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
Engaging Communities for Change
In this conversation, Tim Webb, along with Bunny Pounds and Ben Klein from Christians Engaged, discusses the importance of Christian leadership in various societal pillars such as church, education, government, and business. They emphasize the need for Christians to engage actively in civic duties, dispel myths surrounding political involvement, and encourage local community engagement. The discussion highlights personal journeys of faith, the significance of saying 'yes' to opportunities, and the goals of Christians Engaged to mobilize Christians towards civic responsibility and biblical worldview education.
Hello everyone, my name is Tim Webb, the founder of Texas Leadership Summit, and I'm so glad to have you all with us today. And today, as we are continuing this conversation of how to help the everyday leader have the courage, the tools and the hope to engage our faith in our pillars of church, education, government and business. Our desire is that through this, we are able to ignite a revival of Christian leadership in the world we live in, and so here at TLS, we want to help people have the courage to step forward in their faith every day life, and so we know that our faith is not to be compartmentalized, but the Lord has asked the church to impact the culture instead of the culture impacting the church. And so I'm very thankful today because we have two leaders with Christians Engaged and I want to introduce everyone to Bunny Pounds, who's the founder and president of Christians Engaged, as well as the vice president of civic and church engagement for Family Policy Alliance and Family Policy Alliance Foundation, which was founded by Dr James Dobson. And also with her today, I have Ben Klein, who's the vice president of Christians Engaged. He is an author and a speaker.
Speaker 1:Ben is honored to serve as the vice president of Christians Engaged as well, so two of you serving together in this organization, supporting the same mission and vision, and I think, as we're walking through this, as I've, you know, I receive your emails, I hear what you're doing.
Speaker 1:I'm very thankful for your ministry and the impact that it has in our community through the church, and so, by the very nature of the name itself, potentially we have the potential to impact not only the local community but the world we live in, and so I want to thank you all for being with us today. Thank you for what you do, and so I would love for just to start out, bunny, if you just start out and just and Ben, feel free, I'm just going to turn this over to both of you to initially share how did you get to this place, to where your faith in Christ and who you are in Christ motivated you to this point where, as many have said, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. So if you would share a little bit about yourself and then just how your faith moved you into your leadership position today?
Speaker 2:Well, we're blessed to be with you, pastor Tim. And yeah, we kind of get accused of either being a dating ministry or a civic engagement ministry. I don't know which one Christians engaged, but our hope is to mobilize millions of Christians around the country to pray, vote and engage. We started five years ago in Texas here, doing grassroots, going into churches, trying to connect pastors, to help connect people to prayer, voting and engagement. Now we're approaching almost 750,000 Christians in our Get Out the Vote system around the country. So it's been an amazing journey and we're just getting started.
Speaker 2:What I'm seeing is that God wants to move on people and he wants to take us to a place of discipleship, first in our own souls, in our own families, and then help us to be leaders in our community, to bring the gospel, but also to elect righteous leaders. So my little story as I started out as a homeschooling mom, I thought I was going to be a missionary to Latin America. I ended up marrying a pest control guy and we're doing pest control and I got involved. A church actually opened up their doors and taught us how to go to our precinct meeting after the primary in 2004. And I went to pass a resolution, ended up bringing myself in as a state delegate because I was the only one that showed up at my precinct meeting.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I got hooked at a state convention in 2004 for a particular political party or nonpartisan, so I won't say the name, but anyway. Came home, went back to college, finished my degree in political science three and a half years later, after forever at night school, and ended up working for a US congressman, then becoming one of the largest political consultant firms in Texas. And then I affectionately say I blew up my life running for Congress in 2018. Wow, Wow.
Speaker 2:It was a fun season. You haven't lived till you've had a million dollars spent against you and your family, but on the back end of that I really felt like the Lord said I'm waking up my church in the days ahead. The days of us sitting on the sidelines have to be over, and I want you, bunny me, to build systems to be able to awaken, motivate and educate Christians to do these things ongoing. And so that's what we've done. And then I met Ben Quine and I'm so thankful for this man's diligence to get up every morning and write Bible studies and educate the church. So he's my partner in crime, or my partner in ministry.
