Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, and that's definitely what we're doing this week with the Rebuild Liberty Course. We're taking on hot topics on the day, and we're giving a biblical foundation. We're giving that constitutional and historical perspective, and then we're given people action steps. So if you missed yesterday's program, go to wallbuilders.show right now, and you can get any of our programming from the last few weeks and months. But specifically, yesterday was the opening of our new Rebuild Liberty course. We gotta make sure we lay the groundwork between now and July 4th, 2026, so that people are educated on what we're celebrating, so that they really understand what it means to be an American. A lot of great action items that they can take to help Rebuild liberty. Let's jump right in where we left off yesterday with Rebuilding Liberty. We've got about a dozen that are serving in Congress that have been through our classes. We've gotta state legislatures all over the country. We got hundreds of school board members and city council members and county commissioners. We need 10,000. And then this may sound like a big number to you, but here's our goal with rebuilding Liberty. 5,000 celebrations on July 4th, 2026. Now that may sound a lot to you. There's 20,000 communities, according to the Census Bureau, that have 500 or more people, 20,00. So we're only talking about getting 25% of them to have some sort of celebration on July 4th, 2026. That wouldn't even get you in the Hall of Fame in baseball if you were only batting 250. Okay, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna get at least 25%. So I don't wanna hear any, you know, like the 10 spies that came back from the new whiners out there saying, Rick, that's too much, it's too hard, the giants are too big, the cities are too fortified. None of that junk, we're going to get this done. God has given us the land, let's go take the land. We need to be like Joshua and Caleb. That's what it's gonna take to do things this big. So here's what we're asking you to do. Okay, not just us as a whole across the nation. I'm asking everybody in this room, everybody watching this video, everybody that goes to this class to do two, two, two, okay, two hours a week of your life, 2% of your fortune. And two times a week that you put your sacred honor on the line. So two hours a week is enough for you to host one of these classes or to go knock on doors or to speak to the school board or whatever. You figure out, we'll talk in a later class about the 12 steps to recovery. Yes, this is a recovery program. We're gonna talk about those 12 steps in a in a later class. Here's the difference between a personal recovery program and this 12 step program. You only gotta do one of the steps. You don't have to do all 12. But you pick one of those and you spend two hours a week working on it. You invest 2% of your fortune into that cause. Maybe you give that much to a school board candidate, or you invest that much in your own campaign, or maybe you give it to Patriot Academy, that'd be great. Perhaps you give to WallBuilders, or to the Moms for Liberty, or Moms For America, whatever group you might be doing this class with. Give more to your church so that they can be the epicenter of your community. 2% of your fortune invested into freedom. And then two times a week, putting your name on the line. Being willing to post publicly about something that's going on with this rebuilding liberty effort. But somehow, someway, you help get the word out there. So two, two, two. Okay, I told you we'll do the 12 Steps to Recovery on a different night, but I will tell you it breaks down as three steps to restore civic literacy, three steps to restore religious liberty and a God consciousness, and six steps to Restore Limited Government. You'll have to make sure you come back next week and a few weeks after that. To find out more about it. I'll play this and then we will have our special guest up. This one is one of the steps. It's actually everybody going through this course, then turning around and being a Constitution host or a Constitution coach. Anybody can do it. You don't have to have any experience. You don't have to know anything about the Declaration or the Constitution. You just put the videos in. You do the power play, man. You turn the power on, you hit play, and you let David Barton and Tim Barton and all the other folks do the teaching. 

Speaker [00:03:47] Everyone has something they're fighting for. Your family. Your country. Today, those things are under attack by tyrannical government and cultural Marxism. But what if I told you there's a way to fight back? The Patriot Academy Constitution Coach Program is training hundreds of thousands of Americans all across this country on their constitutional rights and our founding principles. 

Speaker [00:04:18] Your coach program is just people like me. It's just average people that learn together about our founding documents. 

