Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for joining us today. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at our website, wallbuilders.com. That's our main website where we've got all kinds of great materials for you and good information and lots of great programs coming up as well. So check all that out at wallbuilders.com and then of course our radio program where you might be listening to even this program or maybe you're listening to one of our partner stations around country, but the website for the radio show is WallBuilders.show. And you can catch up on past programs there as well. All right, David and Tim, Bill Federer back with us. Of course, great colleague of ours that always brings some interesting stories from history. And today we'll be talking about the YMCA. Do we have the music? Cue YMCA, of course, that would sound like a Trump rally if we played the YMCA theme song, right? That wasn't the actual YMCA theme song but it's still funny. 

David Barton [00:01:00] Yeah. And I can safely tell you that the YMCA group that did that music is nowhere close to the YMCA we're going to talk about today. Not even, not even the same, maybe the same universe, but not the same planet for sure. 

Rick Green [00:01:15] That's a good point. Yes. No, this is a, I did not know as I was reading the show notes in prep for this. I had no idea how many people throughout history, meaning like the last hundred years or so had come through the YMCA and had something to do with the YMC that then turned around and did something significant. So this is going to be kind of cool to see the ripple effects. You just don't know when you're planting seeds with other people in your ministry or your family or whatever, what kind of ripple effects might come from that. 

Tim Barton [00:01:43] It really is and just as kind of way of acknowledgement that the book is courageous Christianity by Bill Federer. And also we've, we've known Bill for years, I would say probably decades now. I don't know how many years, but I've known bill we've seen and been around bill a lot over the years. And one of the things also cool about it from guys, my perspective is that this is the first book that bill has done with his son, Michael Federer, and as someone who has now worked with my dad for many years, Rick, obviously with your kids all helping out with so much of what you guys are doing, with Patriot Academy on everything from your constitutional defense to your leadership Congress and your intern programs and your kids are working all over the place. It's really cool to see another really, I would say unique is maybe the best word, um, success story. Of a father and son working together in transition because unfortunately we've seen a lot of transitions with a lot of people's families that haven't been clean. It hasn't been smooth, but as, as gifted as Bill has been in helping find, investigate and tell stories of America. And of course, what they've done, what he's done with American minute and those emails, I've gotten those emails for years and years and years, and actually some of the stories that I now tell, some of the parts of the presentations that I give are things that I've actually First... Encountered from some of Bill's research and work and, and what he did with his son, uh, there's a book on the YMCA and part of the background, I was talking to Bill about this, his son had worked at the YMC and they were doing some research together and I asked him, I think it was earlier this year, I, I was asking him, um, what they were going to dive into. He said, we're going to dove into the Y MCA. And in my mind, I thought, what a weird place to dive into of all the things you could study. All right. You're going study the Y M C A, but As I have learned from Bill and also from my own individual research there There's an amazing amount of incredibly significant influential people in American history that Rick kind of you pointed out have come through and been influenced because of the YMCA and even Even the origins of the YMCA, how the Y-M-C-A came about, why it came about, who it's connected to, this really famous minister from the second grade awakening, there's just, it's so much more to the story. And, and as someone who does get a little nerd geeky in learning some of the stories of American history, this is a really fun story to dive into. And so I'm really glad that Bill and now of course, his son being able to work together have, have gone back to help not tell the story of an organization that sounds boring, no, to tell the story of the people that their lives overlap, those connection, right? The kind of divine providential encounter moments and, and the story that blossomed from it. And that's largely what they're doing in this book, courageous Christianity, stepping forward, uh, kind of the premise that steps out and makes a difference and impact. So I'm really excited to talk to Bill and hear more of his explanation of some of this story. 

Rick Green [00:04:48] Bill Federer, our special guest, stay with us folks, we'll be right back on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:05:58] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us our good friend Bill Federer back with us always good to have Bill and great new book out courageous Christianity American minute comm is where you can get it Americanminute.com. Bill, thank for coming back on, brother. 

Bill Federer [00:06:12] Hey, Rick Good to be with you. 

Rick Green [00:06:13] Man, I love this book. This is fantastic. You do so many cool stories in here Including one I've always loved Eric Liddell, but you cover a lot of them but I had no idea the YMCA had such a profound impact on so many of these areas, so this is going to be fun today. Tell us what started this- you love diving into all kinds of  areas of history, but what drew you to this one? 

