Saving America or Saving Americans?

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Saving America or saving Americans, what is the difference? Well, we're going to talk to a man of God who's with an awesome ministry called Capitol Commission and wait to hear what they do. Your frustration, your angst, your anger over politicians, oh, all these politicians are all crooked.

This and that is going to change. By the end of this segment, we're praying that you will have a broken heart for these men and women who are our public servants. Love them, leave them, like them, or hate them. They work for the taxpayers, and our taxpayers pay their salary.

What do you do to reach them? That's where my friend Brad comes in with Capitol Commission. Brad, good to have you on the show again. Tell us what God's doing at Capitol Commission, and what's the difference between saving America and saving Americans? I think we've got a, we live in a culture today where we've experienced in our country an awakening, and you know, and I think it's a good awakening. We see the heart problem of our country like we've never seen it, and so we understand, hey, we've got communism that has infiltrated our colleges and our schools. We understand that, especially after the recent Roe versus Wade overturning, just the real heart of people in our country, and it's not necessarily where we thought it would be.

And so I think it's time definitely to pray, but beyond the issues, beyond the votes, we have a call from Scripture that we are to pray for kings and those in authority over us. Now, when you think about that in context, in historical context, that was Nero. Nero was ungodly. If you look in history, he killed his wife and married a boy named Sporis.

You can go back and you can go to Wikipedia and find that out. And just to see the kind of perverted, ungodly leader that he was in a culture where gods, by the way, little gee gods, were looked upon as not being trustworthy, hating humans, making fun of them, and so the Caesars were trying to be the gods of that time. But in that culture, the Apostle Paul is proclaiming the gospel, which talks about a god who loves you, who died for you, and it was changing that Roman empire, and we know it did. And you read through the book of Acts, you read through Paul, and you see the impact the gospel's had. So we are bringing the gospel into the legislative buildings, into the capital communities.

This would be where the legislators meet, where the lieutenant governors, where they assemble. And we minister as missionary pastors. Our focus is looking at that as a mission field. And to do that, we must do it in a wise, a serpent-harmless way. Our heartbeat is to come into that capital in the name of Jesus and bring gospel, hope, and spiritual strength to government leaders.

There are three areas, three words that would describe what we do. First of all, it's prayer, and I mentioned 1 Timothy 2. We actually have a website and a daily reminder tool to pray for your leaders called Pray1Tim2.org. Easy to remember, Pray1Tim2.org. And it takes you right to the scriptural command, and it's actually God's heart. I don't think it's in the imperative tense in the Greek, but it calls us to the heart of God. And by the way, this is the priority command taken from 1 Timothy 1.18 to fight the good fight of faith.

So let me ask you this question, Brad. I love what you're doing at Capitol Commission. We on this program on Truth Talk, I'm Stu Epperson, the host, we often talk to ministers, chaplains. We talk to people, nation of coaches. What do they do? They minister to head coaches.

Why? Because a head coach in many cases has more impact than a parent does. We talk to people with FCA, athletes in action, right, who they minister to these athletes. You lead an athlete to Christ who's got a lot of influence, all of a sudden he can tweet or put on Instagram a Bible verse, a message about Christ that can touch a ton of people. We talk about ministering to different segments of the population, and we have all these chaplaincies with NASCAR and others.

But why not? Why not minister to politicians? I mean, after all, they're setting the policy for our whole country. And in some cases, it's policy that could be very, very good or it could be very evil and destructive to family. And that's really what you're doing, but you're reaching them at the heart level. In your Bible studies, you're not saying, okay, here's how you vote on, you know, H.R.

22. But tell us a little bit practically about how that works out in Capitol Commission. Well, in order to reach legislators, you have to earn their trust. And so pastoral presence is what sets this ministry apart from any other ministry that's coming into the Capitol. So we build a trust with legislators, both sides of the aisle, because we approach the Capitol, non-political, non-lobbying, and non-denominational. We are a conservative evangelical ministry, but we are coming to the Capitol without a denominational name behind us, because the people in the Capitol who are there that may know the Lord are coming from all different denominations when they come to that Bible study. So we minister to them to strengthen them in biblical worldview. But we have to be there, and they have to know we're there, and they have to know we're there for them, and not there to try to convince them to change a vote on a certain agenda.

Most people in our nation either hate their politician, or they think they're a little G-God, for crying out loud, and they want something from them. And so they're caught in this parallel, and often when I speak in churches tell people, hey, if I came here today and told you I'm going to take a baseball bat down to the Capitol, and I'm going to beat the tire of legislators, you guys would probably stand up and shout, amen, hallelujah, because most people are driven in this country by media, no matter what station it is, to anger. And God has called us not to look at it that way.