Speaker [00:04:29] The Constitution Coach Program was a great opportunity to get people together to awaken their memory of who they are as Americans, to have them rendezvous with their founding fathers and our history, and to awaken that 1776 DNA that's in all of us as Americans. 

Speaker [00:04:53] If we don't know our rights, a tyrannical government will always abuse them. 

Speaker [00:04:58] The Coach Program is a way for people to serve their country by educating everyone in their sphere, everyone they come in contact with about the Constitution and the founding documents. 

Speaker [00:05:10] Through Patriot Academy's Constitution courses, you can learn what our constitutional rights are and where those rights come from. 

Speaker [00:05:19] What a fun way to save the republic. It's just to listen to these videos and have classes with like minded people. 

Speaker [00:05:25] America needs you to take a stand for truth, to learn the formula that created the greatest nation in history. 

Speaker [00:05:32] I think as humans, it's in us that we're designed to want to help people to serve and to love and I think this is the best way to do it. 

Speaker [00:05:40] And the best news, becoming a coach is absolutely free. But if freedom in America is going to live on, there must be enough of us that understand our rights, how to protect them, and pass freedom on to future generations. We need you. 

Rick Green [00:05:59] Welcome back to Rebuilding Liberty. I am honored to have my pastor with us Jimmy Pruitt from the Bridge Church in Fredericksburg. Hey, brother, thanks for coming on. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:06:06] It's exciting to be here. It's a joy. 

Rick Green [00:06:10] First of all, I'm so glad we live in Frederiksburg and the Patriot Academy's being built here and that we get to go to your church. You and Annette have become great friends and just great examples for how to engage the culture. You know, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty and we're gonna rebuild liberty. We need the spirit to the Lord to do that. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:06:23] Absolutely. 

Rick Green [00:06:24] How did you get so fired up about Impacting the culture. I mean not most pastors don't and you've told me you didn't used to be so engaged in what was going in The culture something happened 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:06:34] Yeah, I had an awakening, so to speak. It started with something called a pandemic, COVID. And that was really... I vaguely remember that happening. Yeah, anyway, yeah. That was the shot over the bow. That was when I woke up and began to realize something's not right here. So 11 weeks in, we decided to regather. So we did the online thing, just like everybody else. And then we made the announcement. But I told them, I said, there's three things you need to know coming into our church. And it is this. Number one, I believe you're intelligent. Number two, I believe your informed. And number three, the last time I checked, you're still free. So we pulled everybody back together and we had probably about 250 to 300 that came back. So it was a smaller group. And we had said, no one can touch each other. No meet and greet, no hugging, no high fives. That's hard for church people, man. Well, it didn't go as planned. So everybody walks in the door and it turned into a mosh pit. I mean, people were like. And me and my staff are on the platform going, we just, we just had a major super spreader. I mean, this is, this, we're going to be written up, you know, we're gonna make the news in the wrong way. All that happened. We lived through all that. And by the way, we never had a super spread and people begin to come back and we begin to enjoy each other again. And, and I look back on all of that and I realized how duped I was, how blind I was how naive I was. 

Rick Green [00:07:49] You were staying in the sphere of ministry that you'd been taught and that most people are taught. This is church over here and that stuff over there is not church. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:07:57] Absolutely. You know, separation of church and state. There's a lot of damage, a lot of toll taken. Seven thousand pastors during that time, seven thousand pastors a month were quitting in America. Seven thousands a month. And churches were dying. Churches were not reopening. There was a holy anger in me. And part of that was due to two things. I woke up, the scales fell off, and I realized I have a responsibility now to begin to speak into culture. And the way I say it is that We didn't chase politics. Politics showed up on our front door, and now we have to give an answer. And there was something about learning about this and hearing about the black robe regiment and learning about these pastors, these men who not only stood for freedom, but they ignited the fires of freedom and liberty and breaking away from tyranny. And I just thought, what kind of guy, at my age, what do I want my legacy to be on the way out? That I was safe or that I was dangerous? 