Bill Federer [00:06:40] Well, my son was a trainer with the YMCA. And then he more or less ran the downtown St. Louis YMCA way. And,  anyway, he's always helping me to become fit and using resistance bans and watching my diet. And, and so we started looking into the history of the YMCA and believe it or not, it was birthed out of a revival. And so you have second great awakening the revival, Charles Finney. He was a 29 year old attorney Adams, New York. He is walking through a woods on his way to work. Can you get? He's been wanting to seek the Lord, and so he goes into the woods and prays, and he feels that the Lord touches his heart. He goes back to his law office, says goodbye to his partner, closes the door, and Jesus is face to face mentally. But he said that he was overcome. He knelt down, prayed, felt waves of liquid love, and the next thing he knows the door's open. He prayed all night. And it's a deacon coming in his law office in the morning. Suing another deacon wanting to know how his case is coming along. And without hesitating, Charles Finney said, I'm sorry, I have a retainer from our Lord Jesus Christ, and I am pleading His case. I can no longer plead yours. The guy goes out standing in the middle of the 

Rick Green [00:07:50] I'm a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ. That is great. 

Bill Federer [00:07:54] Yeah. And then the guy stands in the middle of the street day and then he drops his case later and, and Moody begins to preach the gospel like an attorney before a jury with his closing arguments and then demanding a decision. And he said, you serve the devil openly. I'm going to call for you to stand up right where you're at and proclaim you're going to serve Jesus openly. He invented the altar call. Anyway, his messages were so convicting that they were read in England by William and Catherine Booth and they started the Salvation Army. And then another guy, John J. Shippard heard Charles Finney preach and he started Oberlin University, which became a hotbed of abolitionism. Started the abolitionist movement there prior to the Civil War. But then also you have a 21 year old drapery salesman in London. His name is George Williams. He started the international Red Cross, Henry Dunant The message was Christian is not just listening to sermons, you got to do something. And so there's a battle between Italy and France or thousands die and Henry  hearing their groans at points, he's walking across the battlefield and said, we need an organization that'll take care of wounded guys, no matter whose side they're on and then of course, uh you had Clara Barton helping, uh Henry Dunant she starts the American Red Cross. And then you have some somebody that went to Charles Finney's church in New York, they brought away Tabernacle, his name is Jeremy Lanthier. And so in 1857, there's an economic downturn, Jeremy Lanther put to sign in front of his little shop that says, come in at noon and pray. And maybe a half a dozen guys come in, next week a dozen, next week 50, next week 100, till pretty soon thousands. And then it spreads to other cities, from New York to Boston, Philadelphia, all the way to LA, San Francisco. And nobody's organizing it. It's called a layman's prayer revival. And in Chicago, you have a 21 year old shoe salesman named Dwight L. Moody. And he gets on fire for the Lord. He goes down and he becomes a volunteer, a quote unquote city missionary for the YMCA in Chicago. And you know, dumping the trash, cleaning the bathrooms, but he sees an abandoned saloon. And so he decides to start a Bible school class for inner city kids. He can barely read. A guy visits there named William Reynolds and he said he saw D.L. Moody holding a black boy, reading the prodigal son story and he couldn't even pronounce the words. And what Reynolds said is God can use that guy, he can use anybody. Well, D. L. Moody couldn't, he wouldn't very educated, but he could recruit people. So within a year, he had 60 people teaching 600 kids. The next year, a thousand kids. And the next year Lincoln gets elected president. And Lincoln goes from Springfield, Illinois to Chicago, Illinois. And he stops off at D.L. Moody's Sunday school class and sits there in the little desk with all the other kids. Then after the class, D.L. Moody says, Mr. President. Is there anything you want to tell these kids? He goes, yes, I started off as poor as any one of you in this room. And if you do what that man tells you someday, you might be president. And so D.L Moody, during the civil war, Lincoln asks for volunteers, 5,000 YMCA volunteer to be medics and chaplains and D.L. Moody is one of them. And the U.S. Army didn't have all the infrastructure. And the YMCA had all the, you know, coffee wagons, and they would have all that the R&R and all the prayer meetings in the tents. And then afterwards, the LOD becomes an international evangelist. And through his schools and everything reaches probably 100 million people. Meanwhile, the YMC a Carter Woodson, he starts the Negro Heritage Week that turns into, you guessed it, Black History Month. The black history month came out of the YMCA and then, you have a Billy Sunday. He is a white Chicago, white stockings baseball player, right? This is before the white socks. It's called white stocking and he's coming out of a bar downtown Chicago, hear some singing from the Pacific guard mission, their gospel songs, you know, cause his dad died. His mom raised him and she used to sing these songs. He listens. And of course he sees a pretty girl. He starts finding out what church he goes to. He goes there. The dad won't let him date because athletes, when their body wears out, they become ne'er-do-wells. They didn't get paid the big paychecks as they do today. But father finally lets him get married and his wife gets him involved in the YMCA and he becomes a Bible teacher there. Well, guess what? He launches an evangelism ministry. His wife organizes it and they just invented radio. So he pioneers radio broadcasting, uh, Billy Sunday, and, um, he reaches the hundred million people. And again, it all started with what Charles Finney, this young attorney saying, I'm going to not going to come down from these woods until I meet gods and, but it has this ripple effect that keeps going out and of course, who attended a Billy Sunday crusade Billy Graham when he was a young boy. And then he reaches like 200 million people, but the power of one person committed their lives to price. 