Speaker 2:I'm very thankful for him, so I'll turn it over to you, ben.
Speaker 1:Great.
Speaker 3:Ben, yes, please. It's just amazing to be on with you today. I'm grateful for what you said at the start. This is what really resonates with my heart, and nobody's heart, is this idea that Christians are called to be salt and light. We're called to be the body of Christ and be the hands and feet of Jesus in every area of life, not just on Sunday morning. You know, talk about how salvation is about so much more than just getting out of hell and into heaven. Right, salvation is about making Jesus Lord of our lives, following him in every area, really loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourself. And if we just did those two things, all our problems as a culture would be over right. But a lot of times we don't know what that looks like, and I guess that's kind of the start to my story is that I never expected to be here.
Speaker 3:I grew up in an amazing family. My parents, david and Shirley Quine, were homeschool pioneers back in the 80s and they have a real heart for equipping homeschool families, to teach biblical worldview, to raise the next generation in understanding that God's Word touches on every area and that our worldview impacts our lives. So I had a real strong foundation in understanding Scripture. I always loved God's word. But my career, my first career, actually was in piano and music education. I love classical music and so I would teach kids about Bach and Chopin and Mozart and I loved doing that and thought that's what I would do my whole life.
Speaker 3:But a few years ago I really started to have some deeper conversations with friends about some very serious issues that were going on in our country. We'd talk about different things and I'd ask where they'd get their ideas. And they'd tell me. And then they'd ask me where I got my ideas and I'd say, well, my ideas come from Scripture, they come from the Bible. And my friends I'll never forget they said well, that's impossible. The Bible doesn't talk about economics. Oh, wow, yep, I've heard that one.
Speaker 3:And some of my friends they were in ministry in some cases and I thought, how can you not know this? And the Lord really started working on my heart that in fact, a lot of Christians really don't know that God's Word talks about these issues, that God's Word has such great, amazing insight into every area of our life, that God's word is lamp to our feet, light to our path, and so that really I think the Lord really used that and really showed me that, like Proverbs talks about, there is a way that seems right to a man, I like to say there's a way that seems right to a culture. But if it's not, you know, directed by God's word and his wisdom, then it leads to death and that's what we're seeing all around us. And so, Lord, put a burden on my heart to start writing Bible studies to teach people. This is what God's word says about these issues. You know, vitally important issues like racism and justice, economics, like how do we live, that you know, when we follow God's word it really brings life, rescues the culture. That's what salt does. Salt is the preservative to protect the food and the meat from decay and rot. And when we follow God's principles, that's what we do as well.
Speaker 3:So just thrilled to be partnered with Christians Engaged Vice President. It's a great honor and I love what we're doing in this ministry because we're equipping Christians with God's word and we're equipping Christians, discipling them. Here's how you pray for our leaders. Here's how you pray for our country. Here are classes that you can take to learn how to get involved. You can make a difference right where you are, whether that's in your local government or connecting with leaders. We've got Bible studies on justice, economics, biblical worldview all kinds of things that really, really equip Christians to be that salt and light. So just couldn't be more excited to be part of this team, Wow.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously you both are very busy individuals and God has taken your passions and developed them. Would you take some, just a few moments to you know we're talking to everyday leaders. We're talking to husbands and wives, moms and dads, people in the local community. We are very excited about how we can be a part of transforming the local community. If we can't do that at the local level, we're missing it. So you know this is something that we need to be able to engage in at the local level. So you know this is something that we need to be able to engage in at the local level.
