Point of View July 18, 2024 – Hour 2 : Prison Fellowship, Christians Engaged

[00:00:00] Mariel Mathews, Curby, MA To Point of View, I'm Mariel Mathews, sitting in for Curby Anderson today. And now we're going to turn to Cody Wilde, who oversees Prison Fellowship Correctional Program in approximately 1,200 prisons across all 50 states.

[00:00:35] Now Prison Fellowship was the organization created by Chuck Colson, and he's been involved with that for a little while. He has also been, prior to that, he was head of the, he served as Academy Director of the Leno Lakes Correctional Facility, and he was also in the Army.

[00:00:52] And I'm curious to see, I'm anxious to hear from Cody about what the Prison Fellowship is doing now. Cody, thank you for joining us. Hey, great to be with you, Mariel. So tell us a little bit, people have heard, with Point of View, they are familiar with

[00:01:07] Prison Fellowship, but go ahead and give us a little bit of background, how it got started, when it got started, so everybody's up to speed. Yeah, sure. So we are getting close to our 50th year of being in existence.

[00:01:21] The Prison Fellowship was founded in 1976 by Chuck Colson, who was a member of Richard Nixon's cabinet and went to prison for Watergate-related crimes. And so he came to know the Lord during that time, went to federal prison, and had this

[00:01:38] just profound and radical encounter with Jesus, and a change in his whole perspective. And he met some people in there who said, remember us. And Chuck always kept his word. And after he got out of prison, he founded Prison Fellowship.

[00:01:55] And we've been trying to live into the Hebrews 13, three texts, remember those in prison number seven. You know, in our first interview today, we had Steve Amerson with Word on the Hill, and that is a ministry he's been doing for 10 years where he goes on Capitol Hill.

[00:02:12] They have weekly meetings with people. He hands out notes. He prays with members of Congress, elected officials, Hill staff, and so forth. But it's interesting because it didn't cross my mind, but with Richard Nixon and Chuck

[00:02:25] Colson, you had that issue of people on the Hill who were not living in faith, and who at least for Chuck Colson eventually comes to faith. And of course, Steve Amerson is trying to bring that to them now to try to get, and

[00:02:39] especially to try to get them to live their faith a little more for those who claim a faith, to live it more on Capitol Hill. But tell us about the Prison Fellowship. Now, you're in 1,200 places out there.

[00:02:51] How many staff do you have and what does it take to do that job? Yes, the Prison Fellowship, we have around 300 full-time staff members. We have thousands of volunteers all over the country. So it's really about the volunteers, really the lifeblood of the organization.

[00:03:06] As far as our in-prison work goes, we have several different things that we offer to prisons and to those who are incarcerated, as well as to those who work in prison. Really our cornerstone, most intensive in-prison program is called the Prison Fellowship Academy.

[00:03:22] It's a 12 to 14 month full-time program that incarcerated men and women go through and get to learn about a new way of being, six core values to help them become good citizens. That whole program is rooted in a biblical worldview that was open to men and women of

[00:03:43] any faith and no religious preference. But really there to view those who we thought were at the center of the problem is really at the center of the solution. Not only can they change, but they can change prison culture and change their neighbors.

[00:03:57] What we know is that it's not enough to just equip and empower those who live in prison. We also have to do something with those who work in prison. So we have another program called the Wardens' Exchange.

[00:04:07] We take the same six core values and have hundreds of prison wardens around the country go through this reimagined prison as centers of restoration. Additionally, we do yard events, evangelistic events in prisons all over the place, all

[00:04:23] over the country, provide a message of hope and really try to bring the church on the outside and the church on the inside closer together to encounter Jesus with one another to really transform what prison is.

[00:04:38] I'll just say our largest program is actually a program called Angel Tree, which is one where a parent who is incarcerated can sign up to have a Christmas present delivered to their children on their behalf at Christmastime.