Rick Green [00:08:54] And would you be the kind of pastor that Paul Revere would be writing to your house? I mean, you think about it, why did he become so well-known? He knew which doors to knock on. He knew Sam Adams and John Hancock were at the pastor's house. So are you that kind of Pastor that is in the middle of the fight? And I wanted you to be on this course because there's pastors that are going to watch this that have been trying to decide, you know, and, and there were Black Road regiment pastors like John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg that took off the robe, you, know, in the of his sermon and called his men to arms, who had a brother who was a pastor saying, don't do this. Who would end up getting so involved later that he becomes the first speaker of the house under the United States Constitution. And I feel like in many ways, you're like Frederick Augustus. You might not have been the guy that was involved five years ago, 10 years ago. But now you're so involved, you are at the forefront of it. And I think there's a lot of pastors that are going to watch this that needed to hear from a pastor like you to say, is it okay for me to engage in culture like this? 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:09:44] What I realized is I was late to the party, but I'm here now. 

Rick Green [00:09:47] Yeah. Which means it's not too late for you. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:09:49] That's right. 

Rick Green [00:09:49] If you're watching this, I'm sorry. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:09:50] Exactly right. So many people are in the church and they're seeing the propaganda on television. They're seeing confusing headlines and they are hearing things in their ears from neighbors and friends and they say, oh, Christians, what do you stand on this? What do you say on that? What happens is some Christians go to their pastors and past say, yeah, no, we don't deal with that there. Pastors and churches are the most trusted source for direction, for morality, for guidance. And so we believe Rob and I and Returning Point Faith and Patriot Academy in this beautiful partnership. That we want to equip all of you to have those answers. And guess what? If you have questions, that's what this is all about. You say, hey, I heard that the founding fathers were deists. Let's find out if that's true. 

Rick Green [00:10:31] That's right. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:10:32] So what I found out was that our people were just waiting on me. They were like, they were ready to go. And when I began to, I thought I was taking a chance, right? I preached a sermon called We Don't Lean, We Stand, and it listed 11 things we stand for. And the whole church stood up and I'm like, what is going on here? I thought people would be bolting for the door. They weren't. They were standing up saying, we're standing too. We will fight too. I say it over and over that America doesn't have a political problem. We have a spiritual problem. We have heart problem. And so my message to pastors is get in their arena. Get in. Why did we sign up to do this anyway? Did we sign up to be safe? Did say yes to Jesus? Because we thought it was going to be a great way to make a living and it's going to glamorous and glorious and fun all the time. No, no, we got into this because we said yes. So I tell pastors, look, stop being afraid. You didn't sign up for this thing to be safe. You didn't sign up just so you could get the t-shirt or the collar or the degree. You signed up to make a difference, to be a change agent in the world, whatever the cost. 

Rick Green [00:11:31] The cost. That's what I hear from you right now. You're saying, whatever the cost is, I'm going to stand up. I'm gonna speak truth and let the chips fall where they may. Before we close this part, you started doing something that used to be a common practice in churches. Pastors would hit whatever the cultural issues were from the pulpit. So they would basically say, this stuff's going on. Here's what the Bible says about it. Here is how we should approach it as believers. And you've been taking three, five, 10 minutes, whatever it is, at the beginning of each sermon to basically say, okay, look, here's what happened last week, guys. Here's how we need to look at it. That's very unusual today. I know I love it, and I hear people cheering at church. I mean, is your sense that if more pastors would do that, number one, their congregation will be better informed, but they would actually be coming to get a biblical perspective on what happened last week and that's a healthy thing for us. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:12:16] Yeah, and that's the idea of having a biblical worldview. And so part of my responsibility as a teacher, pastor-teacher, is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, work of service, all the Ephesians, four things. The responsibility in the pastors, for the first 200 plus years, that's what they did. They equipped the saints. They taught them what was going on through the lens of the Bible, through the lense of scripture. And as I began to study these pastors and what they did and how they ignited the fires of revolution and all that. Then I realize I have a responsibility to do that. I can't just ignore what historically has been done and I can stand in front of my church and say, hey, we need to go fight the good fight, be salt and light, unless I also am doing that myself. What that requires of me, though

