Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's WallBuilders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And one of the hottest topics of the day is the education of our children, how our public schools have all of this horrible, nasty stuff going on, from the very explicit pornography to the transgender mutilation. I mean it's all over the place and it's crazy and it's time to stop it. And so if we're going to take a stand against that, if we're going to take on this hot topic, we've got to have a biblical perspective, a constitutional perspective and a historical perspective and we've got to get engaged. And from that historical perspective, what we know is that when good men do nothing, evil triumphs. From that historical perspective, what we know is that when good people, when the church stands up, when the salt is there, we preserve the culture. When the light comes in, the darkness is dispelled, and that's what we're going to be talking about how to do that today.
I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, privileged to be here serving with Tim Barton and David Barton. Tim is a national speaker and pastor and president of Wall Builders. David's, of course, America's premier historian, but he's also our founder here at WallBuilders and, thrilled to say, my mentor. I love these guys and thrilled to work with them and WallBuilders. If you're not familiar with WallBuilders, be sure and go to the website today, wallbuilders.com.
Well, that was kind of silly. Go to the website today, whether you're familiar with us or not. What I mean is, if you've never listened before, if you've stumbled across our program, we have a website where you can go learn more and it's wallbuilders.com. That's wallbuilders.com. And of course, that comes from the scripture in Nehemiah arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be able to approach. That's what we're doing. We're rebuilding the walls, rebuilding the foundations of our nation. All right, David and Tim, we got Pastor Richard Vega with us here. In a little bit we're going to be talking about pastors speaking at school board meetings. So you know we've been talking about mamas. We've got the mama bear speaking at school board meetings. We've got, hopefully, some papa bears speaking at school board meetings. But today we're going to talk about pastors getting engaged, because a lot of this nonsense is in their backyards, in little towns. It's not a little town, but certainly what we would think of as a conservative small town America, like Midland Texas, this is going to be very interesting.
Tim Barton
Well, Rick, as we have seen in so many places, this ideology is permeated in virtually every part of the nation. And so I mean you mentioned Midland, is not that small of a town, but we could point out in small towns we have seen the same kind of issues all the town. But we could point out, in small towns we have seen the same kind of issues. And one of the things that if we look back historically, it was always pastors who were leading the charge for righteousness, for godliness, for the important things in the nation. When you look at an American history, you see at times there were atrocities, there were evils in our nation's past. Why did those evils stop? It was always when the church, when pastors stood up and they led and they said we cannot do what is evil, we must do what is right, and so it really is important to get pastors involved and fortunately we are seeing more and more of that in the nation Now.
Not the majority of pastors, because there's more than 380,000 senior pastors churches in America and we don't see the majority of churches, because there's more than 380,000 senior pastors churches in America and we don't see the majority of churches boldly and courageously standing up for godly values and principles, for what the Bible teaches. But we are seeing a remnant, and a growing remnant, in more and more pastors recognizing the role of the church and applying what the word of God says, things that are not confusing, that the Bible is not confusing on gender. The Bible is not confusing on human sexuality, or even maybe, when some of those conversations, when those boundaries are that you don't sexualize kids. That's not a moral thing to do. Jesus said it's better that you tie a millstone around your neck and be thrown in the ocean than causing little one to stumble. And yet that is an ideology, that this causing little ones to stumble with the injecting of this sexualized culture, sexualizing children. That's what's happening in schools all over the nation and it's time for pastors to start standing up and speaking out on this.
Rick Green
Well, we're about to hear from one of those pastors who's been speaking at these school board meetings and getting other pastors to do the same, and hopefully it'll inspire you to go to your pastor and encourage them to be a part of this as well. Stay with us. We'll be right back here on WallBuilders.
Tim Barton
Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.
It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an after hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them. And, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.
Rick Green
Welcome back to The WallBuilder Show. Thanks for staying with us, Richard Vega, with us. Richard, great having you out to the Patriot Academy campus a week or two ago and, man, I was blown away by the testimonial of what is happening when pastors get involved and go speak at school board meetings. You are leading the charge on this in Texas, so I'm excited to talk to you today. Thanks for coming on.
Richard Vega
Hey, thank you so much, Rick, and hey, the place is beautiful. I'm so excited to see the finishing product in a couple of years, when it's all done.