[00:04:51] And that's where we partner with thousands of churches all over the place who purchase the gift, deliver it to the children with a note from mom or dad and really with the hope of starting a relationship with the families of those who are incarcerated.

[00:05:06] You know, with so many people going to prison who have come from broken families, difficult backgrounds, drugs in the family and other things, and they drift off into crime, my sense is that being able to come and bring values to them is something they

[00:05:26] have not heard and is something that they embrace. How do they respond to the values aspect? You know, it's interesting because most of the six, like how a lot of correctional institutions define success is the reduction of bad things.

[00:05:42] Fewer people came back to prison, most criminal thinking went down, fewer infractions. What we want to say is that what the Lord is really interested in is human flourishing. And so if a person or six core values, it's positive community, affirmation, productivity, responsibility, restoration and integrity.

[00:06:00] And so if a person's doing those, they're replacing old ways of thinking. And for a lot of people, they just think that where I came from, that's just who I am, that's just what I do.

[00:06:10] And when people, volunteers and staff members come in and say, I believe something more for your life and I'm going to walk with you and equip you and train you and come alongside you, it inspires people.

[00:06:21] I just really believe that as individuals, as people who bear the image of God, like we long for somebody to call those things out of us and to really aspire to something that is truly great.

[00:06:34] I don't know if this is correct, but how has the prisoners, how have prisoners sort of changed over time? Are you seeing a different type of prisoner than you might have 10, 15 years ago? Are they more violent? More? Is there more drug abuse?

[00:06:55] How's the prison congregate, the prison group changed over time? You know, everything that you see in culture today exists in prison, but in a pressure cooker. So whatever you see outside is just amplified in prison. And so that's really where there's this tremendous opportunity.

[00:07:16] Rather than me going in and thinking that I'm going to change prison, what I'm going to do is I'm going to come alongside those who already live there and equip and empower them to be the change agents, to have this exponential impact that somebody who was living

[00:07:30] this violent life in prison experiences this radical transformation. And guess what? They have infinitely more credibility with others who live there, that this person who was this way is now this way. And others are saying, I want that.

[00:07:48] My guest for this and the next segment is Cody Wilde. He is a senior VP of Prison Fellowship, and we're talking about their efforts with prisoners and to bring values and Christ into the prison.

[00:08:03] This is something that started by Chuck Colson, I guess, nearly 50 years ago, and they've been tremendously successful. We have information about them on the Point of View website, so you can go to pointofview.net and you can find out information about Cody and also about Prison Fellowship.

[00:08:21] When we come back, we want to find out a little bit more about some of the things that they are doing and the recidivism rate, the return rate, and whether or not they're seeing a better approach on that.

[00:08:32] And just whether or not the impact they're having on the country. Stay with us. We'll be back on Point of View. This is Viewpoint. If you spend any time viewing social media, you've probably seen a few clips from notable experts on the dangers of alcohol.

[00:09:08] We know so much more about its dangers than we did just a few decades ago. Professor Jordan Peterson warns that alcohol is an extraordinarily pernicious drug. He understands why people would use it because of its anxiety-reducing properties, but he argues that alcohol is really a bad drug.

[00:09:26] He says 50% of murders take place in an alcohol-fueled environment. Either the victim or the perpetrator or both is drunk. It's almost the sole cause of domestic abuse. It's almost the sole cause of so-called date rape.

[00:09:40] He also adds that it's the only drug we know that actually makes people more aggressive. Alcohol can turn perfectly good people into impulsive and dim-witted monsters. Dr. Daniel Amen explains that he first started looking at the brain in 1991.

[00:09:55] He found that people who drink every day have a smaller brain, and when it comes to the brain, size matters. He reports that people who drink every day have more disrupted white matter in their brain. The white matter brain cells are the communication network. It's the highway.

[00:10:10] People who drink even a little bit have more disrupted communication networks. He also points to the fact that the American Cancer Society came out last year and said that you shouldn't drink because any alcohol is associated with an increased risk of seven different kinds of cancer.

