The Spiritual Condition of America, Politics, Culture, and Current Events Analyzed Through the Lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Who is watching over your city? Hi, Alex McFarland, the guest that we have today on the program, very exciting guest, a new friend and colleague that I just met, Scott Thompson. And he asks a question that you may never have really pondered: that if you're a believer, you're a Christian, you've heard me say it many times that we are stewards, we are to be ambassadors for Christ.
But really, biblically, and Scott Thompson is going to explain and elaborate, we are to be watchmen over our city. We really are. You know, I think about in the book of Ezekiel where it says, Son of man, that's not Jesus, the Son of Man. That was a term used 82 times in the Gospels of Christ, a reference to Daniel. But in the book of Ezekiel, it really means male spiritual leader.
Son of man, God says to Ezekiel, I've made you a watchman over the city. And it says, when you see danger approaching or you see your neighbor in sin and you do not warn him and he dies in his sin. His blood I will require at your hands, meaning we really are accountable to those around us. And few people that I've met in recent times personify. Godly obedience, Christian responsibility, like Scott Thompson.
He's a pastor in Oroville, California. He's written a great book that I want you to be aware of. And I think you'll see why I felt led to have him on the program. His book is called The Watchman's Call: The Watchman's Call: How God Has Called You and Anointed You to Impact Your Community. He's with us now.
And I want to say thank you for making time to be with us, Scott. God bless you, brother. Alex, it is an absolute pleasure to be here on your show and talk to your listeners. You know, it's so important. You know, for 20 years of ministry, I was just like nominal Christian, nominal pastor.
I did everything inside the church from convalescent ministry to kids' ministry, you know, youth ministry and preaching, and knew how to run the soundboard and everything that's typical as far as church goes. Did church planting in Russia, lived there for a couple years, and helped replant a couple churches here in the States. It was in 2014 that God really opened my heart and spoke to me about the fact that he was calling me to this new city, not just to stand behind the pulpit, but he was calling me to the city itself. And I had no idea what that meant at the time. I was unregistered to vote.
I had no political, really anything, not just affiliation, but really any interest.
So what it looked like to be called to a city to me was pretty much like Chinese. I had really no reference for what that looked like. You know, you're endorsed by some longtime friends and colleagues, one Bill Federer. He's been a friend of probably 25 years, and Jonathan Keller of the California Family Council, and Richard Harris, attorney, religious freedom, attorney Richard Harris. And Scott, I want you to elaborate because you're a pastor of a church, and yet you encourage voting.
You encourage Christians to be involved in the political arena. And I have to say that the majority of the pastors with whom I engage pretty much try to be neutral. They'll say, well, Alex, yeah, I just don't vote. My home is heaven. My loyalty is in heaven.
And then even a fair number of pastors have kind of given me a bit of a reprimand. And I'll tell you what one said to me just before the elections in 2024. They said, Alex, I didn't get the memo. And I said, What memo? He said, Oh, I thought we were supposed to win souls.
He said, I didn't know I was supposed to win Americans. And he looked at me and he said, I listened to you on the radio. Young man, stick to the gospel and let the world go its way, or something like what he said.
So it's refreshing to meet yourself, Scott Thompson, a pastor who, sure, our home is heaven. Our number one loyalty is to the Lord Jesus.
However, you've got a heart for restoring this nation, and you're a great role model in that regard. I just want to say I commend you. Yeah, thank you. It is really kind of interesting when you talk to. I mean, I did live that world, being completely uninvolved in the political sphere and really the public sector.
But um You know, I repented. I repented because you know Jesus is prayer. Right. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And there are so many references in Scripture of the fact that God calls us into the world, obviously not to be of the world, but to be in the world.
And now that, you know, for me now, it's been 10 years that I've been an elected official. I've won three terms in office there with our local city council. And, you know, Been around and ministered to from Congress to senators and assemblymen and county supervisors and all that. And it is really sad when pastors do talk about the separation and really having no part of influence, light, or anything with those who really lead our communities because they desperately need our care.
So it isn't necessarily about being partisan or being political, but having a presence in an area that is really dark and needs the comfort, the counsel, the wisdom, the guidance. We complain, we get it. We complain about ungodly leadership. But for some reason, there's this disconnect to the idea and the fact that we are called to actually be ministers. I also look at Christians as well who become so political that their politics eclipses their faith.
