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Shaping Tomorrow's Leaders: Inside Patriot Academy - with Patriot Academy students
"We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective."
These words from Rick Green perfectly capture the heart of the WallBuilders Show broadcast from the Patriot Academy National Leadership Congress—where 140 young Americans are gathered for an experience that transcends typical political training.
Broadcasting from the House Chamber where future leaders are being forged, this episode takes listeners behind the scenes of Patriot Academy's largest class ever. Through conversations with student leaders serving as Governor, Speaker of the House, and Lieutenant Governor, we discover what makes this program transformative for participants ages 16-25.
What emerges is a powerful model of generational mentorship unlike anything else in American civic education. As Governor Benjamin Griesinger explains, Patriot Academy doesn't just involve older adults pouring into youth—it creates a continuous chain of leadership development where students mentor peers just a year or two behind them. This creates immediate application and multiplication of knowledge that accelerates growth.
The spiritual foundation underpinning Patriot Academy becomes evident as these young leaders share wisdom beyond their years. Benjamin offers a compelling analogy about recognizing falsehood: like bank tellers identifying counterfeit bills through constant handling of real currency, these students immerse themselves in truth so thoroughly that deception becomes immediately apparent. "The Lord has never said a negative thing about me, but the enemy does," he observes with remarkable clarity.
Speaker Abigail highlights how Patriot Academy prepares students for real-world impact, sharing her experience interning for Florida's First Lady Casey DeSantis and successfully establishing Constitution Day celebrations in her hometown—all before she could even vote. Lieutenant Governor Emma Sager emphasizes that participants develop universal leadership skills applicable in any field, not just politics.
The episode culminates with Pastor Michael Ciociola's powerful challenge to students to recognize their place in America's continuing story—not as spectators but as active participants completing what previous generations began.
Ready to join this movement? Visit PatriotAcademy.com to explore upcoming academies, including regional events across America and the Midwest Academy in Indianapolis.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show show. We are taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And today we're doing that from the Patriot Academy campus, sitting in the House chamber right now where the leadership Congress, our national leadership Congress is taking place. Tim Barton and I will be here teaching the students all week long. And today on WallBuilders, we've got some of the students actually here to share with you what we're experiencing here at the campus. Now we do this actually several times throughout the summer. We call them regional academies around the nation and state capitals. But our big one is this week. We call it the National Leadership Congress. We got our largest class ever, about 140 students here from across the nation. They are learning leadership skills, they're learning founding fathers philosophy, they're learnin' the process and they do it in a mock legislative simulation as well as hearing from a lot of great speakers. Our first guest today is the governor of Patriot Academy this year, Benjamin Grease, senior governor. Thanks for joining me on the program today.
Benjamin Grease [00:01:04] Thank you for having me.
Rick Green [00:01:05] All right. So you, uh, you got totally booted from your state of the Academy this morning, the opening session, and you're supposed to give your state the Academy and some guy running the show ran everything late and then, and you got canceled until tomorrow. Who was that?
Benjamin Grease [00:01:19] I'm not really sure. You know, it was just kind of a ghost-in-the-wind situation. Yeah, I think they call him Rick Green Yeah, it's a very interesting situation but I think it honestly worked out for the best because the Lord was definitely moving here a lot of what I was gonna say was already touched on by every single speaker before me so it was one of those things where I knew okay, maybe this was a lot of me maybe it was the Lord, but I definitely need to go in and tweak some stuff
Rick Green [00:01:42] So you get an extra night.
Benjamin Grease [00:01:44] Exactly. Yeah.
Rick Green [00:01:44] So you're you're doing yours in the uh in on the floor session so we'll actually be gaveled in just like the real Texas legislature and just like the real state of the state that the governor gives in each state you will give sort of a report on what's been going on with Patriot Academy and where Patriot academy is going and also are you going to address any of the things in the country or the role the Patriot Academy plays or you haven't written that new speech yet. What do you what are you thinking?
Benjamin Grease [00:02:08] Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the main things that we can talk about is all the growth that Patriot Academy has had within this last month alone. I mean, we've had over 200 people on campus working hard, getting this thing built and within that you'd see the environment that they've been building. The atmosphere from who they are and what they're wanting to accomplish. You know, they're out here working hours and hours in the sun. But there's always joy on their face because they know that what we're doing here is truly taking background in the culture. And they can do it with a smile because they're called to do it by God.