Rick Green
Yeah.
Richard Vega
And I'm excited about the whole project. I can't wait. I really can't.
Rick Green
Well, you know, I say all the time I'm not looking for sheep, I'm looking for some other Lions to team up with. And when you and I started talking and you were talking about some of the things that you're doing and just man, there was such a spirit of boldness there. There is no doubt you are bold as a Lion and I'm just thankful, so thankful, for what you're doing and that you and other pastors are willing to say hey, we're not going to sit on the sidelines. This is a time for the church to lean in and get outside the four walls of our church and be salt and light in the community. And y'all are doing that. You're fighting this horrific stuff they've got in the schools. You're getting pastors to actually stand against evil.
Richard Vega
Absolutely, man. We're super excited what we're doing. We feel like we tapped into something here within the great state of Texas and just starting to activate pastors, community leaders, those that are very just feel pulled and tugged in community ministry or just care about the children and then just saying, hey, you know what, Enough is enough. It's our job to get in here and start bringing awareness and showing all these parents that this junk is in our school districts.
Rick Green
Yeah, and you had one specific testimonial. That's so good. And of course, we've had our mutual friend. You and I both love John Amachukwu and he's been on our radio program many times and just his videos always go viral and so a lot of people might have seen his testimony there at Midland In Midland, Texas, west Texas man, I went to college just an hour from there. Unbelievable the junk they've got in the schools there. But when you were telling me about the strategy behind getting the pastors giving them a heads up, but not too much of a head, like literally, like this thing's happening right now you need to get involved. Walk us through kind of how that happened, because I think this is a model for what people could do all over the country to engage their pastors in standing up against this stuff.
Richard Vega
Absolutely, TPUSA Faith, which is a great partnership with mine, and I've actually been on Charlie Kirk's Pastor's Roundtable, on his podcast and all those things. And so they reached out to me and they said, hey, they know I have a good network. And they said, hey, do you know anybody, or can you get to Midland, Texas, and help support Pastor John with the school books? They found some books inside of the schools and I said, absolutely, in fact, I am the state director for TLCP, which is Texas Latino Conservative Pastors. And I said you know what? I'm actually going to Midland, let me move my schedule around, let me work my network there and let's see what we can do. I'll be there, I'll go to the school board with you. And so, uh, I came in town, I had my pastor's network get together. Uh, I linked up with a friend of mine, ended up becoming a really good friend of mine, Bonnie Wallace. She's doing an amazing job here.
She's doing such a great job. And so, uh, we ended up linking up. I said, hey, bonnie, look, I look, I'm going to host a pastor's roundtable and we're going to provide lunch. Can you get your team there? And she said, yeah, I'll get my people there.
So we got all the pastors in our luncheon and I just simply told them. I said, hey, look, guys, how many of you we all might have different belief systems, we might have different theology, and I get all that, and I'm not here to debate any type of theology to you guys. What I want to know is do you believe that we should stand in the face of evil and produce righteousness when it presents itself? Do you believe that it's our duty to be able to shape culture and do you believe that it's our duty to protect kids culture, and do you believe that it's our duty to protect kids? And they all said, yeah, yeah. I said great, we have these books, and so we, so, bonnie, gave everyone all these different books, right. And so everyone had a different book, and then they started reading these books and we said, okay, look guys, each one of those books that you are reading are in your local school. They're in your school book right, they're in your school right now.
And so some of them were like, well, how do you know? And so Bonnie got up there and she explained the process. They all got to go online, they all got to search the book that they were given and they got to see for themselves that those books were in the school catalog. And I said, look guys, tonight your school board is having a meeting, myself and Bonnie and some of the pastors here, and Pastor John is coming in and we're going to go and testify for your community, because it's our community also. But, more importantly, we would love for you to be a part of this. And so all the pastors showed up, man, and I'll just tell you, dude, you know, pastor John ended up getting escorted out by about five or six police officers, but at the end of the day we ended up getting about 150 books removed out of that school district.
