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
What Does Your Vote Say About What You Believe?
In this conversation, Pastor Tim Webb and Deanna discuss the importance of voting and how it reflects our beliefs. They emphasize the need to focus on policy rather than personality when choosing candidates. They also highlight the significance of voting at both the local and national levels. Pastor Tim encourages prayer, discernment, wisdom, and boldness in approaching the topic of voting. They stress the importance of seeking reliable sources of information and being aware of the ideologies and solutions of candidates. The conversation concludes with a reminder to register to vote and an invitation to the Texas Leadership Summit.
Hi, this is Deanna with Texas Leadership Summit, and we're joined today again by our founder, Pastor Tim Webb. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Deanna.
Speaker 1:We really want to kind of preface this today by saying that we might strike a nerve. We want to encourage everybody to keep on listening, though, and to approach this topic with prayer, discernment, be responsible and really think through how to tackle this topic. So today we're going to talk about what does your vote say, about what you believe. This will be fun, definitely needed. We've been going to a lot of different things and we've been hearing this, you know, kind of everywhere we go, and it's really important that we start with the church and how we tackle who we vote for. So probably the biggest thing is the biggest question that everybody keeps asking is how do you filter through the personality? Because we have some two really kind of crazy personalities of candidates over their policy.
Speaker 2:Right, can you kick it off with that. Well, that's a great question, but I think I'd like to back up first and just kind of tackle the issue of voting first.
Speaker 1:Oh, sure, yeah, absolutely Talk about the person.
Speaker 2:What are we saying when we don't vote? When we say I'm not going to vote because we have maybe a third of those who say they're Christians that are actually voting in the United States. So we're looking at probably 80 million people in the US who state that they are evangelical Christians. Only half of them are registered to vote and then maybe maybe half of that actually vote in an election. So really the question is, when you say, okay, I'm just not going to vote because of the personality you just mentioned that question what we're really saying when we don't vote is that I don't care. I've been wrestling with this with several different leaders in communities and pastors of other churches where they say you know, I'm just not going to vote for that guy, I don't like his character.
Speaker 1:Or they say either way right. They say I don't like either option. I'm not going to vote for either of those people. Well you can't do that. You got to pick.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I've really been pushing is that when I say I'm not going to vote, then you're really saying I don't care. I don't care about my brother or sister, I don't care about my community From the standpoint, if I'm voting specifically for one party that is pro-death, that does not stand against child sex trafficking, that doesn't really do anything to stop the trafficking of human beings, then I'm actually endorsing that act. So we really need to be very strong on what is the policy versus the personality. And so, as a pastor, I'm constantly being reminded in God's word of how love drives us to action.
Speaker 2:And your vote does matter at the local level. It matters at the national level, but specifically at the local level. That's where we see immediate change and transformation when we put specific people into office, and so we are able to enact change right away at the local level with our vote. So it does matter at the local level especially, and it also demonstrates that we do care for each other. So we could go down that trail biblically about how we have been given the opportunity to be salt and light in our community, and you know we've had multiple conversations about that. So I think that's in the forefront of this, your vote demonstrates that you care for your fellow citizens as believers.
Speaker 1:Correct. And when they say because a lot of people I hear them go well, both options are really bad. Neither one of them are any good, but you can still look at their policy and see a valentine we're not asking them to be our valentine.
Speaker 2:We get so caught up in the personality and I understand character does count, but the personality of the person that typically moves to the forefront rather than backing up and say, okay, which party supports what? We need to be able to look at their policies and what the policies enact within the local communities in our states, and so which one are we for? But most people don't go there. So we're just asking, out of the two candidates at the national level for president, which one will support the values that I uphold. Plain and simple.
Speaker 1:And we have something that we're going to link to through Biblical Voter that actually shows the two different Republican Democrat and the policies that they support. So you can see how many times do they talk about Christ and how many times do they help support children and that sort of thing. How many times do they help support children and that sort of thing. And one of the things that I went to last week they were even saying you gave a percentage, but even a smaller percentage of Christian women are voting and but women need to stand up because we got our kids. I don't.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine a mother not wanting to go and vote, seeing you know everything that's happening to kids, like you said, with the sex trafficking and then even in our schools on the local level, that sort of thing, like I mean, they're going to take our kids if we don't stand up.