[00:10:26] Six years ago, I did a commentary on alcohol consumption based upon a study in the journal Lancet that concluded there was no safe level of alcohol consumption. Each year, we seem to be learning about even more dangers of alcohol. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:11:14] A lot of prisons. Are there other Christian groups that are coming in, whether they're either national groups or just local churches sending in people? If there are, are you able to work with them? Do you coordinate things?

[00:11:29] Then the other point I'd like to ask is, are there other religions, such as I'm thinking of Islam or something of that nature, who are also there trying to evangelize in some of the prisons even as you're working in there?

[00:11:42] Yeah, so to your first question, there are other organizations that operate in prisons. There's a lot of local initiatives, a lot of churches that come in, and they might be doing a Bible study in their congregation and are coming in on a Tuesday night and providing those services.

[00:11:58] And so we try to work with a lot of different organizations that offer complementary resources. We work with organizations like Alpha USA, Celebrate Recovery, The Salvation Army's Adult Rehabilitation Centers, as well as other content providers.

[00:12:19] And then a number, dozens of reentry organizations on the outside so that we can really lean into the space that we're best at on the in-prison side, which is providing holistic values-based programs rooted in a biblical worldview, and then work with people that offer those complementary functions.

[00:12:42] And so we do that all over the place in the country. And then, remind me, what was your second question? The second question was, are there other religions, such as Islam, that are also trying to evangelize,

[00:12:56] which would be at cross purposes with maybe not the goals but with the faith? Yeah, there are definitely other faiths that are represented in there. And typically, like a religious coordinator or a chaplain at a facility will work with

[00:13:14] members of those other faiths to be able to provide those services, because religious liberty is something that's very important to us. It's important to us. And so that definitely exists there in prisons. Like I said, prison is a microcosm of society as a whole.

[00:13:35] And so everything that you have, not everything, but a lot of things that you have on the outside are going to have some manifestation inside of a prison. So yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:48] Can you work with people in solitary confinement also, or does it have to be in a larger group setting? Yeah, so typically our programs, we have three key dimensions to any of our in-prison programs.

[00:14:03] So if you imagine a cube, three dimensions, height, width, and depth, all in equal proportion to one another. We have three key dimensions, which is curriculum, coaching, and community. And this goes for all of our offerings. So our curriculum is always going to be holistic in nature.

[00:14:17] It's going to cover the whole range of human experience from relationships, addictions, to financial literacy, boundaries, issues like that. But what we know is that it's not enough to just drop really good content in prison and expect optimal results. Who's facilitating it matters just as much.

[00:14:37] And so we have coaches, our staff and volunteers who come and facilitate the content. And they get to model not what perfect looks like, but what healthy looks like, what it's

[00:14:46] like to be a little bit further along in the journey and to have that life on life interaction. But then, you know, really to your question, the third dimension is community. All of our programs are cohort-based.

[00:14:57] And so it's just really important for us that the men or women on one's left and right are going through that same experience, and they get to be a part of one another's change journeys 24-7.

[00:15:07] So that upon completion of a program, they're really commissioned to go out and be change agents, not just people who don't do bad things, but people who promote good, pro-social, positive community. So to your question around those who are in solitary confinement, we don't have any

[00:15:26] programs that are specific to that. But people, you know, if you go into segregation, most people don't stay in that. And so that becomes a part of their journey. They come out and they get folded back into a pro-social community, a community of peace.

[00:15:40] Tell us about some of the prisoners that you've worked with. Do they do some come out and say, you were such you were so meaningful to me. I would like to be involved in witnessing and working with prisoners myself, even though even now that I'm out. Absolutely.

[00:15:58] You know, nearly half of our staff who work full time in prison are formerly incarcerated really in the systems that they work in. And so we have people who've done decades of time behind bars who had this profound encounter

[00:16:12] with Jesus while in prison and that the Lord is just impressed on their hearts that this grace the Lord has shown them they want to pay that forward and they come back in and oftentimes to their own surprise.