Wow, they turned around, the neighboring school district ended up reaching out and saying, hey, can you send that list of books that they sent you and we will remove them out of there because we don't even want them. At our school board meeting and that night I was with a pastor, pastor Sheldon Riley, elevation Church, phenomenal man of God. He uh, I was with him and and they had some elected officials calling him, I don't you know, uh, like three or four. He ended up getting interviewed by the, by the media out there, and I just told him man, take the charge, continue, charge, continue to lead, and we're going to be getting some more. We just hit one in Fort Bend County me and Pastor John last week and that video for myself. You know it's done pretty well. You know we got it out to about almost 4 million people, wow.
Rick Green
Man, okay, wait, I want to back up because I think this was masterful. God's timing, of course, is perfect. We have to be smart and we have to be strategic in how we fight these battles. And the fact that you and Bonnie put those books in front of those pastors right then and said now is the time. This stuff is in your backyard and tonight you have an opportunity to stand against evil. After they said, yes, I'll stand against evil, which I love the way you set that up. And then they had the opportunity to do it and they did it, so some of those pastors so it wasn't just you and John and Bonnie coming from kind of outside that particular city, it was local pastors that stood with you.
Richard Vega
Absolutely. You know, and you know we got the normal response, which we know we did. I work with a lot of pastors all over the state, actually all multiple states, all across the nation, right, and so I'm used to this, I'm used to pastors, right, I'm a pastor, I'm on staff at my church and I have my own ministry and all I get it. I'm a pastor. And we had a pastor say, you know what? Well, why don't we pray about this and why don't we just take it to the Lord? I get it. And here's the problem.
We've been doing that and he did something. He created us to step in, he created us to get into the gap. Now, I didn't say that. I said, sir, if that's the way you feel, I completely respect it, but we are going to move forward with action. I think this is the moment that we raise our staff and watch God work and split the sea. And so he went home, he read that book and when he read that book, he actually came to the listen to this, Rick. He wasn't going to come. He ended up coming to the school board meeting and he was the first pastor called up to testify.
Rick Green
Wow, the one that just wanted to go pray only and not act. It's almost like he heard the voice of John Hancock. I urge you, by all that is dear, by all that's honorable, by all that's sacred, not only to pray, but to act.
And so he prayed and he acted and it made a difference,
Richard Vega
Absolutely. You know, I said, I said, hey, pastor, it's good to see you. And he said, you know, I went home and I was reading and I just said, man, I can't just sit here and do nothing. But I said, well, praise God, man, I'm glad to be here with you. Just know, we're here to partner with you and link arms with you and we're going to testify with you and we're going to believe with you and we're going to support you.
You know, a lot of pastors are out there in the communities. They feel like they're alone, they feel like there's no one with them. They're just kind of a lone ranger at this and my job is traveling all over the states to let them know that you're not alone. You have organizations like the Patriot Academy, you have organizations like CCDF, TPUSA, remnant Alliance, you have organizations like TLCP and I'm able to bring these resources in and say I want to help equip you. We've been in the civic ministry, we've done all of this stuff and we want to make you successful in your own community.
Rick Green
Oh, that's beautiful man, I mean this is the model I'm telling, done all of this stuff and we want to make you successful in your own community. Oh, that's beautiful man, I mean, this is the model I'm telling you. So I think it sounds like I mean as many pastors you work with and I have to admit, we're hard on pastors, I mean no-transcript politics or whatever and so they want to do something. They just don't know what to do. So when you come in with your group and you actually educate them on that and give them a chance to do it, are you finding I wouldn't say most, but enough are saying, yes, I've been looking for something like this, or at least they're moved to action once you talk to them?
Richard Vega
Absolutely Yep, the answer is yes, and it's a lot like what you do. You know biblical citizenship, right. So you know, for those that haven't been through that literature or those teachings, I highly encourage you to watch it. We've done it at my church. We're going to continue to at our church. Lot of these pastors have never testified right. They don't they're, they're. It's nerve-wracking, right. If you don't do it all the time, it's just it's nerve-wracking.
You know, you know, and so, and, and making sure the facts are there, and and so one of the things is we just encourage pastors to look like you don't need to go up there looking for an argument, which you need to go up there and present the facts, right. So we we here's the facts we we're going to pull out these books and we're going to show you where all the bad stuff is, because we Bonnie, and, and, and I've developed a team around her is we've already pulled out all the bad stuff. We already highlighted all the bad stuff for you. So all you got to do is go read the highlights and say, hey, listen, I don't want this in my schools anymore. It needs to get removed now. Amen, and challenge your elected officials because they work for you and if they don't want to.
