:To me, the exciting thing now is to see a pastor that maybe didn't felt he was alone. There's a lot of that I hear. You know I'm talking to a lot of pastors now. They feel their alone and then connect them with other like-minded pastors, you know, and and then they share ideas together and then they begin implementing these ideas together and that's the most enjoyable thing I'm seeing right now. I think you and I are working on that right now with a pastor, jack Hilligoss. See the church come alive and and and see what happens when it comes alive.
Speaker 2:Our church, our pastor this is about three years ago decided and again rimmed alliance. What is that? We first bring the pastors to a 30-hour course. You've been to that course before. Then we train. Now we bring biblical citizenship courses inside the church and train the members. And then we have a volunteer group called the salt light Council that sets up inside the church, they begin that be the eyes and ears, the community, and then that organization hooks into us. We bring in the, the, what we bring to the table, and that combo is very powerful.
Speaker 2:But, um, you know, our pastor is Decided about three years ago to run for mayor and it was after he went through that this process and our church went from. Three years ago we were a member of we had 400, roughly 400 members, we had 1400 people church. Last week we baptized 40 Wow people in one day. What one of the thing is? God is engaging in a lot of different ways, but we had to be willing to put on the full armor of God and go fight this enemy. And what's missing is that fight piece we're. I don't quite comprehend it, but if someone were to break into my home and try to hurt my family, I'm gonna fight them. And and that's how I see this they're breaking into our home, they're breaking into our children in our community and and we need just a handful of fighters to go stand and do it God's way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just want to speak to that just for a moment, because what I found is a pastor and being in ministry for 35 years that when you are consistently, constantly devoting yourself to God's word, you know, though, the when you, when you're new in the faith, you don't have a lot of confidence. But as you, as you go to God's word and you're learning, you're being a disciple equipped with a word. That consistent devotion to the Apostles, teaching the word of God, it builds a confidence within you, and when you have that confidence, it produces this courage. Many times you're going, I didn't realize I had the courage, but when the moment came up, when the crisis hit, I had the confidence because I'd done my homework, I'd done the, the hard work I told my kids. Hard work always pays off. So we do the hard work of being discipled and equipped, which is why I love these tools that you're giving God's people, because they're out of that confidence, we know what to do, we know how to respond.
Speaker 1:Right thinking brings a right Response. You, we've said this for years conviction, your belief, drives behavior right, and so that's exactly what you're doing. You're, you're equipping people with the right belief, the right thinking, and so here's the crisis. We have the right response. Yeah, I go do it and that's just really when you see the eyes light up of people. Yeah, you're working with and you're going man.
Speaker 2:They're getting it, and so you know what? And have fun. Yes, yes, that's some fun. It's not all, debbie downer, you know that's right. Well, our days are best. Days are ahead of us. That's right, man. Let's go have some fun. Try to win this thing back.
Speaker 1:It's what a what an?
Speaker 2:opportunity to live on this earth at this time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just, I think, and I tell our church that all the time, if, if your faith is boring and dead, you need to, you need to get back in the word and relook at what faith and Christ is all about. Because I tell our people all the Time it's time to put your seatbelts on, fasten your seatbelts, because this ride is going to get amazing it is amazing.
Speaker 1:So well, steve, I really, I really appreciate you giving your time today. I know you're a busy man. You've got a lot going on, you have family, you're you traveling all over. Get the message out. Is there any last Just words you'd like to say to our viewers, our leaders, that we're going to be sending this out to Just to?
Speaker 2:just want to get, just encourage you first of all. Thank you, pastor Tim, for having me and thank you for what you're doing. You're doing it. It can get frustrating, but the word of to those that would be listening to this is just don't try to take on the whole world, it's too big, but just look in your community, yes, and say okay. How do we fortify, how do we produce these godly leaders right here in our community? How do we get rid of the bad stuff that's going in our community and how do we witness in the process? It's a mindset. I talked mindset a lot of times when I'm, when I'm talking to pastors and other groups, it's a mindset man. What an opportunity. We have people coming, we have a confrontation here between good and evil and we get to witness. We had the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:We had the power of Almighty God you know, so now you're pretty, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's do it in love, but let's go rally. Every one of these people that are out there doing that. Most of them, I would say, don't even realize, faster Tim, what they're doing. But they're all gonna die one day too. That's right. And what if, just what, if one day in heaven somebody walks up to us this day, man, thank you for confronting that school board that day, because I Took to account what y'all were saying. And I turn to the Lord, thanks to you. I mean that it's about that. It's about what a group revelation says to defeat Satan is the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony and our courage, not afraid to die. So we can do this.
Speaker 2:Amen be not a like minded pastor and leader and join up, start praying together and I promise you the opportunities are right before you.
Speaker 1:Well, steve, we're gonna have your links on our website, our TLS Texas leadership summitorg website, and so everyone listening to today's podcast will be able to find your organization and just you know, connect to the links and and really see more in depth of what, how they can connect with you and just the ministry that's happening, and so I want to say thank you again. It's been such an honor to be a part of what you're doing and and begin to to do the work on the same team of connecting pastors, christian leaders, and, while our focus is on Texas, we're excited about like organizations coming together all across this country and it starts at the local level, and so your spot on, brother, it's the local level. So you got it.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much. Maybe make me one promise, for we hang up here now. Does it have to do with Bluebell? It does have to do with that's right, that's right. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you.