[00:16:23] Like, hey, I was looking forward so much to getting out of here like, Lord, why are you calling me back? I've given you that you've had this experience. I've equipped you for this great thing. And we have that all over the place. And so it truly is amazing.

[00:16:38] We have a group of people who are just ambassadors, people who advocate for, you know, different reforms who a lot of them are formerly incarcerated, a lot of our volunteers. So, yes, it's definitely a phenomenon that we see.

[00:16:53] Now, you mentioned, I think, that nearly half of the employees. But what about the volunteers that you have out there? I assume many of them were from prison at some point. Yeah, either they themselves are in prison, had a family member in prison, a friend, one

[00:17:08] in three Americans have a criminal record. So it's never far from anybody's individual experience. You know, one of the most interesting questions that we ask ourselves as members of the prison fellowship family is, so how did you get started doing this?

[00:17:25] And the typical response is, well, how much time do you have? You know, because our stories weave, you know, sort of circuitously together. But almost everybody has had some sort of either first-hand lived experience or, you know, knows somebody has a family member who went through that.

[00:17:43] And that's really reflective of, you know, our society as a whole. Now, most people, that's also true. Given the fact that you are so involved with these prisoners and learn so much about it,

[00:17:55] do you ever is there ever a sense in which you go to Capitol Hill and say to members of Congress, you know, we're involved in here and here are some changes we think you could make that would make prison life better, address these issues better?

[00:18:10] Do you ever do something like that? I mean, you're the people who are there. Yeah, well, actually, just last month, we had dozens of our staff members who have first hand experience go to Capitol Hill and get to meet with staffers from the state that

[00:18:24] they live in and advocate for the passage of the prison oversight bill, which just passed the Senate, passed the House back in May, which is just to provide greater transparency and accountability within the Bureau of Prisons.

[00:18:39] At the federal level, that really is kind of a culture shaper for what happens at the states. But most people in prison are in state prisons, not federal prisons. What's the biggest challenge that you have in your ministry? Oh, my goodness.

[00:18:55] You know, it could be laws, it could be prison guards, it could be prisoners responding aggressively. I mean, just what's your biggest challenge or maybe one or two of them? You know, the vision of prison fellowship in this current era of the organization is

[00:19:13] to encounter Jesus with those impacted by incarceration. You know, when you fast forward to the very end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, there's this eternal scene of the nations come together and they worship Jesus forever,

[00:19:31] that there's unity and diversity, and we're all looking in the same direction. And so, you know, we're really trying to embody that now of having the church on the outside and the church on the inside come together in the hopes and the belief that

[00:19:49] the Lord is going to spark revival. And that, you know, because in the economy of the kingdom of God, the Lord always turns the world on its head, that we really believe that revival in this country is going to be sparked from inside of prison and go out.

[00:20:04] And so we want to have the church on the outside get proximate to the church on the inside because the Lord always uses the weak things of the world to confound the strong. And where else? Where's the most forgotten place in this country? It's in prisons.

[00:20:17] And we see this thing that the Lord is doing. And so I just want to call upon the church in America to really be attentive to what the Lord is doing, what's the Lord asking of us, and what can we learn from those who

[00:20:31] perhaps had a very different life experience than we did. My guest for these two segments has been Cody Wilde. He is with Fellowship Prison Fellowship, and we've been talking about their efforts that they've been doing for nearly 50 years.

[00:20:46] We have a link to Prison Fellowship on our website at pointofview.net. So you can go there and find out more about Cody and about their work. And I would encourage you to do so and maybe even donate to the group because it's a

[00:20:57] major force out there working within the prisons. Cody, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thanks a lot, Merrill. And when we come back, we'll be going to Bunny Pounds. She has been a longtime political activist, but she started some a little while back,

[00:21:12] Christians Engaged, where she tries to help people just learn how to be more engaged in political life and have an impact there. Now that we have the Republican Convention coming on, Democratic Convention coming up next month, and politics is all around, it's a good thing to discuss.