Rick Green [00:02:38] And then you kind of get to see it all because you see that part of it, but then you also see behind the scenes, what it takes to put on even a legislative simulation like this, but then you get to the young people out here, your colleagues in the debate and in the committees and in their workshops and you see the light bulb come on, you kind get the same privilege I do of seeing their growth, you actually experienced it and had that kind of growth and now you're giving back and helping other students get it. Pretty cool.
Benjamin Grease [00:03:02] Yeah, that's exactly right. When I was younger, I didn't really know anything. And then going through being a freshman in the first year and a second year, you know, the lights click each year. You're not going to have every light on a board of light up at the same time. Right. But being able to sit where I am right now and look at these freshmen in first years and second years and see the light pop and see them, you really understand the floor session and even for the first years and second years, they may have got it their first time around and now they're going to the freshmen and they're helping them get it as well. It's kind of really cool to see it because when you're younger, when you first in it, you never know what it's gonna look like. And then down the road when you've had that experience and that age come with you, you get to look back and see, oh, that's where I was and now I'm here. So it's a really cool point of view to see.
Rick Green [00:03:42] You may have solved the problem that I haven't been able to solve for 25 years. I've never been able to communicate to people what Patriot Academy really is. The leadership congress. It's impossible to describe. They'll watch the videos, I'll give a speech on it, but then when they come, they're like, oh my goodness, it's even better than what I thought or I didn't even realize this was going to happen. What's kind of your elevator pitch? What do you tell people when they ask you about this Patriot Academy thing?
Benjamin Grease [00:04:05] Well, the whole point of Patriot Academy is, yes, we want to pour into the next generation. But not only that, we wanted a year above the next generation to pour in to them as well. It's not just us pouring into the generation. We'll have students come through, and it'll be their first year. And then they decide they want to come back because they want learn more. But they also want to poor into the person that's.
Rick Green [00:04:24] Almost peer to peer then.
Benjamin Grease [00:04:26] Exactly. Yeah, we've had such a culture of, you know. The current generation has to pass it to the next generation, which could be 20 years age gap, but what Patriot Academy is doing is equipping young leaders to be able to pour into each other, not just wait 20 years, get all the experience. They can do it right now with what knowledge they have through Patriot Academy.
Rick Green [00:04:46] I think one of my favorite moments of the year so far was this morning. I got to sit in the back of the room and watch you and, Bailey and Hannah and Elisha do the lift principles talk, which I normally give, but I got to sit the back and watch each of you give a piece of that and to know that you're like you're saying you're just a couple of years older than most of these students. And some of them are actually older than you. And yet you're getting to teach those principles that you've been learning over the last four or five years. That was awesome to watch that happen. I kind of felt like, okay, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to die in a car wreck tomorrow, but if I did, you guys are, it's in good hands. I feel like y'all could take this over.
Benjamin Grease [00:05:23] Yeah, and I mean, last night, Reagan gave a great devotional on David and talking about how when he took on Goliath, and one thing that he talked about with Golieth was how young David was when he actually took on Goliath. He wasn't in his 40s. He wasn't in his 50s making a change. He was a teenager and he stood up in front of all these adults and said, you know what? If you're not going to do it, I'm going to it. As a teenager, as a kid, he took the biggest fight of his life up to that point, which was a Goliath, you know, a guy who was... Nearly nine feet tall, he was killing everybody, he was completely just disowning their God and insulting their God. And he said, you know, even though I'm young, I can't stand for this. And that's exactly what Patriot Academy is about, is giving the confidence, the skill, and the knowledge to these younger generations so that they can step up with confidence in what God is calling them.
Rick Green [00:06:11] I love what he said too about being, how do you describe it? It was something to the effect of having your ear tuned to the Lord, and then when the enemy speaks, you hear that because it's the opposite of what you've been tuned to, and then you go in and find. Something to that effect. For you, how old are you now, 22, 23? 22. 22, so what do you do to tune your ear, right? What do you to find God's will for your life? What have you been learning at Patriot Academy that's helped you with that, and just kind of for all the young people that are listening right now. How does coming to a Patriot Academy Leadership Congress help with that?
Benjamin Grease [00:06:45] Well, there's an old adage that I've been told many, many times growing up of, you know, how does a bank teller know if a bill is fake because they've handled the real thing so many times. They just, by feeling it, they can say, this is a fake bill. And the way you do that is by being in the Word and being with the Father and with the Spirit so much that the second you do hear the voice of the enemy, you say, okay, I absolutely know that is not my God because I know what my God sounds like. I know what he says about me. I know, what he says, about people around me. He is not a god of depression, he's not a god of negativity. The Lord has never said a negative thing about me, but the enemy does. So whenever you're getting in the word and you're around people who speak truth and you are around truth so much, it is so easy to immediately tell what the lie is because you know what the truth.