And that's not what I'm talking about, where we hold the banner of a president or candidate or a party. You know, obviously, we wave the banner of Jesus Christ, but at the same time, there is that happy medium where heaven is our ultimate home, Jesus is our center, the gospel is our message. But we also bring that light into an area that desperately needs the counsel of the godly. And so that's what I've been learning for the last 10 years, and I've seen the success.
Well, I commend you. It's very inspiring. I want to hear about how you launched your campaigns, and you were very successful at winning seats that were long held by incumbents. But first, I've got to ask you this: regarding voting, what do you say to the Christian who says something like this? Oh, I just don't vote.
They're all crooked. They're all corrupt. My trust is not in a man.
So since. Oh Politicians probably make promises they have no intention of fulfilling. I just don't vote. What do you say to that kind of sentiment? Honestly, it's really a lazy approach.
And there's a couple parts of that. You know, we like to, you know, we call it from the left, you know, virtue signaling, you know, or I'm just too holy. I don't want to get my hands dirty, you know, in regards to those things that are over there. And, you know, if you look at Jesus, Jesus did go into areas that others would see as, well, you're not supposed to be around those type of people. You shouldn't be involved with that.
You should be just basically in this zone and not stay out of that zone. And Jesus pushed through those. you know, really those stereotypes of what it looked like to be a quote-unquote good Jewish person. And, you know, that model of being around the lowest of the low. And we oftentimes consider politicians as the lowest of the low.
In fact, maybe some people would consider a politician worse as a prostitute and a drunkard. But to not vote is really a lazy. Lazy aspect, especially for local. You know, we can often just look to the national stuff, but there is so much influence that we as believers have on the local level. And really, that's the place that I really push for the most because there's so much emphasis on the presidency or the governor.
But you can have, you know, I'm in California. You can have a governor like ours, Gavin Newsom. I don't need to explain what kind of person he is, you know, God bless him. But you can have a governor like him and still, as a local official or vote people in as local officials, that you can protect your community from people like that, which I've done. Oh, we've got to take a break.
We're talking with Scott Thompson. He's a pastor. He's also an elected official from California, and his website is awatchman's call, awatchmanscall.com. Stay tuned. We're going to come back and talk further about our nation and how God might use your life to contribute to the saving of it.
Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics. Teaching in more than 2,200 churches around the world, schools, and college campuses, Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God.
He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith, while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. It's no surprise that CNN, Fox, The Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event. Visit alexmcfarland.com, then click the speaking tab up at the top.
That's alexmcfarland.com. Or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com. Mm. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show.
What can one person do? Could one person make a difference really? Hi, Alex McFarland here. Welcome back to our program. We're talking with Scott Thompson.
He's a pastor and he is an author. The book is called The Watchman's Call, and it's How God Has Called You. Yes, you, dear Christian citizen, and really equipped you, anointed you to impact your community. We're at a big conference called Truth and Liberty. You know, Scott, first of all, thank you for your time, and even more importantly, thank you for your service to God and country.
It's a great privilege to know you. Thank you. Yeah, and as I was mentioning on the last segment, of the local, the importance of our local influence. Any Christian, whether they have a platform or not, can make a huge impact on the local level. In fact, I'll say this about school boards.
Most people look at their ballot and don't even know who their school board members or the city council members are. It is really actually not that complicated for, you know, we know the horrible atrocities that are happening in our school systems. And yet, most Christians, in fact, I'd even ask your radio listeners right now if they know one person on their city council or can mention one person on their local school board. And I found in my travels that Over 90-something percent of believers, even those who love America and love the country and want to get involved, a lot of them, a lot of us, just don't know who's involved. And it's pretty easy for a small group of believers to rally around a biblically minded Christian.
Christian and see them put into our school boards.
Well, and let me say this about city councils, and I know this firsthand from being in Salinas, California to speak, being in Texas near Stephenville, Texas, just outside of Austin. And also in my home state of North Carolina, what am I bringing up? Zoning that was approved for mosques. It was refused for churches, refused even for a playground for a Christian school in Salinas, California. But the zoning commission that was part of city councils in these smaller communities would approve mosques.
And so, folks, knowing your city council members or even running for office, and maybe in your community, a subset of the city council's or city manager's responsibility is zoning. And look, Scott, I travel a lot, 45 to 50 weekends a year. I'm somewhere in the USA, and I'm seeing mosques. And so, folks, this is really important. It really is.