I mean, we believe in the salary of God. God sets up kings, deposes them, and God has called each one of us to this certain time and geographic location. So we're here for such a time as this, right, Esther? And we are here called to minister to those people that are in authority over us, pray for them, and this ministry is looking at that as a mission field. So encouraging, and you may not be able to friend, to share Christ with a politician.

You may not even know you're elected official. We're supposed to be praying for them, whether we like it or not. That's what we're compelled to do by the word of God. But you can support ministries like Capitol Commission. You're on the front lines, sharing the Lord with them, and encouraging them, leading Bible studies. I love this Operation Timothy book one, taking these guys. You shared offline here with me a little bit ago about a very influential politician who prayed to receive Christ through your ministry.

I mean, imagine that. Are we praying that these even corrupt leaders would come to Christ? And a great way to do that is get them in Bible study, get them in a community like you're doing with Capitol Commission. Real quick, how did you find Christ?

We want to hear your testimony, and we got to wrap it up and hear about how we can learn more about you online and whatnot and support you. Actually, I was carried to church by my Christian parents, and my mom, who was the first one that put her trust in Christ and her family, asked me to pray for my grandfather. My grandfather was a Pennsylvania moonshiner, okay? And so, Mom was concerned about him, and I began praying for him. And then, at the age of eight years old, in a church where – and I still think it goes back to two ladies, Amy and Zell McLean-Smith – were in an auto accident, gave their life to the Lord, and they invested in children. And they led Jack Cadet's Whirlybirds Junior Church. They poured into us. Look, I've got people from that same group that are around the world as missionaries, working in Child Evangelism Fellowship in Zambia. And we go back, and we attribute it to these two ladies that just poured their heart into kids and invested in kids. I was one of those kids, and it was through their ministry and through the preaching of the Gospel in the local church that I came to know Christ when I was eight years old.

Well, now God's using you to lead many to Christ and point them to Jesus through these Bible studies. You're entrenched right there in the front lines at the Capitol. In your case, you guys are in multiple states. You spend a lot of time in North Carolina, don't you, at our North Carolina Capitol? I guess you live in the Raleigh area.

I live in the Raleigh area. I was the North Carolina state minister for three years. Burt Jones is doing that now, and he has 60 different people in Zoom Bible study. And so we are reaching both sides of the aisle in North Carolina, praying for them.

But I am across the country a lot. I've preached in New York, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Wyoming just in the last year. So God is doing some great things, but I'm out and about trying to reach and make people aware of this ministry. And excitingly, we are adding three new state ministers, one in New Mexico, which is a new territory for us, one in Wisconsin, which is a new territory for us. And we're strengthening Wyoming. We had one guy from Colorado covering both states, and now we're adding a state minister exclusively in Wyoming. So glory to God.

I love it. So if you're a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, an interdependent, a non-dependent, whatever you are in politics, you're invited to Bible study. You're invited to Bible study with Capitol Commission to learn more about this wonderful ministry, to contribute to it, to see, because what happens is when you change the heart, then of course the policy changes. And you're focusing on the heart, right, as we end up?

Absolutely. And I think Supreme Court Justice Parker said it well when he said, I stood here and he was talking about LBM. I stood in front of this Capitol with James Dobson and Gary Bauer years ago. And we realized that we have ministries at the Capitol for every issue, but we have no ministry exclusively there reaching the legislators and staff. And that's what Capitol Commission does. What's the website? How can folks learn more?

www.capital.com.org and capital spelled with an O. So it's C-A-P-I-T-O-L-C-O-M dot O-R-G. And I just want to invite you to join that. And Stu, if you allow me, I'll tell you about something exciting coming up in December.

Quickly, yes. December 20th, we are hosting Keith and Kristin Getty. They're coming from Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and to Raleigh. It's going to be at Shepherd's Church. And these tickets go on sale.

I don't think they're going to last long. September 1st. And so go to www.capital.com.org. You'll find a link.

And the tickets go on sale September 1. A great way to learn about a wonderful ministry, Capitol Commission. God bless you. Thanks for what you're doing and ministering to our politicians. And may we all pray for them and remember that the people you might be angry at and even ones that do evil things, they need Jesus just as much as I do. Amen? Amen. Amen. And we are seeing legislators come to Christ. We are seeing legislators being strengthened in their resolve to stand for biblical worldview. And so we ask you to pray for this ministry, support us. And if you are a pastor or if you are a person seeking a mission field, get in contact with us. We've got a lot of states to fill. Love it.