[00:21:29] Be back with us on Point of View in just a minute. We live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all, depending on their politics.

[00:21:45] Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up, but we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in,

[00:22:04] never give in, never, never, never, never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity

[00:22:22] in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in Biblical Clarity today at PointofView.net or call 1-800-347-5151. PointofView.net and 1-800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, Dr. Merrill Matthews. And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:23:15] I'm Merrill Matthews, sitting in for Kirby Anderson today. And now we're going to turn to a longtime friend of mine, Bunny Pounds. She is president of Christians Engaged. And just two and a half years ago, she started this organization.

[00:23:27] But since then, they've served over 100 churches and had over 150 people involved in their efforts to educate the body of Christ on the importance of their Biblical call to America. And this has been a growing organization.

[00:23:44] But we're also going to mention today that she had a strategic merger with the Family Policy Alliance. So, Bunny, thank you for joining us. Oh, it's great to be with you, Dr. Matthews. Always an honor.

[00:23:59] Now, tell us a little bit about – we've had you on a few times, but tell everybody about Christians Engaged. And then tell us about this new alliance that you've developed with the Family Policy Alliance. Yeah, we actually started Christians Engaged four and a half years ago. Sure.

[00:24:14] We built three major things. We built a get out the vote system for Christians. So every Christian around the country that's listening to us right now can go on our website at ChristiansEngaged.org – that's ChristiansEngaged.org – and take the pledge to pray, vote, and engage.

[00:24:34] And what that does is we send you prayer videos and prayer scriptures to pray over our nation every Monday. We send you voting reminders for every election in the country so you never forget a primary, a proposition election, a local election, or a national election ever again.

[00:24:54] And then we also help Christians through on-demand video curriculum. We've built over $200,000 in classes to teach Christian civics and biblical worldview. So we were pioneering. We were going into churches. We were building all these programs. And Family Policy Alliance Foundation approached us.

[00:25:16] They were started by Dr. James Dobson, used to be focused on the family action. They approached us and said, listen, we're really good at education and advocacy. We've got 41 state policy councils across the country, but we have not figured out

[00:25:32] how to mobilize Christian voters and how to do a church outreach program. Is there a way that we can become family? And it was a crazy three or four months as we navigated this as our two boards and our leadership.

[00:25:48] But at the end of the day, we felt like it was extremely good fit. And so our boards merged. And I'm now also not only the president of Christians Engaged, but the senior vice president of Family Policy Alliance. So it's a fun day. Where are they based?

[00:26:05] They're in Colorado Springs. Yeah, they have 41 state policy organizations here in Texas. That group is Texas Values led by Jonathan Sines. There's ones in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan. All of the states, most of the states have one.

[00:26:27] But they're the boots on the ground that are actually advocating for pro-family, pro-life and religious liberty. And so we're able to outreach to churches and Christians. And now as leaders rise up, move them towards actually doing this stuff with the Family Policy Council.

[00:26:43] So how do you see the two organizations complementing each other? It's an incredible complement because we actually kind of doubled their programs overnight. We had a young adult program. We have a national conference. We have the voter mobilization communications. We have all the curriculum.

[00:27:01] So we have a lot of things that they had some of that, but they didn't have the full package like we did. So we kind of doubled their programs and they gave us a network that we it would have taken us 20 years to build.

[00:27:14] To put this in perspective, between the national organization and all the state organizations, they have about 400 employees and a $55 million budget a year. So that's a massive network that would have taken a lot of resources and personnel for

[00:27:31] us to build, to be able to build state to state on the ground. And so it's a beautiful marriage actually. And we're really, really, really thankful for them. So let's talk a little bit about Christians and their, Christians don't always vote.