There's curriculum in schools. I wrote a story for the Billy Graham Decision Magazine about several moms in western North Carolina. It was a very, very Sex ed curriculum for basically elementary schoolers, and the moms one by one brought pastors. To the school board meeting, got the curriculum thrown out, but that wasn't enough. The moms themselves ran for school board and then populated the school board with Christian conservative moms who believe in parents' rights.
So this can be done, and you're doing it. And here's the question I want to ask you: like, where? does one begin to launch a campaign.
So you kind of got the vision, the conviction to run for something. What in the world do you do next? That's a good question. In fact, when the Lord spoke to my heart, I had no intention of running for counsel. In fact, the idea was really preposterous to myself because never in my mind did I see myself as somebody who would be an elected official, ever.
I mean, it was crazy. In fact, I told my prayer team, I think I'm losing my mind. But I just saw the need. You know, I met with our mayor who at the time was not following Jesus. I read John Bevere's book, Honors Reward.
And he gives instruction there to honor those who serve in leadership in your communities. And so I just said, well, I'm going to honor the mayor. And I was new to the town. Nobody knew me. Met with her, and just with the intent of honoring her and thanking her for her service, had no idea of her political views or anything.
And our half an hour meeting turned into over a two-hour meeting, which led to her rededicating her heart back to Jesus. And then she invited me to come check out city council. From there, I saw the need, and I didn't first think to go run for office. My first thought was to find other people to run for office. And I was meeting with somebody after I handed out four packets on how to run for city council to business owners in town.
And I was at a church member's house, and they told me about their life. I didn't tell them. What I did that day. But they said, you know, sometimes God puts something in our heart, and our reaction is to find somebody else to do it. And I literally went, ugh, when he said that.
And so I had no idea what that looked like. I was hoping that somebody else would run. Once, long story short, once I decided, you know, I was going to put my hat in the ring after much, you know, much rebellion and much pushback that I had from the Lord, from that point, God had strategically put me in contact with people who were in office. I met with this one county supervisor guy, and he was, and I don't drink, and he was sipping on a whiskey, and he's like, okay, this is how you run. And he just like, he just gave me the whole gambit.
And he's like, you're probably not listening to anything I'm saying. Oh, I'm like, oh, I'm taking major mental notes here. And actually, my book, if somebody ever had an inclination, I have a step-by-step guide in the book of how to run an election and win with integrity.
So there's everything that I have in there from influence. Your council members or your school board members. I even have in there what they do and how important their roles are, and what a school board member does, what a city council person does, what a council supervisor does, all those things, and then the practical, biblical ways that we can have a relationship and influence with them in a way that's actually effective and, which is really important, honors God because sometimes we cannot be a bull in a China shop. We don't want to do that. Yeah, exactly.
This book, The Watchman's Call, really is a primer on how to. Find the office you want to go for and successfully go for it. I want to commend you for saying, you know, being respectful and cordial and not being like a bull in a china shop because I had always heard that, oh, the media is anti-Christian, things like that. Probably 25 years ago, we began to do a lot of media interviews for our youth camps and things like that. And I mean, since then, I give God the glory, Scott.
We've been CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS. I was on CBS with Dan Rather at one point. What I have found, and I was on with John Oliver, who's very, very leftist, if you are respectful. And every human deserves respect. Even somebody who has a different worldview.
I was on with Alan Combs. He was Jewish. He was liberal. Liberal land with Alan Combs before he died. And after the interview, he called me back on the phone, private call, and he said he had cancer.
He said, please pray for me. And I shared the gospel. I don't know where that went, but he said, thank you. He said, you're just very cordial. And speak to us, if you would, that the worldview or the beliefs, the philosophies, where the battle rages, but the person is a human to be loved and valued and respected.
Wouldn't you agree? I tell you what, let's take a break. And when we come back, I want you to talk about that. We're almost out of time for this segment, Alex McFarlane, with our very special guest from Oroville, California, Scott Thompson. Stay tuned.
We're back after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Producer Mike for the Alex McFarlane Show, listen to this. Alex is the Christian voice we need right now.
I love listening to him, and the guests he has on the show are just amazing. I highly recommend his podcast. Great words, Alex.
Well, we give God the glory. We thank the listeners for kind sentiments like that, but we give God all the glory. But, folks, please listen in, spread the word. You're spreading the gospel. Tell others about our programming, and we sincerely thank you.
Um He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Welcome back. We've got a question we posed to Scott Thompson before the break, and we'll get back to that. But I want to remind everybody: please keep our ministries in prayer.