Speaker 1:I've shared with leaders. If we can get just 10% of our local leadership to step forward with courage, with their faith, I firmly believe the statistics bear out with this. 80% will follow. It is so true, especially in organizations, team sports. You look across the spectrum of society there's 80% are just looking for that 10% to point the way. Now, the 10% of naysayers they're going to do what they want to do, so let's focus on where we need to go. So, with that, what have you seen helping you when you got to that point where you said, okay, I'm going to engage, I want to improve my skills or my abilities and move this direction. What were some of the things that you had to walk through to get to that place to engage?
Speaker 2:Well, tim, I'll just say God is after our yes, and, and really it's what. What is in front of you, you know, as a mom, you know what was in front of me is what I could do. Well, I can put out some yard signs for a candidate, right? I can? You know, cater, I own a restaurant at that time. I can cater sandwiches for a block walk and give my yes. There I was, you know, again, a working mom, and I was back at school and they were doing a 9-11 flag memorial so I could take my kids out there and I could put flags all over the Dallas Baptist University campus right for 9-11. You know, we have to just say yes to what's in front of us. What are the opportunities in front of us?
Speaker 2:I wrote a book that just came out in February, called Jesus and Politics One Woman's Walk with God in a Mud-Slinging Profession, and I wanted to write this book not because I feel like I have some great story. I'm just an individual woman, right, that has kids and grandkids now. But the reality is, if we say yes, that leads to another thing, that leads to another thing, that leads to another thing. And we're still on that journey. Ben and I are saying, yes, today we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 3:We don't know if we're going to reach a million.
Speaker 2:Christians around the country. We don't know if we're going to reach a million Christians around the country. We don't know if we're going to reach five million Christians five years from now. But you know, what God does is he takes our yes and he moves us into the place that he has for us in the future. And so often, tim I'll end with this and turn it over to Ben with this question but we think too far in advance. We're not living in the present and going God. What can I do right now with the time constraints, the money constraints, my family? What can I do right now to make a difference?
Speaker 1:Great, great statement.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd like to add to that too. Proverbs says again and again wisdom is supreme. Therefore, get wisdom. And a lot of us need more education. Frankly, I know for me I had a strong Bible kind of background education, but I wasn't as strong on I didn't know what happened at local governments, I didn't know what the county commissioners do, or even I didn't know anything about that. And so that's when I got connected with Christians, engaged, started going through our classes, the on-ramp course.
Speaker 3:We have an amazing course called On-Ramp to Civic Engagement and it really gives a great foundation introduction what is politics? How do you get involved? What about separation of church and state? These kinds of really basic rubber meets, the road questions. And then how to apply biblical principles to our political system, how to get engaged without being corrupted, how to share your faith. It's amazing for that foundational first step.
Speaker 3:And then we have another course called Salt and Light that digs into local government and, like you said, pastor Tim, that local government is so important because it actually has more impact on our day-to-day lives than even the federal government. You know it sets our school tax rates. The school boards determine. You know what's taught in our schools. Obviously, we know about the controversy there with these various books that are inappropriate for children, our roads, these things are mostly determined at local levels and this Salt and Light course really digs in deep on what happens in each group and how you can get connected with them.
Speaker 3:So I'd encourage everyone to take those classes. That made a big impact in my life. And we've also seen churches when they start getting plugged in together one church particularly that comes to mind and they had an on-ramp course, had the whole church go through the on-ramp and then, kind of like bunny said, we had one, yes, after the next, and those little dominoes started to fall and the next thing, you know, one of the guys in the church, uh, ran for, started running for um, the county commissioner, uh, and I'm sorry it was the city council council and as he got elected, that changed, that flipped.
Speaker 3:Like you said, it flipped the city council, and so then they were able to remove the diversity, equity and inclusion initiative that the city had put on. And, you know, other churches started to see, wow, look, what this one church did, let's come together, we can do that. And now the pastors are meeting together. Do that. And now the pastors are meeting together. They're just seeing a ripple effect from those little yeses that each you know the pastor and the various members of the church are making, and it really is making a huge impact.
