Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilder show taken on the hot topics of the day for me, biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and Chad Connelly from faith wins. Tim and I are in studio, but David and Chad are somewhere. I don't know. You guys hit like 20 cities a day. It feels like sometimes, so I don't know where you are today, but I know you're on the road, so thanks for calling in from the road and updating us on what's going on with the faith wins tour. 

Chad Connelly [00:00:35] Hey fellas, how y'all doing? We are actually in the great state of Maine and the leaves are just turning for the leaf peeper fans out there. But we were in New Hampshire last night and I had a pastor, my pastor buddy up here is our lead guy, did a fantastic job. Virtually every conservative organization, pro-family groups were represented. Multiple pastors came to the meeting last night. Same thing today. Young pastor in Maine had a terrific turnout. Now we're heading to the airport to go do meetings like this in Ohio and Michigan the next two days. So now's the time for seed planting for 2026 and 2028 and David and Cheryl are out trying to ruffle up all the effort we can. 

Rick Green [00:01:16] All right, I know you're saving the country, but high priority here, did you get some good seafood while you were in Maine? 

Chad Connelly [00:01:24] We have not gotten a bit of sea food. 

David Barton [00:01:26] And and I've got a correct you Rick you can't use good and seafood in the same No, no, what we're we're from Texas. It's got to be beef. It has got to be steak and that's got 

Tim Barton [00:01:40] You can't fall into the back. What if, what if you take your cow for a swim, right? If you, if you bring it through the water, then it's kind of like seafood. Uh, maybe different. 

Chad Connelly [00:01:52] Hey guys, we just passed one of those food trucks over here. I don't know what town 

Rick Green [00:01:57] Oh, I don't know if I do see food out of a food truck 

Chad Connelly [00:02:01] Fresh lobster roll. So we passed. We kept driving. 

Rick Green [00:02:05] That you did say some Chad there that that was very interesting. You said young pastor up in Maine. And typically we think of the Northeast is kind of the church dying up there and all that. So, you know how it sounds like you're seeing some new beginnings and some fresh starts there. 

Chad Connelly [00:02:20] Well, you know, we talked about probably a year ago, it was going to be an emphasis of ours and we're actually taking 20 young pastors and their wives to Israel,  November 1st. And so this has been something we've been really focused on Rick in every state, we're going to end up doing a young pastor event, I think in eight states in the next several months, we've got a, a really good one coming up in South Carolina and we've focused on that everywhere. And this guy actually came out of a contact with our pastor buddy Josiah Kagan and his wife in Dayton, Ohio, who, this is their niece, right? And. The niece and her husband took this church in Warren, Maine, and I'm telling you they're fired up. They're tired of losing. They are tired of lefty policies of being imposed on the church. And with all the stuff that's gone on and Charlie Kirk's assassination, I believe there's a moment and I hope we turn into a movement. I hope that we're doing our part to turn into movement that really changes the culture and shifts the country. 

Tim Barton [00:03:21] Well Chad, one of the things I know, I mean, for all four of us, we spend a lot of time connecting, doing a lot similar ministry, often in different directions, but there are people that would look at somewhere like Maine, and Maine might not be the best example, because maybe people are thinking more like New York or California, maybe Maryland, very, very blue, strong-holded areas. And I know for example, in California, there is a signature gathering movement to get voter ID placed on the ballot which if in California they get voter id on the ballad we know the majority not just of Republicans even Democrats support voter id and if you have voter id laws that can make a significant difference when it comes to voter fraud and now granted we know there's some other nuance in California between state and federal elections and not to get in the weeds on that but It's something that I think a lot of times we overlook the opportunities that are there and as you mentioned Charlie Kirk Certainly, there's a new awareness for a lot people because of Charlie Kirk But it for many people traditionally they've looked at some of these very blue areas and thought we shouldn't even waste our time there but we also know that certainly with what you guys have done with faith wins, uh, with some of what's happened in these states and some of these governor races, had it not been for what you, guys, were doing for the church's involvement, some of the elections would have been lost and ultimately we might not have had the house. Ultimately, President Trump might not of been there had it not been, for some churches getting engaged, but of course, that's what you were doing helping get churches engaged, but what do you, what do, you see that makes you think somewhere like a New Hampshire or a Maine or a Michigan. I mean, Ohio might not be that surprising to people, but what are you seeing in Michigan or Maine or New Hampshire that makes you think we need to target these areas to encourage and engage Christians, maybe not just because they generally need to be involved, but because we know they can make a political difference, which ultimately will change the trajectory for the future of this nation if churches get involved. 