[00:27:46] And when they do vote, they haven't always voted their values. And you're trying to address both of those aspects, aren't you? We are. You can't drive Christians to the polls unless you teach them the Bible and that they align

[00:28:02] their, their biblical values with what's happening in government and politics. So it's a really, really difficult, you know, space to operate in. But every Christian should be talking to God about what's happening in our nation and praying for their elected officials, regardless of political parties.

[00:28:23] We need God to move on our officials and we need to have godly people elected. But every Christian should be able to print off their ballot, research their ballot, take 30 minutes. That's what we do.

[00:28:36] At Christians Engage, we give you a five-step guide to do that for every election. So you go in 98% more prepared than everybody else. We don't tell you what political parties to vote for or what candidates, but we give you

[00:28:50] the tools to do your research and to go in and pray and ask God for wisdom to navigate these things. Because Meryl, as you know, we're picking between imperfect people. Jesus is not on the ballot.

[00:29:03] And even our political parties, you know, we saw even the last week, the Republican Party platform getting watered down in a lot of ways. These political parties are not perfect and candidates are not perfect, but we have to

[00:29:17] make choices and we cannot sit on the sidelines and do nothing. Now, you and I were at a dinner some months back sitting next to each other, and the person sitting on the other side of me was listening to us talk.

[00:29:29] And she sort of weighed in saying, you know, we've got this thing going on. You know, we've got this wall of separation between the church and state. And my sense was she just felt like you were overstepping that wall by bringing Christian values and other things into politics.

[00:29:45] Tell me, how do you respond to somebody who says, look, we've got this wall of separation. You should not be involved in bringing Christian aspects into politics. Well, I know that Kirby has detailed out this many times on this show, and I'm sure you

[00:30:01] have too, but Thomas Jefferson was writing that letter to the Danbury Baptists that they were concerned that they were Baptists. There was Catholics in Maryland. There were Quakers. There are all these different colonies were operating related to their denomination of

[00:30:17] their faith, and they were concerned that the government would come in and tell them they all have to be Quakers or they all have to be Catholic or they all have to be a certain strength. They were saying there's this separation. The government cannot infringe upon the church.

[00:30:32] It's the opposite of what the culture and secularism has said about this. And so let me break that first. Secondly, we should be Christ followers wherever we go. We have this idea that some things are sacred and some things are secular. This is a fallacy.

[00:30:53] And going into your city council, going to your chamber of commerce, being the president of your homeowners association, these things are godly things. And, buddy, how can people hear the gospel if we're not going into our communities and meeting people and sharing Jesus and loving our neighbor?

[00:31:15] And so politics in and of itself is not inherently evil. It's the people that are controlled by the enemy that are corrupting it. So if righteous, godly people that love Jesus have a biblical worldview, go in as leaders,

[00:31:32] we can walk with God in intimacy with him and make a difference in our communities. We have a situation now where a lot of Christians, evangelical Christians, don't vote, do they? Yeah, there's really no difference between the general public and people that call themselves

[00:31:48] born-again Christians, whether they're Protestant or Catholic. George Barnett showed in 2016 that there was like a 2% bump between that group of us Christians that got out to the polls, but that went down four points in 2020 from the research I've seen.

[00:32:07] So we have got to be consistent and we can't just vote in presidential elections. You know, it really is a thing of loving your neighbors well. We are not perfect people. We all know that as Christians. We're only here by the grace of God.

[00:32:23] But at the same time, God has given us wisdom and discernment based on us renewing our minds to the word. And so who better to make those choices to put in righteous people in their city, county, and state government or federal government than the body of Christ?

[00:32:40] And that actually is a loving thing. We are loving our neighbors well because Proverbs 29, 2 says, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. When the wicked man rules, the people groan. And so in reality, when you're electing righteous leaders, they're not perfect.