Speaker 1:Well, I can testify to that as well. After our first summit experience, the fruit that came out of that were local churches coming together and so the pastors believing, you know, in the congregation, the people of our community, came together and they began to realize that, yes, yes, we can, we can do something. So I guess, from just with what you're sharing about your classes, it sounds like if we have a couple of pastors, two or three pastors in community and they're willing to begin meeting together, they could go online and learn about these classes and possibly implement these within their churches and maybe help build unity. Would that be one way that you would say we can accomplish unity in the local level?
Speaker 3:through these classes we can accomplish unity in the local level through these classes. Yeah, that's right, pastor Tim, we've got incredible opportunity for churches to come together. We have a wonderful strategic partnership program for churches. It's completely free for the church and they get full access to our classes. The pastor can go through them. The classes can be used in Sunday schools or small groups or whatever is kind of the best format for the church. And you know, since we're focused on biblical principles, it's really an amazing opportunity. We're nonpartisan, we're biblical and the whole church can come together and say what does God's word say about these issues? So it really is an opportunity to bring unity. I know a lot of there's a lot of concern out there. Pastors are worried that you know, if they teach on these things, maybe that would be divisive, but every pastor in America we love to say this every pastor can teach on pray, vote and engage without splitting their congregation. It's just very basic, very biblical.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Would you take just a moment or two as well to help with what I like to say dispel the myths there are. You know, people are always making excuses and one of the best things I think that is great in ministry is that we have the opportunity, as you said, ben the word, gaining that wisdom at Bunny and your activities and saying, yes, what are some of the excuses that people give and how do you address those excuses? Or, as you've done, this ministry, I guess it might be a better way of saying you're always coming, you're always confronting those who say, no, we can't. Now I'm already discerned. You're going to say, oh, yes, we can. And so how do you get rid of some of those excuses? What are maybe some of those excuses? In case some of our viewers are going, yes, but what are some of those excuses and how do you confront them?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll deal with the big elephant in the room and then Ben can maybe talk about voters that think their vote doesn't matter. But the big one is God's in control. Vote doesn't matter, but the big one is God's in control. We forget that we're actually stewards and that he has created the body of Christ to bring the gospel. How will they hear unless there's a preacher? How will they be sent unless they're sent? But we have this idea. Oh well, god's in control.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if we vote, because you know he's sovereign, he's going to pick whatever leaders are going to happen and whoever is going to be president is going to be president. You know that is a cop out and our friend Raphael Cruz always says this is one of the biggest you know cop outs in the modern church, because we forget that he limits his sovereignty to us and he has empowered us and he said go into all the world and teach the gospel, baptizing them, and that he would be with us. But nobody is going to get loved on if we don't love them. No one's going to have the word of God if we don't give the word of God.
Speaker 2:The same thing with our civic duties. You know we should all be thanking God we don't live in North Korea, venezuela and Cuba right now and being blessed that the founders gave us a responsibility and a gift to elect our representatives and to choose leaders that have a biblical worldview or, you know, again, nobody's perfect but at least ones that are seeking after God and are trying to promote values that we can uphold as Christians. So this leads our neighborhoods and our communities and our nation to be more free if we love our neighbors well and elect righteous leaders. So with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague, ben, who will answer other questions.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I've got a couple. I want to try to blitz through real fast. We hear so many. The first one, that's very large, is that Christians shouldn't be involved in politics at all. And you know, I think that it really is a question of love and that if you look at what Proverbs 29, two says, it says when the righteous increase, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan. And personally, I don't believe that we can say that we're showing love to our neighbors if we're watching them groan and we don't do anything about it. Amen.