This is what I hear a lot. Right, there's a lot of division within the churches. Okay, that's fine. Y'all want to have division, have division. But one thing we can unite on is when evil presents itself like this, yes, when the perversion comes into our schools. I think we could all, no matter what your denomination is, we could all agree it's wrong and we'd all want it gone out of our kids, away from our kids.
Rick Green
Yeah.
Richard Vega
And so we can unite on that front and then say, okay, you know what? I'll give you an example. In one of the communities we got four large churches that are going to select different denominations. Right, two of them are the same denominations, other ones aren't. They're going to help select people. They're going to identify people in their congregation that can run for school board and then they're going to let each other know who they're going to support and then they're going to go um, going to go to the polls with the pastor, and so the pastor will go vote with them to the polls and help get these people in. Look, the church is the largest volunteer group ever, right? Yeah, we're used to knocking on doors, man, we're used to the stretching a penny as far as it can go. So, in activating our churches to be able to say you know what, who best fits to serve my school district than somebody who I see every Sunday? That's right, that's right.
Serving the food pantries or serving in the school and the kids ministry or, you know, serving on the usher team or serving in security or just sitting there being committed every single Sunday. Who's passionate about education Say you know what? You're a great candidate and we want to support you and launch you and we're going to get other churches to rally around you. And now we've got men and women of God that hold those seats.
Rick Green
Yeah, yeah, amen. Oh, that's the ticket, brother. And then they're truly salt and light in the community, which obviously was still most of the kids going through the public school. That is the community. That is where they're getting, unfortunately, their values, and we need people with good values on those school boards to make sure that we got good stuff being taught in the schools. Richard, I get encouraged every time I talk to you, man. I'm so thankful for just the boots on the ground that you're providing and the action that you're taking, with these pastors around the state Looking forward to more victories, just like Midland and so many other places across the country. Is there a way that, if someone's listening right now and they say, you know what I want to do, what he's doing, if it's a pastor especially, I want to get plugged in that they can contact you, whether it's working with Turning Point Faith or, uh, turning Point Faith or Citizens Defending Freedom or or the Remnant Alliance or any of these different groups? What's the best way to reach out to you and connect?
Richard Vega
Yeah, they can reach out to me at um. They can hit me up on any social media platform. Number one on X. I'm on Real Richard Vega. On Instagram. It's I Fight what you Fear, and the same thing on Facebook. They're more than welcome to message me, and then they're always welcome to email me at Richard@MyCTChurch.
Rick Green
Richard at my, say it again.
MyCTChurch.
MyCTChurch. Richard. God bless you, man. I wish we had more time. We're getting you back, though. I mean, just give us reports. We could actually use a lot of what's happening to you on our good news fridays. So this is good stuff. Appreciate you, brother. Keep up the good work, we'll get you back all right brother god bless you, man. Thank you, Rick.
Rick Green
You too. Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with david and tim barton
Tim Barton
Hey guys, it's Tim barton and I want to tell you about our new book, the American Story Building the Republic. We start with George Washington as president and we've already become a nation. So really now it's how do we function as a nation? And if we look back in American history, the stability, the prosperity, success we enjoyed as Americans is because of the foundation that our early presidents laid, because of the examples they set. How do we live in America under the Constitution? What is the role of federal government and really what part did each one of these early presidents play? We go to the first seven presidents and a lot of people probably know the names Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Very few people know about Monroe or John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson. Now, we might know some of their names, we really don't know their stories. We want you to relearn, rediscover American history and see how it applies to today. Go to wallbuilders.com and get your copy of the American Story Building the Republic.
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show Thanks for staying with us. Back with David and Tim Barton now, and guys, I couldn't help but think about the founding era revolutionary pastors marching into battle with muskets. These guys are marching into battle with their words and with the Word of God and talking at these school board meetings.
Tim Batron
I love it Well it's so encouraging to hear this and, dad, I'm going to say this real quick because I know you have a lot of things written down but it reminded me when he talked about the pastor who wasn't going to be involved but he took the book home and read the book and once he read the book he realized man, I got to do something. And he shows up at the school board meeting. He's the first one to speak. It reminded me a little bit. I know it's disconnected, but it reminded me of Sergeant York, one of the incredible stories back up in history that there's even a great movie about it. If you haven't seen it, you need to see the movie.
