Faith on Trial

A crowded ballroom of people with cheered up eyes as they heard about a pastor gonna be hauled off to jail for 60 days in the clunker.

Not in the Middle East, not in oppressive parts of Europe, but in the good old US of A. And I'm standing here next to this pastor and Ryan Gardner with First Liberty. What a blessing.

Ryan set the stage. This guy's a modern-day hero. Tell me about this guy real quick.

Absolutely. So Chris Avell operates a church in Bryan, Ohio called Dad's Place and he feels called to share the gospel with the most vulnerable, the most hurting in his community. And for that, the city of Bryan, instead of walking alongside him to care for these people in the community, they have criminalized compassion quite literally here because they brought criminal charges against him for violating the fire code and they've now obtained a conviction against him in addition to a civil court order ordering him to shut down under the threat of contempt. So preacher, there you are in your service preaching, holding court, holding the worship time and the authorities walk in there. They, by the grace of God, they caught me walking in. So I wasn't quite in yet.

I was out in the parking lot, but you know, it's been confusing. You know, it's just, it's just bizarre to see. I don't really understand. This is who the church is. This is what she does. We're called to take care of the least of these. We're told that whatever we do in Jesus' name, we do for him.

And so I'm just trying to wrap my head around what exactly is happening. I know that our battles aren't against flesh and blood, but yeah, it was a humiliating day when they had it be the papers outside of, in front of the congregation. Now you shared your journey from atheism to faith. You talked about how you got into being a pastor. I love the name Dad's Church. That's just a cool thing. You're in Bryan, Ohio, not too far from, I guess, Dayton, Ohio, sort of, kind of up that way, or Toledo, that kind of, that second, yep.

We have 106.5 FM out of Toledo and Dayton 106.5 also. And a lot of people up there may not even know about this, but what are the crimes that the area was convicting you of, or trying to convict you of? So the first, so we get, at Dad's place, we get a notice first of zoning violations. And then I was criminally charged with 18 separate counts of zoning violation. It was one for each day. So they said, for every day you're in violation, it's a new crime. So there were 18 charges. By the grace of God, through First Liberty, that those got dismissed.

But then they came back with a fire code violation, and that's what I got charged with criminally, and also found guilty of. Yeah, so there's these legitimate, illegitimate criminal operations going on all over the country. There's trafficking, there's horrible things happening at these brothels in our country, and no one ever says any of them. But Ryan Gardner with Liberty, you know, the Liberty Alliance, Liberty Foundation, your ministry comes the aid of this church, their crime, winning souls, housing the people that have no homes, and giving clothes to the naked. I mean, what in the world?

Absolutely. What we're seeing here is a church doing church-like things. These are things that the church has been doing literally since it came into being.

Seeking and saving the lost, caring for those, I mean, I think James says, you know, caring for the widow and the orphan is true religion. That's what it's really all about, and that's all they're trying to do. But here, the city of Bryan is using the petty tools of government to stomp out a ministry that they don't want in their town.

That's the bottom line of matters. They do not want this church operating and helping these people in its town. And so what they've done is they said, it's a crime because you don't have sprinklers installed in your church. Here's the ironic part, not a single motel in that town has sprinklers. So they could leave the church and go stay at the hotel downtown, and they wouldn't have sprinklers in Corda City. That's fine, but not the church.

So it's blatant discrimination. Now, First Liberty Institute, how did you get a hold of these guys and how have they been a real ministry to you, Pastor Chris? I actually had contacted through a web page, the Department of Justice, and they contacted me back and said, this is interesting, but we move slowly and you're facing criminal charges and we don't really deal with that. And they said, I'm gonna, you said, I'm gonna contact First Liberty and then I suddenly get an email from Ryan saying, hey, I've read of your case, let's talk. Ryan, that's kind of how, we'll take it from there real quick, and how far did this case go?