Speaker 3:When you have wicked leaders the Bible says wicked leaders that cause people to groan. And in America we have such an incredible blessing. We have a blessing that Paul in the early church never had, which is that we can peacefully, nonviolently, remove wicked and evil leaders just by showing up and voting. And if we can't do that, I'm not sure we can say that we really have love for our neighbor. That qualifies as a biblical love. You know, john said, dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions. And in truth, so it does take some action and we can really make an impact. So I think that's love for us to be involved in our system. Another one is that we should just teach the gospel and not get involved in these other issues, and I don't think that's again consistent with the way John the Baptist lived, the way that Stephen lived, the way that Paul lived, the way that Jesus lived or taught. They were teaching on every issue. They didn't say I'm sorry, I can't answer that question I only teach the gospel. And if you look at the Great Commission, jesus said baptize them and go make disciples. That's the first part, but the second part is we have to teach them everything Jesus commanded. And Jesus is the word of God, he's the logos and he's the author. He's the one who inspired scripture. So you know, we need to teach the whole counsel of God. That's what Paul said. He said who's innocent of the blood of all men? Because he taught the whole counsel of God.
Speaker 3:Another one we hear a lot is I don't have time or I forgot, and boy do. We have the absolute answer for you, and that is the Christian Engaged Pledge is such a powerful tool. It just takes 30 seconds. You can sign up online with us at christiansengagedorg and you'll never miss an election again. We created the system for the church. We remind you every week to pray for our country, pray for our leaders, and we'll send out incredible voter reminders and great, great resources and tools. We promise not to spam you, but we will be on your case. It's time to pray.
Speaker 1:I can testify I get those emails.
Speaker 3:Right. So we're not spamming, but we're reminding you.
Speaker 1:You've got to pray, you've got to vote, we've got to do it.
Speaker 3:Another one, just real quickly, is there's no one good on the ballot, and you know, a lot of times that's true, and I think that's because the Christians haven't stepped up.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:We have to be involved first of all in the primaries. If we're not involved in the primaries, that's where the real selection comes down. Especially, there are some leaders of godly character who run the primaries who don't make it, and that's frankly. That's our responsibility, christians' responsibility. So we really need to be involved earlier. And if there's no one, even godly, on the primary, maybe god's calling you to run.
Speaker 1:So find a christian, find a godly christian leader, and that's what you guys are doing.
Speaker 3:you're raising leaders right and you know god, god needs, uh, godly leaders to step up. Then the last one bunny mentioned is my vote doesn't count, and you know the the system that we have in the United States of America is a really amazing system that the founders gave us. We have the Electoral College, we have this federalism system where there's different layers of government, and it's very easy to kind of get confused by that. Basically, the whole Electoral College is designed specifically to ensure, actually, that every vote does count. So if we just had a nationwide kind of popular idea that we should have majority vote for president, and that would be a real tragedy, because in that case, yes, most votes wouldn't count that much. But the electoral college is there to make sure your vote does count. So that's one. And then the other thing is that, as we said already, the local elections. There's so much impact your vote can have. Maybe you don't live in a swing state, but you do live in a swing school board, that's right.
Speaker 3:You do live in a swing city council and a county where your county commissioners matter, your vote for mayor matters, your vote for school board matters, and so when Christians turn out, you can make a huge, huge impact. Again, jesus says we're the light of the world. If you take the light away, what's left besides darkness? That's right. And Christians say to me all the time oh Ben, we don't want to get involved in politics. It's such a dark place. Well, it's dark because the light's not there, so we need to get back in.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And I'll say one last thing, Tim, you know, there's everybody somewhere on their ballot.
Speaker 2:There is a race that critically needs their vote right, right I understand that we have gerrymandered congressional districts and state rep districts and some, you know some counties are red, some counties are blue. You know they lean one way or another but say you live in a blue County, there is somebody on your statewide ballot that needs your vote. Right, there is some somebody there that needs your vote in some way and and our responsibility is to obedient again, to elect and to cast our vote for people that share our values. And I'll give Ben, my vice president here, a lot of props for his biblical worldview platform comparison that we put out through Christians Engaged. We went through 16 issues what the Bible says on the topic, what the Democratic platform and the Republican platform says. And he even got into Marxism what the Marxism says on the topic. So people can research their ballot and they can make their choices, but at the end of the day, as our great president, john Quincy Adams, said, duty is ours, results are God's.