Speaker 2:Right. Let's you know I'm not a proponent of fear mongering. Let's be specific. We have situations where pimps are actually registering their kids into the public school districts. A lot of public school district leaderships are not aware of the signs. They're not aware of what's actually going on in the high schools, where these kids are grooming other kids and pulling them into sex trafficking. I know this podcast isn't about sex trafficking, but it is about leadership and who we vote into office. In some cases, in some precincts, less than 5% actually vote people into offices for leadership within a community school boards, city council and so we need to be aware of this. And so for someone just coming back to that, for someone to say I'm just not going to vote, you just voted Right by not voting, you just voted, and so we need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 1:So what is more important Do you feel? The local or the national level, or both?
Speaker 2:So I think both are important. I just think that you're going to see so at the national level. That filters down to the local level and it impacts in different ways. However, you have some behind the scenes, people who are not voted into office at the national level, that are making decisions on our behalf, and you're not going to be able to remove those individuals until you have a president who is aware of that and moves them out of their positions of leadership. However, for immediate activity, immediate response at the local level, we need godly leadership. We need men and women who care about their communities, who have right thinking, as defined by God, and then have the courage to do the right response.
Speaker 2:We often know the right thing to do, but we fail to have right thinking, as defined by God, and then have the courage to do the right response.
Speaker 2:We often know the right thing to do, but we fail to have the courage to stand for our faith and enact those values at the local level with the right response, because it involves confronting people that you see at the local grocery store, you see at church.
Speaker 2:I have multiple candidates in the same church who will say when I run against this person for the school board. It may get ugly because they're going to make it personal, and it takes courage and it takes strength to keep it about the policy, the ideology. I was just at a meeting with some of our Texas church leaders here locally and I had to remind them do not make it about the person, make it about their ideology and their solutions. And so, at the local level, when it comes to voting, we want to make sure that we're looking at the candidates, their ideology, their solutions that they are putting forth, and then vote accordingly, and don't be afraid to actually do that and ask questions. And so your question to me was, which is more important I see, how we can affect immediate transformation within the community, the option for that at the local level.
Speaker 1:So when we're talking about making sure we know their ideology, one of the main things is, I mean, do we just get that from the news? I mean, like, where do we go to get that truth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the last place you want to go. I know that's why I said it. That's where most people are getting it.
Speaker 1:When I'm in conversations about different candidates, even locally, where do they seek that truth? And nationally, even in a debate, people are fact-checking. Things are wrong. How do you truly even know what's right anymore?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, we even have now. Millennials are really big on fact-checking during sermons. I'm getting fact-checked all the time. They let me know. So you really have to have good sources of information, and so you've got to vet those sources. Obviously, when it comes to the news media outlets, you have definitely a wide array of democratic ideology being promoted in the mainstream media, and now on the Republican side, you even have some that are highlighting their agendas.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, you see almost moving to an extreme to create drama and fear mongering, and so I go to these sources that we'll have links to on our Texas Leadership Summit website. They are just fact-based. They look at the facts, they look at the results. Who's doing what? That's why we have this resource, for what the Republican platform is, what the Democrat platform is, so you can make great decisions there. We really need to be aware of who we're going to for the source of truth, because that is just you know who gets to define truth. That's a whole nother conversation. We want groups, we want resources, media outlets that are based on the facts, and we want to vet them well. We want to know what their ideology is as an organization as well, who they're supporting what they're getting behind, and so TLS, that's what we're trying to do to simplify that process and give those links to those resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw an example the other day where they took the same exact news source, same channel, and they were spinning that if we didn't have tips taxed, that it was going to make us all. We lose all kinds of money in our taxes because of it.