Rick Green [00:07:31] I wish I could remember the quote that Kirk Cameron always shared with me out of Lord of the Rings. Can't worry about all these other things. You got to do what you can with what you got right now and fight your fight. Ben, I'm so glad you're in this position of governor and that you're pouring into these other young people. I know this is going to be a rewarding week for you. Not just because you're getting to be governor and you're going to give your state of the academy tomorrow, but you're gonna see the fruit of your labor. You're going see these other people light up and you going to see that all of your your time and your effort from working outside to being in here and doing this. Is gonna pay off in the lives of these young people. So thanks for investing in them.
Benjamin Grease [00:08:04] Thank you for having me.
Rick Green [00:08:05] All right, that's the governor of Patriot Academy this year, Benjamin Griesinger being kicked off the dais as the speaker of the house takes his seat, not takes his seats, it was his seat. She takes her seat, which was his seed and is now your seat. Abigail, your speaker of house here in the big National Leadership Congress has already done this in your home state of Florida. But it's exciting to do it right here in Texas. Yeah.
Abigail [00:08:27] Yes, sir.
Rick Green [00:08:27] Which is better, Florida or Texas? Trick question.
Abigail [00:08:30] Well, I mean, for Patriot Academy, it's been really amazing just to see Patriot Academy grow. So this being the largest Texas Patriot academy leadership Congress is just pretty amazing.
Rick Green [00:08:41] That sounded like a politician dancing around a question.
Abigail [00:08:44] Just maybe, but I love it. I mean I started in Florida, so I gotta say yeah, Florida's pretty pretty good
Rick Green [00:08:50] Well, we have to admit all the time that Florida does better than Texas on a lot of things. The governor's been amazing over the last few years, done a lot a lot of cool stuff. You've had the chance to work for Casey, for the governor's wife. You've been very involved in the, not only the homeschool movement in Florida and Patriot Academy, but even some of these, you know, high-level government positions. What was that like to get to be around literally the highest level possible in your state?
Abigail [00:09:13] Well, I would say that Patriot Academy, first of all, helped me a lot in preparing me for helping in those situations. So being a senior in high school and interning for Casey DeSantis in Tallahassee in the Capitol building was amazing and just to have the opportunity to be inside the office on a day-to-day basis and find what they're doing to actually serve the citizens of the state. A lot of people don't know what goes into it. Sometimes they can just do. Accusing, be accusatory towards the administration for what they may not be doing in reality. They're doing so much to help. I mean, Casey DeSantis has her initiative where she's trying to get government out of the local areas so that the church can step in. So corporations can help people who may be at disadvantage so that more people can step up in their communities and lead.
Rick Green [00:10:03] It's a whole lot easier to throw stones, right? And just complain about whatever they're doing. When you're at that level and you're seeing it every day, you realize how hard the work is. And you realize that even with the best of intentions, people are gonna twist that and say things. Even here on the Patriot Academy level, have you had any stones thrown at you? Are you okay? Are there any Patriot Press bad stories coming out about the Speaker of the House?
Abigail [00:10:27] No, no,.
Rick Green [00:10:27] So far so good at all.
Abigail [00:10:29] It's about character.
Rick Green [00:10:29] So tell me about that. So what do you hope that the students here this week get when they leave here on Saturday and they're driving away Saturday afternoon? What do you that they most take with them?
Abigail [00:10:40] I hope that they are emboldened in their faith for Jesus Christ. That is something I've been praying about and that they're embolden in their fire and patriotism for this country because I know that the level of understanding and teaching that they getting here is so amazing and to have that level of quality of education here at Patriot Academy that they will deepen in a relationship with the Lord on fire for revival for our nation and in conclusion having that affect our whole nation and you know, in a constitutional way. Yeah. You know, you talk about it all the time and having who decides, you know. It's us, we the people.
Rick Green [00:11:16] How'd you like the, it felt like we were definitely getting off on the right track with worship this morning, right? I mean, that just kind of set the tone for the whole thing. And then of course, Chris's devotional was fantastic. And then the, the charge from Michael, just incredible
Abigail [00:11:30] Fired up.