Chad Connelly [00:05:30] Well, Tim, you know, I had my team do a breakdown of all these marginal states, blue, purple, and you know there are 10 house districts in the state of Maine that are in that margin. We talk about doing our faith wins, run up the score model, and that's going to the places that a lefty won by two to three to three and a half points. If the dormant church vote, the people sitting in the churches who've given up would just go turn out and vote, you can shift to Maine, you can ship to Michigan, you can shifted to New Mexico, is another one we're looking at. There are a lot of states that fall into that realm. They do have a ballot initiative here. It's yes on number one, amendment one is about a voter ID. The left is saying save absentee ballot, which of course having voter ID would do nothing to change absenteeing balloting, but they're making a hard push up here. And the left has already acknowledged if this passes, they'll lose 13,000 reliable votes already. One of the pastors involved in the issue just told me this and can I tell the Charlie Kirk story? I got to tell you this story because I think it sums up what you're talking about, Tim. And that is just the latent dormant... People out there who are sick and tired of the nonsense that doesn't make any common sense. So after Charlie's assassination, murder, some pastors in one of our text threads, I've got my lead pastor in 20 states on one of these text threads. So I get a text from Pastor Mike Damastis in Iowa, his nephew who rejected God as a kid, tattooed 666 on his forehead, upside down, crosses above his eyebrows. He calls his uncle, the pastor in Iowa. Hey, Charlie says I should be in church. I have my tattoos removed. I bought a Bible. Do you know of a church in a place, Waco, Texas? Pastor Mike puts it in the text thread with my national pastors. Turns out that our pastor buddy that your dad and I were with last night in New Hampshire, Peter Chamberlain, had helped plant a church in Waco, Texas. He tells Pastor Mike to tell his nephew, the nephew shows up, long, long story made short, a kid who rejected God is an eight or 10 year old, tattooed 666, tattooed upside down crosses, hated Jesus. But Charlie Kirk reached his heart, bought a Bible, surgically had the tattoos removed or whatever, and wants to know about a church in Waco, Texas, our little team text the red, church that planted in Waco, Texas and a kid, young man named Devin got saved last Sunday. I say that to say this. I believe God's moving in a miracle of a way. I mean, big time. And we need to be worthy of the moment, and we need be ready, because there are an awful lot of people out there who agree with us. They've not been voting. They've been engaged. That's why we're coming to states like this, because not only do I believe they're flippable, I believe that God's given us a moment to take this country back for him. 

David Barton [00:08:27] Yeah, and let me add to that too, that as Chad mentioned, the left here and Maine says, oh my, if we have voter ID, we'll lose 13,000 reliable votes. Think about that, that they wouldn't pass voter ID if they actually had voter ID. What's that tell you where they came from? If you can't pass a legal test with showing that you actually are here and you got 13,00 that, but we were talking to a rep, a state rep earlier and last night as well here in the state and they said that The Republicans missed having control of the legislature in Maine by a total of 200 votes in the last election. 200 votes would have shifted enough districts, they would have won enough districts that the Republicans have control. So when you're talking about taking 13,000 off of one side, man, that's massive control. And so this is not necessarily a big state. It's only got two congressmen. It's kind of, you know, like the Wyoming's and Montana's and other states that are pretty sparsely populated. Matter of fact, we were talking to one of the candidates in congressional district today, and it is so sparse up here that in that congressional district, there are four people for every square mile. So imagine, every square miles, you only have four voters in that square mile, how many square miles does it take to come up with 700,000, which is basically what you have in a district. So these churches up here are very capable of making that turn and adding the difference, the margin difference, and you can see a whole state go in a very different direction with just as little as 200 people changing the difference in that state. That's pretty remarkable. 