Rick Green [00:13:23] You always, you always have so many new facts and new stories that I've never heard, but this one, the Billy Sunday, I had no idea he was a baseball player. I don't, how did I miss that? I can't, I did not know that. So he was at Chicago. So it was the white stockings at the time of that's incredible. Please keep going. These are amazing. 

Bill Federer [00:13:42] Yeah, he was recruited by a guy named A G Spalding. And of course that's spalding sports goods. Anyway, uh, you have a Dr. Luther Gulick, and he's the one who invents the spirit-minded body triangle for the YMCA. And he is in charge of the Y M C a headquarters in Springfield, Massachusetts, and they do calisthenics and they have, um, uh, Indian, uh they call them Indian clubs, but they're like Uh, you know, bowling pins that have a long neck and they would be exercising with these things and finding ladders and it's winter time and it's cold and they're doing these calisthenics. And so Dr. Gulick asks the YMCA trainer named James Nazmuth. Can you come up with something more interesting than jumping jacks? So he comes up with the 13 rules for basketball. The boys like it. He prints the rules in the YNCA newsletter that goes worldwide. And it becomes the best evangelism tool. You're in China, and there's a YMCA in China. How are you gonna witness the gospel? Well, gee, you just play basketball outside and the Chinese kids see it and say, hey, you wanna play with me? Show you out. And they like it and you become friends and then you get winded and you sit down, somebody opens up a Bible. They started YMCAs in the Philippines, in India, in Cuba, all around the world. But it started basketball, the second most popular sport worldwide started out of a YMCA and it was an evangelism tool. And then James Naismith recruits William Morgan to teach at the school and he invents volleyball, right? And so they get A.G. Spalding to design a lighter ball than the soccer ball, and then you have the YMCA invention. Racketball, swimming lessons, names the sport of softball. They used to call it sissy ball. Um, the YMCA has the first did they really sissy ball. Yeah. They call it kitten ball or sissy balls, but the YMC is it. And then an interesting line. So at the same time that you have, uh, George Williams in London, in England, this movement got a name called muscular Christianity. And there was a town in England, there is, the name of the town is Rugby. That's actually the name in the town. And they had a school that boys could go to for free who lived within sight of the city tower. And the boys would go to this rugby school and fight, right? They're boys. And so the principal, his name was Thomas Arnold, he said, You're never going to get fighting out of boys, but let's organize them. And so he created a game of so that you could fight with rules and they called it rugby. Oh, wow. It was the game of this. And, um, and of course they would tackle each other. Um, and so you had, uh, a, a guy coach in America with the help of YNCA instructors transferred rugby into football. So rugby had a scrummage or should they shorten it to a scrumb? And it's a moving huddle surrounding a ball going down the field. Well, in America, they took it and they said, let's take the scrumage and turn it into a line of scrimmage and let's move the ball down the feel play by play. The French guy, his name is D. Coubertin had the idea to take these athletes and bring back the Olympics and he recruited Elwood Brown from the YMCA to contact all the YMCAs around the world and send athletes. They call that Olympism and this movement. So the, the Olympics were birthed out of the YMCA, which is birthed, out of this revival that Charles Finney preached and then you had, uh Dale Carnegie taught classes on public speaking at the YMCA in New York. And that turned into his, you know, uh how to win friends and influence people and so forth. The first father's day in America was in a YMCA, Sonora Luis Smart Dot had it at the one in Spokane, Washington, the YMC there. The Gideons were started out of the YMCA. Sam Hill organized a meeting with another guy at the YC because they had little, you know, dorm rooms there that you could rent. And the Boy Scouts. So in 1868, the YMCA Men's Christian Association said, hey, what about the young, young men, the 12 to 18 years old? So they called it the boys' work, all right, the boys work department. And so they had the first summer camp in America, called Camp Dudley, and they would take the boys on hikes and do everything. And in England, the Boys Work Program, doing outdoor stuff, used the manual for survival that a guy named Baden Powell had written. Baden Powell, a British soldier stationed in South Africa during the Boer War. He was surrounded by thousands of Zulus. Anyway, he's able to get his men to survive. He writes on this manual on how to survive, and the Boy Scouts are using it. So he comes back to London and The boy scouts sponsor a book tour for Lord Powell. He volunteers at their camps. And then he writes a book in 1908 called scouting for boys. It becomes a best seller. It's like the fourth best seller of the entire 19th century scouting for boys, it goes to all these different editions, but the boys scouts came out of the YMCA, which came out of George Williams, this young guy in England, in London, who read Charles Finney's sermons and even the jews had the young men going to the YMCA and they decided, hey, let's have a Jewish version called the Young Men's Hebrew Association. And then that later turned into the JCC, the Jewish Community Centers that are around the country. But all these ripples came out of this one young guy, Charles Finney, that said, I'm going to commit my life to God. I'm sorry. I have a retainer from our Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot plead your case. And he would say, look, you don't just hear a sermon, you stand up and you declare publicly you're going to serve Jesus the same way that you served the devil before.