Rick Green [00:11:31] Yes, I know it got, it got us going for sure. Let's see. So what, what's been a little bit different this year? Anything like what, what have you noticed? What surprises the biggest class we've ever had for Patriot Academy. So you're presiding over the largest house membership in Patriot Academy history. We actually had to squeeze people into the back of the room didn't have enough desk on the, on the house floor. Have you noticed anything that's, that's kind of, I mean, we're only a day in, so it's just, it's getting started, but what would you say is, I don't know off the top of your head.
Abigail [00:11:59] I would say that most of the freshman class is younger, which is interesting. A lot of them are high school, college, student age, and so I think the energy that they bring into Patriot Academy, because some of them aren't even able to vote yet, but learning what they're learning, they can go and influence their local communities and get involved and possibly run for office, or even if they don't, just affect that area and knowing what's going on in their local community. Like when I was, I think I was like 17 years old. Knowing about patriarchy, I'm like, oh, I can have a recognition for Constitution Day and Constitution Week in my city. So I approached my city council. I know them all by name. I go to city council meetings. I approached them. I said, hey, here's a proclamation that you guys can do to affirm that in our city. And they did it. And they were able to proclaim that, you know, September 17th is Constitution Day and we had a Constitution Week. So those types of things and engaging in and having citizens understand and going through programs like Patriot Academy and Constitutional Live and Biblical Citizenship just really helping. So that's something that I've noticed this time around is that energy is really going to be taken away from this week and applied all across the nation.
Rick Green [00:13:12] Your answer was much deeper than mine. I was going to say what I noticed different is that Florida is overrepresented. I think y'all have like 20 of the.
Abigail [00:13:20] It's better than previous years, I think. That was great.
Rick Green [00:13:23] It's great. Abigail, thank you for serving as speaker this year. Thanks for pouring in to your colleagues, to your students, and the Patriot Academy in general, your whole family. We just love having y'all part of this. And I hope you see that it's already starting to pay off for generations, the investment that you're making in these young people.
Abigail [00:13:38] Thank you, it's an honor.
Rick Green [00:13:39] That's the Speaker of the House for Patriot Academy this year. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us today. We are at the Patriot Academy campus in the National Leadership Congress. It's our biggest event of the year. Our largest Patriot academy leadership Congress ever. And the presiding Lieutenant Governor has joined us. Emma Sager is with us. Emma, thank you for letting me just totally surprise you. She had no idea I was going to grab her and put her on national radio all of a sudden. Emma, thanks for coming on.
Emma Sager [00:15:15] Thanks. I'm excited to be here.
Rick Green [00:15:17] I should say governor. I shouldn't call you Emma.
Emma Sager [00:15:18] That's okay.
Rick Green [00:15:19] We're going to get fired up this week doing the National Leadership Congress, and then we're going to do the Indiana Patriot. Well, what do we call it? The Midwest. Midwest Patriot Academy. What is that? August 20th?
Emma Sager [00:15:30] It's the 20th through the 22nd, I believe.
Rick Green [00:15:31] 21st and 22nd. So if you're listening right now and you're thinking man, that sounds so cool. I wish I had been at the campus this week for Patriot Academy. You can still join us. It's not too late in Indianapolis at the Indiana State Capitol and you gonna be there, right?
Emma Sager [00:15:44] I'll be there.
Rick Green [00:15:45] Okay, good. This is Elijah gonna be. He's not gonna make it now. Your brother who's gonna be speaker of the house and we change the day.
Emma Sager [00:15:50] Super sad, sad, yeah, he'll try and be there next year for sure.
Rick Green [00:15:53] Normally a family affair so okay, so I'm curious you've done what you how many years you've been doing Patriot Academy
Emma Sager [00:15:58] This is my fifth year.
Rick Green [00:15:59] Fifth year. Anything stand out different this year from previous year?
Emma Sager [00:16:05] I feel like-
Rick Green [00:16:05] Other than being the biggest.
Emma Sager [00:16:06] Yes, you're the biggest. I feel like the fellowship this year, at National specifically, has been amazing.
Rick Green [00:16:14] I love the worship this morning, man.
Emma Sager [00:16:17] Beautiful, just everyone is engaging with everyone. I don't feel like anyone has left out. And there's so much growth happening already. It's just beautiful to see.
Rick Green [00:16:26] Are there any horrible bills that the Lieutenant Governor is just gonna squash? Are you gonna just make sure that that, is there a bill that you're like, that one cannot see the light of day. There's a few.
Emma Sager [00:16:35] There's a few I have my eye on, yes, I'm watching.