Speaker 1:And then the same news source said on the other side, if they did it, that it was just going to help all these people. So you got to be careful on how they spin it and what they're saying and make sure that your source is a legit source and what they're saying. So I know we need to wrap it up. It's a very heavy subject that we're talking about, but, as a pastor, how would you address the church in regards to voting? Prayer, discernment, wisdom and boldness I mean, that's what it's going to take.
Speaker 2:Right. First of all, you said prayer, discernment and boldness. We need to be a people of prayer. We need to constantly be praying that the Lord would keep our hearts aligned with his word, his will for our lives and the church and how to be the church. I'm not going to know how to vote, I'm not going to know how to fulfill my responsibility as a citizen if I don't know my role as a godly person in the church, and so we need to be prayerful about that. We need to be in God's word, and I know as a pastor, the word is very specific about how we're to love our brothers and sisters in the faith, and so I just continue to promote in the church people stepping forward in their leadership with courage to do what is right.
Speaker 2:The word defines what is right. It touches every area of life, and so there's no area that Christ isn't intentional about redeeming If we allow access, if we engage in that. So, whether it's the church, education, government, business, all of this is about how we're stewarding our lives for the glory of Christ. I mean salt and light in our community. Our lives for the glory of Christ, I mean salt and light in our community. So I really address that from the perspective of God's word, our responsibility as a citizen. Last time I checked, the Lord didn't just redeem one part of my life, he redeemed my citizenship as well. So as a Christian and a citizen, I have a duty to engage in the politics, in the issues, in the governance of a community. I have that duty Now. The result is up to God. And so we have people that say the right things but they don't always follow through with that. And so that, being prayerful over our leadership, paul told Timothy that we're to pray for our leaders. If you will, I'm paraphrasing, but what that says to me is that I'm to be intentional about praying for the leadership within the community.
Speaker 2:You can go all the way back in the Old Testament, when Israel was removed from the land. They go into exile and the prophet Jeremiah said pray for the welfare of the city, because as the welfare of the city is blessed, you will be blessed. And if that's true for Israel and they're under judgment, being removed from the land, how much more so for a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ, to be prayerful and concerned about the welfare of the city that they live in, to stand for their faith. Because and I tell people, look, no matter what they do to us, we do the right thing regardless, because we're looking for the resurrection, we're looking for the life, the eternal life, to come, not in the here and now. The blessing is not for in the here and now to create a great nation and then we're done. Hey, hallelujah, fold up shop, we're good to go. No, we are looking to advance the kingdom, we're looking for the resurrection to come. My hope is in Christ, who is in heaven. One day he's going to return and he's going to make everything right. In the meantime, I do what is right, as defined by him to be a blessing in my community, to present right thinking, creating right response and the courage to follow through with that. So I am always encouraging our church engage, be equipped, interact with people, build relationships in the community so that you can be a part of transforming the community for the glory of Christ and sharing the gospel all along the way.
Speaker 2:Now, that takes boldness. We've talked about that here at TLS Courage where does courage come from? Well, I know that first of all, I need to know who to fear, and if I fear God, I know the path that puts me on. That puts me on the path of life. It's the beginning of wisdom, solomon said in Proverbs. And once I know the correct person to fear, then I no longer have to fear man. What can he do to me? The word of God Jesus said to fear the one who is after death is able to cast your soul into hell, and so put the fear in the right perspective. And so when we talk about boldness stepping forward in our community, it's all rooted in love. We're speaking the truth in love, but we are going to be bold for what is right, and so we leave the results up to God, right, right? So last day to register to vote is October 7th.
Speaker 1:Everybody get out and register, and voting day is November 5th to vote.
Speaker 1:We'll have links to where you can go and register. We have all that down on the page. And then we have our Texas Leadership Summit October 5th in Burnham, texas, and we will help educate, empower, encourage through the speakers that we're going to have that day, all day and the night before. Come and join us for praise and worship to kick it off. We have links to the tickets and all that good stuff on our website as well. We have links to the tickets and all that good stuff on our website as well, and we look forward to seeing everybody there and coming and getting encouraged and boldness and be equipped with the word so that we know how to go and make a change. So thank you for joining us today and we'll see you next time.