Speaker 1:Amen, and that's that civic responsibility that every citizen has been given a gift to utilize their vote, and I think we just do not know the importance of that. So if anyone is out there complaining and they're not voting, okay, stop it, go vote and then get engaged. So I would like for you to be able to share as well some of your upcoming goals with Christians Engaged. I know you've set a big goal and you're moving towards that, and just some of the things that you're wanting to highlight moving forward through Christians Engaged.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a real big goal. Two years ago I felt like again, I felt like the Lord told me we were going to reach a million Christians. Before the presidential election it seemed like a dream. At the beginning of this year, even through all of our grassroots efforts, we'd reached 220,000 Christians, which was an amazing feat for a ministry. But with the help of Family Policy Alliance coming behind us and us being able to now push Christians engaged through 41 state family policy councils and all of the PR and Christian TV and radio and podcasts we've been doing this year and all of the PR and Christian TV and radio and podcasts we've been doing this year, we are up to 750,000 Christians now and in the next three weeks we're raising the final money to reach Christians in battleground states to try to reach a million Christians. So that's our number one project.
Speaker 2:We've also, as Ben said, we've created about $200,000 worth of on-demand video curriculum to teach Christians biblical worldview and civics, our church outreach program, and this year we also launched our 1630 young adult program where any 16 to 30 year old can take any of our classes for free. They can apply to come to Washington DC with us. We took 26 young people to DC with us. We took 26 young people to DC on scholarship this year and next year we're going to take 50 of them, so if there's any young people in your communities, they should apply for that. It's a life-changing trip and it's one of Ben and I's favorite things we did this year, so we're so excited to see young people get into their place of influence as well.
Speaker 3:So and I'll turn it back over to Ben- yeah, you can tell there's a lot going on, right we?
Speaker 3:have lots of opportunities to get engaged. It's amazing. Well, something for everyone, actually, and that's really important because, you know again, we're all the body of Christ and God's given each of us different gifts. So you know, maybe you're called to run, maybe God's calling someone else to run, but there is a place for you to make a difference. The thing I think that I'm most excited about coming up in the near term is we're just releasing our most recent class this week, and it's called Biblical Conduct Answers for Difficult Days and really digs into how we should live in the midst of a hostile culture.
Speaker 3:We've got incredible interviews. Uh, we go back and look at some of the biblical, uh heroes from the past, look at the prophets and, uh, the life of Paul and John the Baptist, stephen Jesus so many wonderful examples for us and then really dig into the fact that our culture has really changed the definitions of the words love and truth especially, and how much we're suffering from that. When we do really show biblical love to a culture, when we're really teaching the truth, that's not necessarily something that's going to make our culture have warm, fuzzy feelings for us, but it is honoring to God and you know we want to live in a way. We want our conduct to be pleasing to the Lord. So he says well done, good and faithful servants. I think this class is going to be really a huge blessing to people's lives and I'm very excited about it just coming out this week.
Speaker 1:I'm very encouraged that you've shared that. I know that in the American church today and I may offend some people with this we often teach in the church today come to Jesus and he'll fix all your problems. And when I read through the scriptures, the prophets, many of them were executed. They were not treated the best by the government. You look in the New Testament. How did that go for Paul? You know Stephen the deacon Stephen. He preaches a sermon and he's stoned to death.