Rick Green [00:16:39] That's a lot of bills. I mean, y'all are gonna have, you gotta go through what, 200 bills? I mean you got a hundred full of students and most of them have at least, some of them two and then some have one, so that's a lot
Emma Sager [00:16:48] Well, we'll see what passes committee and then the floor and then it comes to me.
Rick Green [00:16:51] You're feeling the same thing we we would feel in a regular session when it's thousands of bills now we'd have five months, you know, you guys have a whole week and that's it
Emma Sager [00:16:58] That's it, yeah.
Rick Green [00:16:59] Just a few days.
Emma Sager [00:17:00] Yep.
Rick Green [00:17:01] Okay. Talk to students that might be listening or or parents that might think and you know next year, I want to say or actually next month to Indiana, but next summer, I wanna say that I think I wanna send a student to Patriot Academy if they're not sure like they don't know what to expect. I was asking Governor Greasinger a few minutes ago. Maybe you've solved my problem of 25 years. I have such a hard time describing Patriot Academy, you know, cuz you try to tell people about it and then they come and they go, wow, this is even better or crazier or whatever, right? Than it was, what do you say when people say, what's this thing you're going to in the middle of the summer?
Emma Sager [00:17:30] I would say that it is a life changing experience. I know it changed mine. You'll just be pushed outside of your comfort zone, but that's a good thing. You'll build so many communication skills, so many leadership skills. You will find yourself better equipped to go into any area of life. It doesn't have to be politics. And it's just an amazing experience to equip you to do well and be successful in everything, whether you're at home being a mom or a dad eventually, or whether you are going into the career field that God has for you, you will just be much better equipped all around.
Rick Green [00:18:04] I love it. I'm glad I was recording that. That was a great testimonial. We're going to we're going to replay. That's much better than what I usually say when people ask me about about Patriot Academy and you said something about communication skills. I mean literally Emma had no idea that I was going to ask her to be on a national radio program and I sat her down and she just said all that without any preparation whatsoever. She's probably going to, I don't know, poison my food later for doing that.
Emma Sager [00:18:25] No, no, no.
Rick Green [00:18:26] No, you wont. Anyway, last thing, what do you, what are you hoping when they drive away on Saturday they get? That they kind of leave it, you know?
Emma Sager [00:18:35] I'm hoping they'll leave with a renewed hope for our country and a renewed desire to reflect Christ in everything they do in their daily lives and just take that hope and that leadership skills back home and impact those around them.
Rick Green [00:18:51] Love it! Oh, that's perfect. Governor, thank you. Appreciate you coming on and thank you for serving this year with all the students.
Emma Sager [00:18:57] It's a pleasure.
Rick Green [00:18:57] All right. That was a lieutenant governor and she's also been the one that organizes our mentor program. So they help the students get ready for this week because it is an insane week and there's so much preparation and it's so different from most things that people have done. So really important job there as well. Next up, I've got Pastor Michael Ciocioa. I'm hollering at him to get him to to get up here on the dais because we're doing WallBuilders radio and he gave the most amazing charge this morning. Governor, thank you. You did a great job.
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:19:24] Rick, it's awesome. This is so amazing!
Rick Green [00:19:27] You knocked it out of the park, bro. That was so good. I'm telling you, I'm back there going, I like. It was really really good. I am praying we recorded that so that we can share it because it was not just for the students. I mean that was a great encouragement for people that sometimes people get down and they think the country's too far gone or I can't do enough I mean you just brought it back around and basically I felt like I'd be a wuss to not get in the fight
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:19:50] There's that beautiful passage in Hebrews after you read about like he just he brings them all out, right? Boom, boom, boom. And you kind of feel sometimes like I'm in the wrong room. I'm on the deep end of the pool. What am I even doing here? And then he says that statement about God had something better planned for us so that, you know, with us, what they started was completed. I'm not I'm that's a paraphrase. Yeah, but it just it hits you when you read it like truth usually does, and you realize, no, God has a role for you to play right now. And everything that came before all the heroes, the signers of the declaration, all of those guys, what they did is not complete until you step up and take your part in the group.
Rick Green [00:20:37] It makes it makes it where it's so much bigger than just you and uh and it makes you want to be a part of it and for them and you know, these are 16 to 25 year olds So for some of them, they're really trying to figure out what is my role? What do I and and most people don't figure that out till they're 40, you know 45 years old or whatever so for them to even be asking those questions and thinking those things in process cool. You've seen a couple of these now What, what, how do you describe Patriot Academy to people or leadership Congress to people now that you came out last year and then you came in this year. I know only for a day this year so far, but, when people say, what are you doing? What are you going to Texas to? What is this Patriot academy thing? What do you say?