Rick Green [00:20:26]  Wow. So much of an impact. I mean, like you said, the ripple effect became a tsunami, really. I mean that 10,000 chapters in 124 countries, 64 million members. But then beyond that, all the other organizations that you mentioned, the millions and millions and hundreds of millions of people that have been impacted by this, what, what an incredible, incredible just tapestry that, that God weaved with this, this whole story. So courageous Christianity. And so you break down each of the, these stories for people and there's a lot, obviously we didn't even have time to get to, but so much impact from all, all the way back to Charles Finney. And of course, Finney had so many great sermons about, you know, even as Christians being involved in the culture and all these things. So I'm, I'm so excited for people to get this bill. And I'm guessing americanminute.com is that is that where you want to send people? I know you can get it at Amazon and other places. But if we go to American Minute, we get it directly from you, right? 

Bill Federer [00:21:24] Right. American minute.com and, um, you know, so world war one, again, there weren't all the support and so the YMCA, but now you have the red cross and they're all helping all these soldiers. And so they decide to have all of them work together and they call it the United service organizations. And that turned into the U S O. So you go to the airport, Hey, there's a USO for the soldiers that came out of the Y M C A. Um, it's, it' really amazing. This is a young guy, you know, Charles Finney was 29. George Williams that started it was 23. You know, DL Moody in Chicago was 21. And so instead of, you know, those young people that are listening and say, Oh, when I get older, then I'm going to do something for the Lord. No, right where you're at right now, this is the time to commit yourself to the Lord and say OK, God, use me. 

Rick Green [00:22:17] I love it, man. What an inspiration and I want to close with that because that's one of the most important lessons from history is not just to learn these facts and whatever, but what can we do with it? So what you just said is so important for young people to realize they don't have to wait until they're old like us. They can make a difference right now. Getting involved. Courageous Christianity. You can get it at Americanminute.com. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton

Rick Green [00:23:50] Welcome back to The WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Bill Federer always for joining us. Americanminute.com to get Bill's books and also just get on his email list. And always going to find some interesting stories there, guys. I, that was definitely way beyond what I was expecting in terms of all of the touch points that YMCA has had with so many groups that have then touched. I mean, literally hundreds of millions of people. Amazing. 

Tim Barton [00:24:14] And what's amazing is that he only scratched the surface of how much he gets into in the book and the book where he goes through Frederick Douglass and general Douglas MacArthur and, Booker T Washington, right? I mean, just, he just goes through name after name and shows the connection shows where they were impacted because the YMCA where they attended a Bible study and, and I mean really dad, you I'm not just saying this because you're old, but you might remember this. I don't, I don't remember a time when the YMCA was actually focused on young men's Christian association where there was Bible studies. And as Bill pointed out, this is where so many people's lives were impacted and changed was even from the Bible studies, dad, do you remember a time and I'm again, I'm just trying to make a joke about you being old. But I know the YMCA has changed over the years. Do you remember a time when they had Bible studies? 

Rick Green [00:25:02] I think your microphone cut out, Tim, your microphone, cut out the, the ER, it cut off the older, the, the ER part of old, there was what, what I think was supposed to come through, but the microphone might've just. 

Tim Barton [00:25:14] That's what it was. 

Rick Green [00:25:16] Yeah, that's what it was. David, I tried, man. I tried. 

David Barton [00:25:19] Yeah. Yeah. Thank you both very much. I still got it. No, I absolutely remember the time when it was a very Christian organization. It was a very evangelical organization. And for people who are familiar with it now, it's a fairly woke organization. There's not much today. Now I will say that they've kind of moved away from their wokeness in the last few years, and they're not as bad as they were even six, 18 years ago, but it was a very evangelical organization was very pointed toward discipleship and Bible study. It was very pointed toward particularly doing things in urban areas where there was not always the same spiritual support you had in other places. So it was a terrific ministry and maintained that literally for a long time. And hopefully they're getting back to that roots but regardless of what they do or not, you look at the product that is produced over time and the number of great leaders, there's no question the YMCA has had a tremendous positive influence on America over really the decades and the generations. 

Rick Green [00:26:19] Very cool stories, and you know, really, we always want people, when they listen to the program, how do you apply this, you know in your own life? So just recognize that you too can create those ripple effects. Raising your own kids and the nurturing and admonition of the Lord and who they're going to touch and the young people at your church or just anyone you can reach out to in ministry and serve. You just never know where that ripple effect is going to turn into a tsunami. Thanks again to Bill Federer for joining us today. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.