Rick Green [00:12:59] You gotta do homework every week. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:13:00] I got to stay informed. I have to know what's going on. I would rather get up and spend time to do that than not and drive out of the parking lot thinking, I failed my people because I did not give them a perspective from the Bible on a particular topic. 

Rick Green [00:13:17] It is, and it's made it an ecclesia. I mean, it really has. That is, you know, in our first course, biblical citizenship of modern America, Rob McCoy talks about that and the importance of a church being that. 

Rob McCoy [00:13:26] Aristotle said politics is the highest form of community. It combines morality with sociability. But you want to go biblical, let's do that. Let's just bypass Aristotle. Let's go to Matthew 16, 18. Jesus is with his disciples up at Caesarea Philippi at the headwaters of the Jordan. He turns to them, he says, who do men say that I am? They say some say you're John the Baptist, others say you are Jeremiah. And Jesus says, yes, but who do you say that am? And Peter says, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. He says, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And this is where our Catholic brothers and sisters get the papal authority, but it goes really deep. He says blessed are Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh in blood has revealed this to you but my father in heaven upon this rock. This testimony, I will build my. Now they know. 

Rick Green [00:14:12] They know. See I would have said church. Most people would say church. 

Rob McCoy [00:14:14] You would have say church, but this is what you call an educated ecclesia. The point is this, for anyone who says that the body of Christ shouldn't engage in politics. Jesus, when he said Ecclesia, he didn't say church. That word didn't show up until 400 years later. As a matter of fact, William Tyndale would be hung and then burned at the stake for translating the word properly from the Greek into the English language. And the word he put was assembly and the translation of Eccacia because Jesus co-opted secular term. He didn't use a religious term, he didn't say synagouge, he didn't say temple, he said ecclesia. Ecclesia had existed in Greek culture for hundreds of years prior to Jesus co-opting it. And an ecclesia was the public square. This is where citizens gathered together to establish the laws to govern their community. And above the door of every gathering of an ecclasia were two words, isonomia and elutheria, liberty and equality. 

Rick Green [00:15:19] Too often the church is not the place where you can ask questions and talk about what's going on in the world and that's what we need. I mean, that is literally making disciples, so you've done a phenomenal job of it. I'm hoping that this course will encourage thousands and thousands of pastors to do the exact same thing and get plugged in. I know it's been rewarding to you guys and you would do it even if it wasn't, I think. I feel that from you that you're going to do what's right regardless of the cost, but I think God's rewarding you for it. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:15:43] I have no regrets whatsoever of doing this, and what I'm seeing is a church on fire. I'm see a church come alive, and I'm seeing disciples rising up. 

Speaker [00:15:53] The congregation needs to understand what it means to be a member or citizen of a Constitutional Republic. And as Charlie pointed out, liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea. And we have to instruct the congregants because it makes them better citizens in their community. And if we wanna love our neighbor, we need to know how to operate within a Constitution Republic. So yeah, it will be a little bit extra on a plate of a pastor, but ultimately when you front load it, you're gonna have a congregation that is going to be remarkable in the community. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:16:20] And I'm seeing our people involved in civil government, city government, schools, standing up and being bold in schools, rescuing and helping J6ers get transitioned back into life. I mean, we're seeing people get redeemed. And isn't that what the gospel's about? 