How intense was it? It's been a fight from the very get-go. So this, I got a call about this case between Christmas and New Year's, so a very down time. And so the first thing you do is figure out, okay, we gotta get counsel in Ohio. And so trying to figure out how to get up to Ohio for his arraignment the very next week, that was step one. We were off to the races to filing a federal lawsuit, and from there it's just been a fight ever since.

It's been a really intense fight the whole way through, and the city has entrenched itself in this position. They brought state civil charges against Chris. They brought state criminal charges against him, and they have not relented even when the Attorney General of Ohio, Attorney General Yost, steps in to this case and says, City of Bryan, you are wrong. You are misusing the Ohio fire code to suit your own purposes in violation of this man's protected religious liberties.

They still won't back down. The City of Bryan thinks that they know how to apply the fire code better than the Attorney General who is charged with enforcing the state's policy, including the fire code. Okay, Pastor Chris, now this doesn't sound as much like your best life now kind of situation. It sounds more like, all those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution from, you know, 2 Timothy chapter 3. How has your church responded to all this oppression, all this attacks from the government? How have they responded?

Are they cussing out law, law enforcement, all that? What's going on? No, they've responded in great faith. Like, it's amazing because we have a congregation of probably 90% new believers.

Oh wow. And new coming in every day, and they're like, this is how it's got to be. This is, you know, we're believers. We're gonna, we're gonna be attacked, right? This is like, yeah, the adjustment Christianity.

Yeah, they are just, it's amazing. They've responded with such grace and patience, and listen, we talked right away, reminding us again, our enemies aren't flesh and blood. And also, what's the Bible say? The Bible tells us to love our enemies. You know, the Bible says, the Bible says that, you know, we're to respond with their, from their attacks with prayer and praise, right, to him. And so, that's what we've told our people to do.

It's like, you don't need to criticize the city. Well, that's the, sorry. Well, that's the voice of Pastor Chris Avell, the Dad's Church. Dad's Place. Dad's Place Church in Bryan, Ohio, under heat, under all kinds of lawsuits from the city for loving and caring for the homeless and for just being a ministry there. And Ryan Gardner, how have you seen God's grace? You're with First Liberty Institute. Tell everyone what you do, because I want to make sure we, people know that there are believers that are out there advocating for ministries like this. Tell everyone what you do at Liberty, First Liberty Institute, and then tell about how the grace of God you've seen in this man's life and in this church's, in this case.

Absolutely. So, First Liberty is a law firm that is dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty across this country. So, we take on all kinds of cases like, like Chris's.

We took on the Coach Joe Kennedy case all the way to the Supreme Court, set precedent for the entire country, overturned 50 years of bad precedence in that case, actually. And so, that is our whole goal, is to make sure that people across this country are able to live according to the dictates of their own conscience and pursuant to their own sincere religious beliefs. And that's what I've seen here. I mean, from day one, I mean, just if you hear Chris talk, you can hear the sincerity. You can hear the calling that God has put on his heart to care for these people. And you can see the fruit.

I mean, you will, you will know them by their fruit, right? And here, you look at Dad's place, you see what's going on. You are seeing the gospel being preached. People who would never step foot in a church are finding a family where they have never had a family before. And so, lives are quite literally not only being saved physically from any sort of physical danger, but even more importantly, they are spiritually being saved. And so, that fruit is very apparent to anyone who walks through the doors. And you can just feel the love of that place. Over your shoulders, Kelly Shackelford, you know, your founder, great man of God.

He's been a mentor to me in so many over the years. I'm Stu Everson and you're hearing the plates being cleaned up. And they're they're busting all these tables because you just spoke and shared your testimony through tears about what God's done in your life through this court case. Pastor Chris Avell, give the church's website and give us a little more information or give a challenge to everyone out there, pastors included, on when it's up when it when it gets rough out there.

What would you say? Well, I'd say, so first of all, we don't really have a website. It's just Dad's place. If you look us up, you'll find us at Dad's place church in Bryan, Ohio. But I would say, listen, Jesus says something there in Philippians 2.