Tim Barton [00:10:03] Guys, one of the things, too, it brings to mind is that the school administrator from Des Moines, Iowa, who recently was exposed, he was an immigrant who overstayed his visa. So he was then illegally in the country. He had gotten a fake degree or claimed he had a degree. It wasn't real from a university. He's leading a school. He illegally obtained weapons. I mean, like just so many things and you're like, wait a second. It's this guy. Who is in America as, as an immigrant came legally overstays. And then, so he's, was supposed to have been deported over a year ago. And he's the head of a school. He's illegally obtained firearms. I mean, this is so bizarre and he's registered to vote and he has voted. And when people talk about how some of these laws are unnecessary, it's discriminatory or we're going to lose 13,000 votes. And you look to see. How the system has been so abused, how oftentimes liberals and Democrats and progressives have defended adamantly that we shouldn't have this. And you have to ask the logical question, why would somebody oppose you being a legal US citizen and being able to show that to vote in an election? And the only reason is because they're trying to do something dishonest and they need dishonesty to promote their agenda. And certainly that's one of the things we've seen. And guys, to that point, and I know we need to take a break in a second, but I would love to even come back and talk about Michigan a little bit. Cause there was some interesting stuff happening with governor's races. We also can maybe even get into Virginia and win some--. There's so much going on. And I know that you guys are not going to all these places right now, but I know, that Faith wins is very involved because I know were helping in some of those areas with some of these meetings. So I'd love to come back and visit that some after the break. 

Rick Green [00:11:58] Alright guys quick break we'll be right back Chad Connelly with us Chad and David are out on the road doing a Faith Wins tour all over the Northeast and gonna hit some other areas as well stay with us you're listening to the WallBuilders Show.

Rick Green [00:14:13] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show thanks for staying with us Tim and Rick are in studio But David's out on the road with our friend Chad Connelly and faith wins. I always have a goofy question So guys, here's the goofy question when David Barton and Chad Connelly are on the Road doing planes trains and automobiles Which one of you is John Candy and which one is Steve Martin? 

David Barton [00:14:35] Well, Steve Martin is older than John Candy, so I'll take the Steve Martin side.

Rick Green [00:14:45] Oh, I was okay. Serious question, Tim brought up Virginia and I always think of faith wins as, as just the, the literal literally the, uh special operations that, that, you know, made the, made, the big plays at the end, four years ago, to win Virginia and here we are, what a month out, uh from that governor's race again, Chad, what's your, what your take on Virginia. And I heard that when some series is pulled. It really close and it looks like a really tight race so it looks deja vu in terms of the church's potential role in putting this thing over the finish line and winning if the church turns out and I was going to ask you if we're doing the same kind of pole watching that we did four years ago to win that one 

Chad Connelly [00:15:29] It's been an interesting thing. Um, David and Cheryl and I were in the Charlotte airport and one of the, uh, consultants involved in Virginia stopped and said, hello, I've been talking to them, Rick for almost the better part of a year and people just weren't animated about Virginia this time it was you know, it was win some. They didn't think she could win. It was the Republican nominee who's a gay guy for lieutenant governor that suppressed the Christian vote who's been not just a bad candidate from a Christian perspective, but a bad campaigning candidate. And they haven't been able to get people's attention. Um, I think that Spamburger's position on men and women's sports has really hurt the left. And Winsom's taken advantage of that, done some great ads, has pulled this closer than the revelation the other day of the Democrat attorney general candidate who said awful stuff about, you know, conservatives should be murdered and... What he was going to do on the graves of the children after he killed them. It was, it was awful. These emails and texts surfaced and all of a sudden people have gotten animated about it. So yes, we have been on the ground since January doing the bare minimum. I've not had enough attention from, you know, national donors and people like that who said, all right, we got to get involved, but we've done our part, David and Cheryl and I were up there for a meeting with pastors. About 35 of them a couple of weeks ago, and they're spread out into the places we know strategically have to turn out. Look, I think it's going to come down to the wire. It's going be turn out and hopefully some people on the left realize they can't vote for the top cop to be a guy who wants to murder his political opponents like this guy clearly said. 