Speaker 1:So I think it would be great that if we as Christian leaders would understand the Word of God has set the pathway for us. It is the pathway for eternal life. The world has the pathway of God has set the pathway for us. It is the pathway for eternal life. The world has the pathway of death and destruction. There's only two options here, and we are looking for that resurrection day to come, christ to return and fix everything.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime, what you all are doing is encouraging people with the gospel and the words of Christ. This is the life we're to live, regardless of how the world treats us. And I am concerned that so many Christians allow fear to rule their lives instead of the word of God. So I am so thankful that you're taking this strong approach to God's word, engaging, I think, also many times I know you can testify this because you started out with the yes. We're so focused on what we're standing against, rather than this is what we're standing for. I mean, I see millennials all the time give me a cause that I can get behind, you know, and so thank you for reaching those students, those young people. And so thank you for reaching those students, those young people and I, just as we're moving forward. Any parting words of encouragement for these local community leaders and families and marriages, any parting words to say oh, tim, I just, I should have said this, I got to say this kind of moment.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll just say, you know, my second book is going to be on the book of Nehemiah and you know, nehemiah walked into Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and he did it in 52 days. I mean, that's incredible. Like, how did he do that? He did it because he put each family and each community on their own section of the wall. And so often we look to Washington DC and look at all the problems and hold up our hands and wring our hands and we forget about our neighborhoods and our community and our section of the wall. And I think that's what you're calling people to Tim. And that is an amazing thing, because if we would turn our eyes to our section of the wall and ask God for wisdom on how we can serve to rebuild that, you know, what's going to happen is the walls are all going to come together across the United States.
Speaker 1:Tell me the name of that book again.
Speaker 2:It's going to be Nehemiah. How to Rebuild the Walls of a Nation. Yes, Look for that in 2026.
Speaker 1:Amen. Thank you, ben.
Speaker 3:Yes, I love what you said there, pastor Tim, and I just like to echo this idea that God's word has the answers for life. That's one of my favorite things to say God's word has the answers for life and he's told us what to do. There's an amazing passage in 1 Peter 3. It says whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
Speaker 3:And I think that's really true for individuals, also true for our culture, like, if our culture wants to love life and see good days. You know, like you said, it doesn't mean that we'll necessarily be popular or that we'll have worldly kind of success, but real success in God's eyes. We have to turn away from evil, we have to seek good and righteousness, we have to do what's right in the Lord's eyes and that's a high calling. But God's given us a promise that when we do that, he will turn his eyes towards us and have his ears open to our prayers and we can make a difference. Every person it's not just for the pastors, it's not just for the professional politicians Every person can claim this promise and live in a life that's absolutely pleasing to God and makes a huge impact.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you're expressing something that we have seen in multiple rotations throughout church history Whenever the church becomes apathetic and wickedness prevails, the church begins to be persecuted. And then, when the church engages their faith and they begin being the church, the body of Christ, we see transformation able to take place. And so I believe that the three of us today in this conversation, we're in that place where, if we can encourage the body of Christ to be the church, to live it out, we can see transformation, and we've seen those cycles throughout church history and, by the way, we're on the winning team.
Speaker 2:Well and Tim, our DNA is Acts 2. That's who we are, and so every Christian that's listening to us right now and they're just like oh, this condemnation, oh this beat down of these people. No, it's not about what you're not doing. It's taking ownership of who the Holy Spirit is. The same Christ, the same spirit that raised him from the dead, lives in us and man. We have the power, and I just want to encourage everybody to just step into Jesus as we walk with Jesus. That's what empowers us to be the leaders that we're called to be.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate both of you today. Thank you for your time. And to our viewers. We want to encourage them to step forward with their faith and ride along beside who you are as a ministry Christians Engaged. We are on the same team, wanting to motivate, encourage, inspire everyday leaders to take their faith, have the courage to take their faith into the pillars of church, government, education and business and allow Christ to be exalted, and we are going to see people come to salvation in Christ, and that is ultimately where the transformation begins. So, thank you all. Thank you both. Thank you for your sacrifice, thank you for your passion, and I look forward to hearing from you in days ahead. Thank you both. Thank you for your sacrifice, thank you for your passion, and I look forward to hearing from you in days ahead.
Speaker 2:Thank you, pastor Tim, thank you God bless.
Speaker 1:Thank you, god bless.