But Sergeant York, he was a pacifist, he was a conscientious objector when World War I starts. He's not going to be a part of this, but he had grown up as a hunter, a shooter, his entire life. He's an incredible shot. He ends up going over into Europe and there's a couple significant moments in his story. But in one of them he's in the American troops and he's watching the men around him get mowed down and he realizes he's got to do something and he ends up getting his rifle taking out machine gun nests, taking out Germans, I mean just incredible superhuman kind of stuff.
But it's because he saw what the evil was doing to his men and even though he'd up to that point he'd really kind of been in the pacifist camp. He said what he was doing he didn't envision it as killing people, he envisioned it as saving lives because he was trying to stop the evil that was killing his men. And it really struck me that that's what it was for this pastor, that moment that, as he read this book, it was an awakening and lightning moment for him that what he is doing now. He used to stand up to defend these kids and the moral challenge is there. That impetus I've got to do the right thing and the right thing required him to be involved. And this is what we're seeing a lot when pastors recognize what's actually there, they're standing up and they're making a difference.
David Barton
And you know, with that aspect of them seeing, I was struck when we're talking right at the very beginning about how rural districts which is surprising, even this went on in a kind of a rural district Midland's not small, but it is in the country. But we now know, over the last three or four years my view has changed. Particularly. Progressives are progressives regardless of whether they're in rural areas or whether they're in urban areas or suburban areas. Progressive views are the same everywhere. And so what we know is that education right now is dominated with progressive educators who don't have the right value system, and they're in every type of school district in the nation. They're not limited just to urban or suburban areas, and part of the evidence we know is that when you take the 300 pornographic books that appear in libraries, school libraries in any type of rural town, you're going to have from 70 to 100 of those books in the rural towns. Now you have 200 plus in the urban towns, so maybe you have more content there, but it's the same bad content regardless of whether it's urban or suburban or whatever. And so even if you're in a little bitty town of 500 people, you check those library, you check the 300 books in the library. You're probably going to find 30, 40, 50, 60, even in your town, which is why I thought it was so good.
What Richard was doing was having the pastors read that book for themselves. Oh, this can't be in our library. Hey, check the library list here. You can check it online. Texas requires all library lists to be online. Go online, check it. I can't believe this is in our schools.
So that is a really big deal and, by the way, other things that pastors can do. You don't have to now. You need to be opposing this kind of content in schools. But the other thing is go to school boards and say, hey, have you put a school chaplain in yet? Because, like in Texas, the law allows and says that every school is to take a vote on whether they want to have a chaplain. That's a paid position. That's something pastors can't do. They can be aggressive on that, and so even the concept and I love what Richard's saying about these guys are starting to recruit candidates out of their own churches. They know the good guys who have the right character, who have proven themselves in churches, and so recruiting those are all really good things that pastors can do and I'm so glad to hear Richard getting these pastors involved, because that will help turn the tide.
Rick Green
All right, folks, you can get more at our website, wallbuilders.com. I was mentioning at the beginning of the program. Whether you're familiar with us or not, if you're new to the program or you've been listening for a while, if you haven't been to the website in a while, you should go check it out. A lot of new stuff there, a lot of great materials for you and your family, and I think you'll be encouraged. In other words, it's not just a doom and gloom. You know there's a lot of people that run around and say it's all over, America's done for.
And I said at the beginning of the program, we're rebuilding the walls. Well, that, of course, presumes and assumes that the walls have fallen apart. They have, let's admit it. The American culture is crumbling, but we can rebuild and we have everything we need to do so. And the most important thing to have in order to rebuild the walls is truth, the foundation, the biblical truths that made the nation great in the first place. So you can get so much of that at wallbuilders.com some educating, inspiring, entertaining ways to learn that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I know you'll enjoy it. So check it out today, wallbuilders.com, and if you are a longtime listener, or maybe first time and you're just inspired by it, then we would appreciate you coming alongside us and supporting us as well. You can make that tax-deductible donation at wallbuilders.com and it helps us reach more people with this truth. So in other words, you're amplifying our voice. Check that out today at wallbuilders.com. Thanks for listening to The WallBuildlers Show.