David Barton [00:17:10] You know, one of the things that made the difference in that cycle in Virginia, the last time they did this, was they had targeted 10 state districts or delegate districts, what we'd call state rep districts, and the turnout in those 10 districts was high enough that it enabled the governor, Yonkin, to win just on those 10 district. Now, you're talking more than 100 of those districts, and that was just 10, but they got the turnout high enough by focusing on local districts that it carried the whole state race. And they're kind of in that same position now. There's two really bad laws that if the Democrats win, if Stamberger wins, it is really bad. It is San Francisco on steroids kind of stuff. And so they're working in about seven different house districts now because that's key to keeping that measure from passing. But that will have an up-ballot effect. And people often talk of down-ballots effect. But in this case, getting Christians turned out, getting churches turned out and they have strategically targeted that handful of districts. And that may be exactly what's needed to get Winston Sears over the line. 

Rick Green [00:18:12] Yeah. And of course it's the same for every race that we're involved in right now. If the church turns out, we win. Church doesn't turn out, we lose and it's going to be the same in Michigan. Tim, you were talking about Michigan and I guess there's not a, uh, you're not talking this November, a month from now you're talking midterms, which of course you're, you know, a year away. 

Tim Barton [00:18:30] Yeah, you know, obviously there's primaries that are coming up. And so there's already people because of primaries that are campaigning right now. And so for example, on the Senate side, there's several Democrats, several Republicans in Michigan. And I think Michigan hasn't held, a Republican has not held that Senate seat in Michigan since the 90s. So this is a long time. And Michigan has been kind of a purple-y state for a while, but I would. It's not as strong as a Georgia, but I would like point to Georgia and acknowledge Georgia kind of went crazy for a little bit as far as their general makeup of how conservative they usually are as a state and the fact that they chose two democratic senators, it's out of the norm for them. And I would say for Michigan, Michigan has traditionally been stronger conservative than what we've seen recently, but the fact that President Trump picked them up. Uh, the, the fact that a lot of people have been very discontent with a lot of the progressive policies and Democrat policies, and then even as Chad mentioned, what we've seen with God stirring on the hearts and minds of people since the Charlie Kirk murder and assassination, you know, the thing that's interesting about Charlie, all of us knew Charlie, um, obviously to different extents, uh and different levels, but all of us interacted with Charlie knew him personally in one of the things that I think all of us would acknowledge would be a very consistent position from Charlie is if Charlie would have been told you have some options, right? You can stay around and keep doing your thing and God will keep moving. Or if Charlie was given the option of you can lay down your life and in the moment you lay down in your life, revival is going to sweep this nation and the stirring of It's gonna be on so many people the things that you did on college campuses promoting the gospel are going to be elevated and the kingdom will expand quicker and greater in that moment than maybe over the next 10 or 20 or 30 years of your work and effort of ministry. I think all of us would agree Charlie would have said oh and a heartbeat man if I can lay down my life for the spreading and expansion of the gospel for the stirring in the hearts of minds and people I want to do it and that's what we have seen until like as Chad mentioned It's the reason that there may be as more things in play than traditional pundits and analysts might have imagined looking at the political landscape. And again, even over the last 30 years, looking at Michigan going, you know, the Michigan political side, they've not really been conservative for a while. You know, this Senate seat coming up, it hasn't been Republican since the early nineties, but Chad and dad mentioned because of what we have seen when churches get involved and I think maybe there's a caveat too and I I think any of you guys can speak to this it's not just churches getting involved what we've seen also even since the death of Charlie not in my mind dissimilar to what happened during covid it's put churches in a place where there's there's been a dividing and I won't necessarily say Wheaton chaff although I think it might apply to extent. We've talked about this some and we had Jack Hibbs on and talking about pastors having courage and standing up and speaking out but what I will say is many pastors have found new levels of courage and boldness and what has been missing and absent in the church in several decades has been the development of discipleship of the people in those churches and I think now We are seeing to a greater extent a lot of pastors recognizing that we have to do a better job of discipleship. And discipleship is not just you need to love Jesus. You need to repent of your sins. There's a lot more to discipleship, which we would probably argue. Charlie Kirk was doing a better a better job of discipling the rising generation than virtually any pastor we've seen. But I think a lot of pastors are now seeing that and getting on board. So it's not just that churches need to get involved. It's churches need to do better job making disciples. Of the people that are inside of their pews and at times it means saying the really hard things. It means confronting sin and evil and wickedness very directly and not worrying about offending someone by saying that sin is sin instead in love speaking the truth with boldness and I do think we're going to see some more pastors doing that especially coming in to this midterm election. 