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:21:14] Rick, look, what you've done here and what you are doing that's still unfolding is something that I feel like every family, you have a high school track, a student track, and then you have a veteran's track. look, I live 20 minutes away from Beale Air Force Base. And I encourage anyone who's listening to this, who is active duty or who is a veteran or has that in their family history. Connections. Please look at Patriot Academy. How many times have you or I gone to vote? And then we looked at the names on the ballot and we're like, I don't know, which one of you, you know what I mean? And what you are doing here is proactively preparing Godly, constitutional-minded young people to step into these roles because, as you pointed out many times, the Constitution, these founding documents, unless we've got Godly people in these roles, are paper, they're just paper. And the reason that we're in some of the circumstances that we find ourselves in is because that proactive piece, this was not designed to be a sort of set it and forget it situation. It was designed to something that you and I are actively involved in. That's why after we ran, you know, one of your constitution courses, my wife was like, you know somebody came up to me and told me there was a school board seats that were coming open and I think I'm gonna pray about running for one of those. Listen. Everyone who is listening to this, who loves Jesus, the point is that we're supposed to be salt and light. We're supposed be involved in what's going on. God's given us His word, His authority, His power to affect change in this world. This is our country. We only get this one. Let's do it.
Rick Green [00:23:16] Did y'all feel any sense of when you considered running for the school board was there any of this up well shoot we told everybody else they should do it and now they're asking us to do it I was like, how do we not do it?
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:23:28] Look, isn't that what leadership is? Look, a good leader doesn't just tell. A good leader demonstrates what it looks like. And that's true out on the range. You know what I mean? I remember going, I got to one of these gun classes and I was out there with Cameron and one of the instructors was like you're gonna shoot this one inch box. And Sweeney was like yeah, I'm gonna see you do it first. And he did it. Demonstrate that you can execute what it is. Because look, most of us, if we can just see somebody do it. Right.
Rick Green [00:23:58] We believe that we can yeah yeah yeah Michael we got two minutes left okay give us a summary of what your plan to teach the students in just a minute you're gonna be back up in about 20 minutes what are you planning to give them tonight
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:24:08] Look, I'm not telling you anything when I say that there's a lot of families in this state that are hurting and they're trying to find a way forward and put the pieces back together. And when I saw the interview with the Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Scott Ruskin. Yeah. It stood out to me, the way he was talking in a humble way, that there are real heroes that walk among us, that you and I have been called to run into situations that a lot of people would rather run away from. Right, right. And this is the role that we've been given. It reminded me too of, what was that movie with Kevin Costner? The Guardian. The Guardian, yeah, yeah. And there were some amazing scenes in there that I was like, I gotta go, I got to go watch this, watching this kid, um, Scott get up and, and humbly give credit to the entire team. Look, I, and I get it why, you know, he's in his primal life. He's a good looking young guy. He's, uh, real legitimate hero and, um saved so many people. And I think that's one of the things too, that emerged out of this, were people who, who risked everything and in many cases, you know, their own lives to pull people out of. This flood. I remember watching the news when it was playing out early this month and one of the reporters said, if you were lucky, you got to knock on the door. Yeah. Yeah, and I couldn't help but think about the spiritual truth behind that. How lucky you and I have been. Yeah that someone knocked on our door and warned us and told us. Yeah so you're gonna knock on their door tonight. We're gonna knock on. The door tonight,
Rick Green [00:25:56] that's good brother. Oh man I'm so thankful you're here and I love your church love your family.
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:26:01] Thank you we love you.
Rick Green [00:26:02] Can't love you you're the only part of California I'm kidding I got a lot of friends in California but- I actually love coming out there and- look forward to come to spend time with you but I'm glad you're this week for any of these kids thank you for investing in this next generation
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:26:14] And if you're listening to this, keep praying for California.
Rick Green [00:26:17] Yeah, amen, amen.
Pastor Michael Ciocioa [00:26:17] We are standing and we are fighting where it's hot. So, send down some prayers.
Rick Green [00:26:24] That's right, good stuff. That's Pastor Michael Ciociola did our charge this year at Patriot Academy, which is the pastor's message right before they're sworn in and they begin their debating, fantastic job. Tomorrow, we'll have Tim Barton back on the program and he'll be here with me at the campus teaching the young people. We're gonna have a great time. So be sure and tune in. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilder Show.