I think it's 10 and 11. It says something amazing. It says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, right?

And so we're either gonna, listen, something's gonna weaken your knees. Either it's faith or it's fear. And at the end, you're either gonna bow to God in faith or in fear.

And so that's true of everyone. And so our calling is that we would bow down in faith and not let the fears of this world, the words of this world, cause us to bow to someone who isn't the King of King and the Lord of Lords. I took a picture, a little selfie with all of you guys.

I'll put it on the Facebook page. Your wife is right there and I guarantee you she has a whole other story about all this and all the miracles and how it's impacted your family. But thank you, Ryan, for blessing and recognizing him. And what's your challenge out there to believers, to pastors everywhere as we get out of here? My challenge to everybody is to stand firm in your faith. Live according to the dictates of your conscience. And if the government comes calling to give you trouble, give First Liberty a call and we'll be there to help you. Hey, Kelly Shackleford, come here real quick.

Now listen, I'm gonna pull you in this thing. This guy's like the ninja master, Obi-Wan Kenobi of Christian, you know, relief and support and legal protection. But you've done such a good job. You've had a lot of cases over the years. This was special to have this pastor up there on stage with you in front of this group of really cross-section of believers and others to hear the quietness, to hear some tears.

You know, the people were grabbing their napkins not to wipe off the food but to wipe their tears. Give us a year, just put this all in perspective. I've just interviewed these two men about what God's done through your ministry and through, you know, Liberty Institute and through his church.

Give us your overall perspective as we get out of here real quick from the words of Kelly Shackleford. Well, look, there's sort of a couple of different things going on in our culture right now. I mean, about five years ago God started giving us some major victories at the Supreme Court for religious freedom, opening things up.

Yet at the same time, this is totally new. These attacks on pastors, these criminal prosecutions of pastors for basically being Jesus. And so I guess what I see is there is a great awakening occurring but there's a force on the other side that is coming to try to stop it.

And thank the Lord for people like Pastor Uvell. And that's what it's gonna take for everybody who's listening. What's gonna happen when they come at you? Are you gonna stand? Are you gonna be faithful? God's gonna come around you just like Chris Uvell. But I'm excited about what's ahead. I'm seeing some major changes in religious freedom and I think God's clearly doing something. We're watching this rise in the youth across the country and so I think the enemy is gonna attack but the enemy does not have the power that we have on our side. I was talking to your son Nathan about the movement of God among the college campuses and he was actually talking to some of my kids about getting them plugged in. It's really cool to hear him share that.

We're getting out of here but real quick, your life got interesting lately. I don't know if we can talk about that on national radio. Okay, just tell everyone real quick what God is, the new role you have like over the whole country, the whole world really. Well the president did something that's never been done and that is he created a Commission on Religious Liberty for the United States. I mean we focus on international attacks on religious.

We never had a commission and I'm one of the commissioners on that. It's a great honor. We're gonna collect information. We're gonna really, we need people across the country to let us know what's going on because we're gonna collect all that, try to help the country understand the problems that are occurring and then really at the end of this our goal is to give the president recommendations for things that can be done to assure we have the greatest protections we can for religious freedom.

These are the freedoms our country was built on and we've got to get back to those foundations. I love it and ministries like yours are supported by gracious, kind people like I just saw something happen a second ago. Very generous person said, hey I want to bless this minister. I want to bless this pastor. I want to bless his wife. Thank you Pastor Chris, Ryan Gardner.

You've been working hard in this case. Give everyone the website for First Liberty Institute real quick so they can support you guys and they can reach out and they can pray for you guys. This is, these guys are frontline warriors. Go ahead. Absolutely.

To find out more you can go to firstliberty.org. Okay awesome and now I'm gonna ask this pastor, I'm gonna put him on the spot. Your favorite Bible verse. 1st John 3, 1st John 3 16. He came right out with that. Wait 1st John 3 16, wait hold on a second. That's, I thought you said John 3 16. Wait wait, quote it for us real quick. Take us home. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.