Rick Green [00:23:12] So important. David, Chad, do y'all sense that with the pastors right now that you're going to all these churches and talking to all of these pastors, is there more of an emphasis on discipleship?

David Barton [00:23:22]  Well, I think they're I think it's becoming that way. Certainly the meetings we've had in the last few days, Tim and I kind of started something a week or two back I guess we were at a university in Virginia and talking about that that we see right now is a real paradigm shifting time for the traditional Christian church in America. And it's gotta move away from this thing of everybody say the sinner's prayer to, hey, we need to make disciples of all people like Jesus told us to do, and look at some of the teachings Jesus had for his disciples, and we're not sharing those teachings with our disciples, and if we did, it would change the culture. And so certainly over the last few days and on this trip, that's what we're sharing with pastors is, hey, look at the things that the church is not covering that Jesus did cover. We should be covering the same thing he taught his disciples. We should teach the disciples now. And I think that that will have an impact coming up in this election. I don't know how much, but I do think that by the time the next election comes in two years, it's going to be a very genuinely visible impact. And not because we're saying that, but I think that's what God is having. People across the nation start kind of driving home is we don't need another revival we need a great awakening and there's a difference between a revival and a great awakening and we've gone through enough revivals in recent decades that I think we're ready for a great awaken and I think people pay the price to do what's needed for that great awakening. 

Rick Green [00:24:50] Yeah. And the big difference between, you know, a Jesus revolution and, and what we're, what we're seeing now is that even the people that even like a Charlie service, right? It was, it was not just a come to Jesus and, and, you, all your problems will be solved kind of speeches. It was come to and then do these things and it'll be better for the nation. It'll be for your neighborhood. It'd be better for your spouse to be better, for your kids. So it was literally a discipleship taking place. So there's definitely a, a heart for that tone for that. Hey guys, we only have about a minute left, but give us a preview of where you're headed and the places that you're emphasizing on this particular tour. 

Chad Connelly [00:25:25] Yeah, like I said, we're seed planting in Maine and we're in New Hampshire last night, fly to Ohio next. They've got a Senate race and a governor's race coming up, obviously. Then Michigan, which we think... Our side left a lot of meat on the bone last time quite frankly and didn't do enough with the churches so we're trying to do our part planting seeds in an off year for lining up for 2026 and beyond. But I am very encouraged at what we're seeing and the activity of pastors that are coming out of the woodwork guys So really proud of y'all and what you're doing and we're just trying to our part. Love you guys 

Rick Green [00:25:59] We'll keep up the great work and don't, uh, you know, don't don't burn any cars. Don't do any of the planes, trains and automobiles thing. Just have a great time on your trip. And, uh we know the results guys. Y'all been doing this for years. We've seen the fruit for years, uh I run into people all the time that got involved because of a faith wins tour and getting to hear, uh David and Chad and sometimes Tim going on the road with them and some of the other folks I'll bring in, so keep up to great work. We know this produces good results. Chad, as we're signing off the website so people can go there donate for the tour and maybe even sign up to bring you in. 

Chad Connelly [00:26:32] Yes sir, faithwins.org, F-A-I-T-H, faith, W-I N-S, faithwins.org. Thanks guys, appreciate you. 

Rick Green [00:26:40] Www.FaithWins.org. Thanks for listening today folks. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.