Rick Green [00:16:37] Sounds like what the church is supposed to do, right? Sounds like actually being salt and light, bringing out the best flavor in the culture, dispelling the darkness. God bless you, man. Keep up the great work. I'm thrilled to be a part of your church. Thrilled to see what's happening, not only here in Fredericksburg, but all over the country. Quick break, folks, we'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show, and we're listening actually to the Rebuild Liberty Course that is now available at PatriotAcademy.com. We'll be back. 

Rick Green [00:18:08] Welcome back to The WallBuilder Show, jumping right back in with Rebuilding Liberty. This is the first class of this new course. It's a four week course. And yesterday and today here on Wall Builders, we got in the first week, or we're about to get the conclusion of the first. Here we go. 

Speaker [00:18:21] Ronald Reagan once said, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. If you're like me, every day that passes that statement becomes a little more real. 

Speaker 11 [00:18:35] Founding father John Adams said, our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It's no mystery that America is in massive moral decline. 

Speaker [00:18:46] What do we do? 

Speaker 11 [00:18:48] Most Americans don't... 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:18:49] I don't have a Biblical worldview. 

Speaker [00:18:52] The further we move away from biblical principles, the further we remove away from liberty and freedom. 

Rick Green [00:19:00] All of us are in this room because we know the culture is crumbling and we want to pick up the pieces and rebuild. 

Speaker [00:19:08] What we need is a new generation of Biblical leaders. Patriot Academy is raising up that generation. 

Speaker 14 [00:19:17] How many of you think that we need to ditch political correctness and kowtowing to tyranny and get back to these values in the USA? 