I give God the glory. We had a fantastic summer with youth camps, more than 400 kids prayed to accept Christ. We've got the Conversations That Matter, October 3rd with Muhammad Faridi, Kamal Salim, a Christian Response to the Rise of Islam. And then, of course, it's not too late to look at the calendar for next year: The Cove, the Revive U.S. tour.
So much going on. Articles. I've just recently had a number of articles put on townhall.com, Christian Post. I've been on Newsmax. Please go to alexmacfarland.com and you can see the tour schedule, everything going on.
And also, if I may, ask that you would consider. Partnering with us and donating. The gospel is free. The biblical worldview, God's revelation, it is free, but it takes resources to deliver this free message. And from social media to publishing to airtime to editing, airplane tickets, it takes money to see 7,500 young people a year come to faith in Christ.
And that's a conservative number.
So please, if you would, consider going to alexmcfarland.com. You could give securely online or mail a check if you would. You could just put A-M-M, as in Alex McFarland Ministries, P.O. Box 485, Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, 27313. We are not afraid of hard work, but we do need your help and your prayers, and I thank you.
Before the break, Scott, I was talking about with journalists and just being respectful. Kindness will open a lot of doors for you, won't it? And even though we're in the battle of war, Worldviews, and you personify this to stand for your convictions. Unshakable. But yet, in such a cordial and even magnetic way, talk to us about the importance of that.
Yeah, first I actually want to go back to your plug about giving, how important that is.
So just for your listeners, you know, we've never lived in a time like this where the culture war that we're in right now is raging, and we need voices like Alex McFarland. And if you are able, now is a time to give. I don't know if within our lifetime we will see this window that we have right now for people to hear the gospel. And it's more and so important right now to engage and to give in all that we can. Not everybody can go, but we can help and support.
So back to your question. Yeah, absolutely. Back to your question, though. You know, Doug LaMalfa was my congressman. He died this year prematurely, but he represented the First District in California, and he attended our church and was a very close friend of my wife and I.
The book that I wrote, The Watchman's Call, was dedicated to him specifically because, you know, when Doug really walked this out. When he you can go back and watch C-SPAN, when Doug did pass away, the House of Representatives floor, which is usually known for visceral comments and all the stuff that happens in D.C., we all see it on C-SPAN and TikTok and all the different places. But when Doug died, They spent and I've never seen this before They voluntarily spent one hour, and a member of the House said, We're going to spend an hour. Mimate, his time, one hour to honor Doug Lamalfa. And he opened it up to any person, no matter what side of the aisle he left on.
If you want to say something about Doug, you have one minute. And members on both sides of the aisle. Um in tears. talked about the way that Doug walked. And spoke, and so many Democrats that they said we did not d agree with Doug on one issue.
But Doug was never disagreeable. And I personally am connected to Congresspeople who are Democrats because of Doug's influence and his care for them. And, you know, because we often are discipled by what we see online. And sadly, what we see online that gets clicks is the visceral hatred. If it bleeds, it leads.
And it gets clicks, but it burns influence. And so we must understand as Christians, just because you see something that's really going viral on Instagram, Facebook, or even on your news, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the way that honors God. And when we honor people really as a person, and in that, You come in that spirit of humility, not an ego and pride, and we know everything and they're wrong, because 2 Chronicles 7:14, it still says, If my people who are called by my name, right? If they will tell everybody that they're wrong, and they're, and that's not what it says, right? I don't think that's what it says.
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know, if my people, if we will humble ourselves, so that's the spirit that God says. You know, the first thing He said, if we will humble ourselves, pray, seek his face, and if we will turn from our wicked ways, that is the remedy for the healing of our nation. Not for those people in Washington to get their heads screwed on straight and if they would stop doing this. Because I often say to our church, it is not the fault of those who live in darkness for the darkness.
We have to take account for, to some degree, for the darkness in our world. To some degree, it is dark because of the lack of the light that is shining in the areas that need it most. And we must shine it in a way that honors God. And so that's that walking in humility and being. Yeah.
Well said, brother.
Well said. And part of the reason that what God is doing through you and your dear wife and your public service and your pastoring, part of what excites me is, look, if you can flip a city council constitutional conservative Christian in California. I would think the Lord could do that anywhere. But in your book, you talk about praying strategically for leaders, for government officials, and interceding on behalf of the culture at large. Your book speaks to this so well.
Could you sort of summarize that for us? We've only got three or four minutes left. Absolutely.