[00:32:58] They just have a biblical worldview and they can discern right from wrong. That's actually loving your community well because the people, even if they don't vote, are going to thrive and they're going to have liberty and they're going to be protected

[00:33:12] based on those leaders that we're putting in office. My guest for this segment is Bunny Pound. She is president of Christians Engaged. You can go to pointofview.net and find out more about her and find out ways to reach out to Christians Engaged.

[00:33:27] And of course, they've just announced recently announced a merger with Family Policy Alliance. So the two of them are working together. When we get back, we'll look more at what Christians can do in order to affect the political atmosphere. So stay with us on Point of View.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth. And we're back with Bunny Pounds, president of Christians Engaged, and we're talking about how you as a Christian can get engaged. And so, Bunny, let's say I'm a Christian. I'm looking at the country.

[00:34:12] I'm concerned about the way things are going right now. I don't like it and I want to get involved somehow. What do I do? Where do I start? Well, we've built the roadmap for you.

[00:34:24] That was what Codd called me to do is go find the Awakening Church and plug you into habits of prayer, voting, and engagement. So go first to ChristiansEngaged.org and take our pledge to pray, vote, and engage. You'll start getting our prayers. You'll start getting our voting reminders.

[00:34:43] And then our step two, Meryl, is for people to go and check out our classes. We have an OnRamp to Civic Engagement class. That's our signature class. It's an amazing class on political parties, advocacies, issues from a biblical perspective,

[00:35:00] how to share the gospel, how to walk with God in this space. It's an amazing class. And we kind of move people from the pledge to pray, vote, engage to our classes. And then we start trying to help them navigate what is the burden of their heart?

[00:35:18] Where do they want to go? And I kind of like to put it in three different buckets for people. Number one, get involved in campaigns. Adopt a candidate. Become a candidate yourself. We will help you.

[00:35:30] We have a full campaign school to help people run for office and how to get involved with campaigns so that we can elect righteous people. Secondly, if you have an issue that you really care about, you're like worried about some

[00:35:43] legislation getting passed that you want to kill or you want to pass good legislation, get involved in what we call advocacy. And that's where our friends at Family Policy Alliance and our state policy groups can help you to advocate for godly legislation.

[00:35:57] And we'll help you connect, get connected to them. Thirdly, some Christians are like, oh, I don't want to do either one of those, but I can register my friends to vote. I can mobilize Christians to start praying, voting, engaging.

[00:36:10] I can start talking to my pastor about getting involved with Christians Engaged or getting Christians, more Christians to get activated. We have a whole area leader program to help Christians do just that. And hundreds of people are finding their voice just helping this ministry day to day.

[00:36:29] And, you know, we're going to try to reach a million Christians. So we need all hands on deck to help us. When somebody is saying, you know, I've seen these things and I want to get involved and maybe even run for office myself.

[00:36:41] You know, I think some people sometimes think, but, you know, I can't run. Running for Congress is such a big deal, but there's lots of offices from school board to city council. There's lots of things that people could start with and sort of learn the process.

[00:36:56] There is, and we absolutely need a bench of leadership. You know, buddy, I ran for Congress in 2018. I really didn't want to run for Congress, but there was nobody else that knew the people in seven counties that could raise the money, the new federal public policy.

[00:37:15] And so, you know, I felt like we didn't have a bench of leadership in that district. And so we need to build Christians in city council places. I'll share one couple stories with you.

[00:37:28] We had a young father, him and his wife and their daughter came to our DC trip last year to Washington, DC. And Jonathan Reeves stood up and he said, you know, I'm here on this trip because my motto in life is pray, vote, complain.

[00:37:42] And I'm hoping this changes it to pray, vote, engage. And we all laughed and chuckled because we've all been there, right? And he came home from that trip and we had three pastors in that city that are strategic ministry partners with us.

[00:37:58] And they recruited Jonathan to run for city council in a special election. He won a runoff in December against a very progressive leftist in Rowlett, Texas. And the beauty of this is they shifted the power of the city council. So now they have four conservatives to three liberals.