Rick Green [00:19:29] Welcome to the tavern portion of our Rebuilding Liberty course, just like the Founding Fathers gathered in the taverns and the churches and the parlors. Some conversations are so weighty, so important, they're frankly revolutionary, then they need to take place around the fire or maybe in your parlor or in a tavern close by. I'm not talking about a bar, I'm talking about tavern where you gather to eat, where you gather a discussion, revolutionary discussions about the strategies and the tactics necessary to make freedom last, in the founding fathers' case, to birth freedom, in our case, to preserve that freedom and pass it to the next generation. So we're going to do this just like they did it. And, and I know some of you might be wondering, Rick, why, why do you call it the tavern? I mean, it sounds like you're in a bar. Now I'm actually drinking some Patriot brew coffee, which you should definitely get some up from Patriot Academy. But think about some of the taverns in the founding era, the Green Dragon Tavern. I mean that's the place that was frequented by Paul Revere and John Hancock and all the rest. That's where they overheard the plans to attack at Lexington and Concord and sent Paul Revear on his midnight ride. What about Buckman Tavern right there at Lexington, basically right outside Pastor Jonas Clark's house right there on the Lexington green. I mean that's the place that they had to go rescue John Hancock's papers right before the British. We're marching onto the field, places like Francis Tavern in New York. And that's the place where George Washington bid farewell to his officers. Where not a dry eye was in the room. I think one of my favorites is Golden Fleece Tavern and Dover, Delaware. That's where the Constitution was ratified. That's why Delaware is known as the first state because they were the first to ratify the Constitution. It was done in a tavern, the Golden Fleece Tavern, and then I just went a few weeks ago with two of my kiddos. We actually had a little riding retreat in Colonial Williamsburg, really neat place to to go visiting. Christiana Campbell's Tavern is still in operation there. It was George Washington's favorite place to go. I think he ate there something like 86 times. So get you some shepherd's pie. Get you some patriot brew coffee. And gather around each week in class, we're going to have a discussion right here in the tavern about the strategies and the tactics, really the action items. Think of it that way that we'll spend about five minutes, five maybe ten minutes each week sitting right here in the Tavern talking about what we're gonna do with what we learned tonight. And this first week we're really talking about bringing the declaration back. It's what we'll do throughout the 250th, teaching the Declaration of Independence, taking the principles out of the declaration and talking about how that's the foundation of the country. It came from biblical foundations. And so if we're going to raise civic literacy in our country, we've got to teach the declaration. So the first three steps that we're gonna talk about this week, they all help to raise civic literacy by teaching declaration principles. In the culture. Remember I said tonight we're going to have 12 steps, our 12 step recovery program, and you only got to do one or two of them. So this week let me throw out three options for you. Number one, host a Rebuild Liberty class. You can sign up today for free at PatriotAcademy.com. You get all the videos, everything you need to be able to host a class. Number two, I want you to start planning now for the 250th celebration in your community. Either join with some other people in your committee or start it yourself, but start thinking about what you're going do for July 4th, 2026. Plan that 250th celebration. So number one. Host a Rebuild Liberty class. Number two, think about hosting a 250th celebration. And number three, get the Constitution back into your local schools. You can do that a couple of ways. If you go to our website, PatriotAcademy.com, we'll have more of this in detail, or you can do it in your workbook and in the blueprint for Rebuilding Liberty. But number one, Constitution Day. Whether that's already occurred or you're thinking about next year, September 17th. Get the Constitution class that we offer at Patriot Academy to your local school. Federal law says they're supposed to do it. Most state laws say they're supposed to it. But maybe you need to get a Celebrate Freedom Week pass in your state to give you that extra oomph if you will when you're going to that local school and asking them to study these things. There's more about all of that in your workbook or in the blueprint or at our website PatriotAcademy.com. We can absolutely rebuild liberty if we'll take the steps in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our cities. We can get this done. So pick one of those three steps and take it this week. Start your Rebuild Liberty class. Start planning a 250th celebration. Find out what you can do to get the Constitution in your local schools. One of those is going to be an easy one for you. Make it happen. I'll see you back here in the Tavern next week during week two of Rebuild Liberty and we'll talk about action steps that you can start taking in week two. This has been week one of Rebuilding Liberty. We got three more weeks to go. Some fantastic bricklayers joining us in the next few weeks. Pastor Jimmy, would you close out our week one? 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:24:03] Father, what a privilege it is to do this life. We get to be difference makers and culture shapers and world changers, infused by your spirit, infused by mission from you, a vision from you. And so Lord, thank you for the privilege of reigniting the flames of liberty in our nation again. I thank you that in this season of time, you've cracked open a window of opportunity. And we want to be wise, we want a steward well, the time and the gift that we have, to step into the various areas of culture and engage without fear, without a sense of loss, but a sense that there's so much to gain, to literally pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honors for the cause of Christ and for our nation and ultimately for the world. So, Lord, for those... Who are with us here, who are watching, who are wondering what they should do next. Your word tells us in Psalm 37 23 that you delight in the details of their lives. You order their steps. Show us the next step. Where do we engage? Where do We step into culture? Where do we get back into the public square and get our voice heard once again for your honor and for your glory? And this we will do. Without fear of loss of life or fear of loss of reputation, fear of loss of means, we step into this willingly. We consecrate ourselves to your use and for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

Rick Green [00:25:44]  Next week, David Barton, we're gonna be talking about the principles upon which we're going to build this foundation. Thanks for joining us. Did y'all enjoy week one? See you next week. Alright folks, that was Rebuilding Liberty, week one of this new four-week course that WallBuilders and Patriot Academy and a bunch of other groups have come together to release for the 250th anniversary of the nation. If you'd like to take the full course and see the video and everything, go to Patriot Academy.com, sign up for free as a coach or host, and you'll have the entire course in your dashboard. We listened to week one, of Rebuilding liberty, the new course, and then the next couple of days we'll get week two, and we'll try to squeeze in a little bit of week before the end of this week and then we'll wrap it all up. Early next week, but you're going to learn a lot lots of great material in here new presentations from David and Tim Barton and as I mentioned Lance Wallnau Chris Dunham myself lots of good stuff in here Jim pastor Jimmy Pruitt You don't want to miss it. So make sure you tune in tomorrow. We'll be diving back in to rebuilding Liberty You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show