Well, first, I'll say this: that if you're a listener, and I said at the first segment, if you don't already know the name of a local representative, whether it be your city council, county, if they're in the county, or school board, that's step one because the scripture gives us that command to pray for those who serve and lead in our communities. And if we're going to really follow that through wholeheartedly, then it's better to pray for them by name instead of blanket general prayers. And when you pray for a leader by name, I guarantee you, God's gonna open a door for you to bump into them at the grocery market, at the gas station. And when you do, If having prayed for them, You get to then say Oh, hey, Steve, or whoever the person's name is. I've been praying for you.
I want you to know that. And hopefully, the prayers that you've been praying for the person aren't imprecatory prayers of God, strike them down and curse them with a curse that boils them. But Lord, bless them. And the best blessing is that a person encounters Christ. And possibly, is it possible if we pray for them?
Is it possible that God might use us? You know, people know who Gavin Newsom is. And my wife and I, because we pray for Gavin, and again, not in preparatory prayers.
So, if God strike him down and let him have a heart attack and all that, but Lord, let him encounter you. Because Gavin and any leader could be driving down the freeway on their way, just minding their own business. God is able, with our agreement from heaven, to interrupt their day, encounter them in the car, and they can weep and repent and get right with God.
So, anyway, when Doug LaMalifa died, a congressman, at the Edit Memorial, there was a whole room full of conservatives, hardcore conservatives. And then here comes in Gavin Newsome. Gavin Newsom showed up. To honor Doug, because Doug didn't care about the side of the aisle the person was on. Doug was willing to work in a way that was just really down to earth on behalf of his constituents.
And so Gavin knew this about Doug. And so Gavin came to his memorial, even though he knew it'd be a room for people that hated him. And Gavin showed up. And so, because he was there, my wife and I just walked over to him in the VIP room because we're also elected and just let him know, hey, Gavin, God bless you for being here. Thank you for showing up for Doug's memorial.
And I want you to know that we pray for you and our church prays for you. And I'm not saying we pray for you that, you know, in a mean way, we pray for blessing for you. And I could tell that in that conversation, even though it was short, there was a connection that was made to know that there was a kind face because a lot of people need to have those positive encounters from Christians. And a lot of elected officials, they don't have those positive encounters. We encountered one elected official we asked to pray for him when he was going through a tragedy, and he stopped.
Back, looked at us and said, Nobody has ever asked me that before. And if that's not an indictment on the church, I don't know what is. We must be praying, we must be obedient to the Word of God, and if nothing else, praying by name for those who lead in our communities. You know, this is so refreshing. And I want to say to everybody listening: elected officials, journalists, these are human beings.
And there's an old saying, one of the mentors I had in graduate school, he's in heaven now, but he said, never let an argument to be won become more important than a person to be loved. And listen, we can debate the issues, and we can go from zero to spirited discussion in a blink. But I truly believe, and I'm going to say this and let you have the final word, Scott. But in John 13, the Lord said, By this will all men know that you're my disciples. If you have the greatest argument, if you can blow the doors off, no.
By this will all men know if you love one another. And that will build bridges to change hearts, minds, and ultimately our culture. Yeah, I just want to leave this with a shameless plug. In the book, it does, you know, because I've been in the office now for 10 years, and I've seen people try to do influence and it just burn to the ground with really goes nowhere. And I've seen it work really well.
And so, if anybody that's listening, you know, does have a heart to have a greater influence, and again, it doesn't matter if they're a pastor, if they have a platform, because anybody can have a good and positive, godly influence in their community if they will simply, because God doesn't need our brilliance, He simply needs our yes. And if there needs a path, practical ways, the book is not just from theory, it's worked out in the trenches of how to do this in a way that is effective and honors God.
So, you can find the book on Amazon at thewatchman'scall.com. The voice you've been hearing is that of Scott Thompson, his website, AWACTHMANS. Yes, awatchmanscall.com. And I want to say thank you, but what about you folks? Do you know the Bible says that our labor in the Lord is not in vain?
And the great Adrian Rogers, he was on the board of Focus on the Family. We knew him. He's in heaven now, but he said, more hangs on your obedience than you could possibly imagine. And so I don't know what your assignment is. I think I know what mine is.
Scott's walking out his assignment. But how about this, as we close? When you feel the Spirit move, get on your knees in a quiet place alone with God and say, Lord, what is my next assignment? And I'm sure God has things he wants to do through your life that will count for eternity. Alex McFarland ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you.
For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmacfarland.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-Yes, God, and the number 1. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us.
We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarlane Show.