[00:38:18] Well, what happened was they got busy and Jonathan led the charge just a few months ago to get rid of the diversity equity inclusion program in Rowlett. And they got rid of it. They passed it. And the next day it was off the website.

[00:38:32] That's one Christian saying yes to Jesus, making a step to go to Washington, D.C., then running for office, then doing the hard work of what it takes in a city. I have to think, though, if you're speaking out at city council meetings, at school board

[00:38:48] meetings or something of that nature, some people are going to step up and say, you're trying to impose your values on us. Stop trying to impose your values on us. How do you answer that? Everybody is pushing their worldview. Everybody's pushing their values on us.

[00:39:05] Has anybody been on Twitter lately or X? I mean, everybody's all they're doing is spewing what they believe. And so the reality is there's going to be a vacuum if Christians are not out there in the public space, there will be a vacuum that somebody will fill.

[00:39:25] And we're seeing that as cities fly gay pride flags, you know, from their flag stands right next to the American flag or their state flag. We need to be speaking up and saying, you know, that's not something that we want in our city. We love everybody.

[00:39:44] We receive everybody. Everybody can live their lives in freedom. But we don't want to be celebrating or promoting what God says is sin. So, you know, we have to just navigate that, buddy. But we can walk into these places and be strong and courageous and bold.

[00:40:03] But at the same time, carry the Sermon on the Mount, be merciful, be loving, you know, push being hungry and thirsting for righteousness, being poor in spirit, loving those who persecute us so we can do both.

[00:40:20] We should be people that people are attracted to, not that are like running away from us. Right. We should be the ones that are like running and going, I want to be like that person because they love me.

[00:40:32] We've got a presidential election coming up, so it's a very important time for Christians to be engaged. Take about a minute to explain what you're doing over the next three to four months, if there's anything different that you're doing. Yeah, well, we've been building for four years.

[00:40:49] We've got 265,000 Christians in our database now activating them to vote in every election. But we are putting the gasoline on that. And with the help of people that are helping put money into this project, we're going to

[00:41:04] go after a million Christians and get them into the system by the presidential election. We want to have them in the system before early voting happens if we can. So we're actually able to reach a Christian online for 50 cents.

[00:41:19] So the beauty of this is that we are actually got donors that are doubling and tripling people's gifts right now. So if people want to help us reach Christians online in churches, through social media,

[00:41:35] we are able to find that Christian, get them activated and get them in to vote in every election. And that's our goal. So we're really working on that. We have an amazing biblical platform comparison that's on the home page of our website that people can download.

[00:41:52] And we'll be updating that as soon as the Democrat convention happens and their platform is approved. As the new platforms are approved, we'll be updating that. But we're helping people just navigate this and figure out how to vote.

[00:42:08] But I want to encourage people, don't just vote for president. You want to vote all the way down the ballot. Vote for your member of Congress, your state representative all the way down.

[00:42:18] It is critical that you print off your ballot, research your ballot and we'll help you do that. My guest has been Bunny Pound. She is president of Christians Engaged. And of course, they have just merged with Family Policy Alliance.

[00:42:30] And I would encourage you to go to pointofview.net. You'll find a link to the website there and find out more about them and go and get engaged and get involved in this and follow what their directions are, because that is the time to do that.

[00:42:43] Bunny, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Matthews. Just love the point of view audience. And let's go. Let's go team. We'll get you back soon sometime. And joining me back, Kirby will be back tomorrow and we'll be doing the weekend edition.

[00:43:00] I'll be here and I think Holly Randall will be here. So come back tomorrow. The Republican National Convention will be over and that will be a major topic. Thank you for joining us on Point of View.

[00:43:11] The Bible tells us not to worry, and yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray.

[00:43:28] But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult. And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation.

[00:43:43] Each week you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand.

[00:44:01] Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America.

[00:44:27] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.