00:00:23.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:30.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:00:43.000It is such a blessing to have all of you.
00:00:46.000And just the Turning Point USA team has worked so hard this summer.
00:00:50.000For those of you that kind of follow us and have been seeing, we did our Young Women's Leadership Summit in early June for 2,500 young women.
00:01:00.000Just a couple weeks ago, we had our Student Action Summit, 5,000 students in Tampa, Florida.
00:01:05.000Last week, we nearly doubled the size of our staff.
00:01:09.000And just to add all of that, we have this amazing pastor summit here.
00:01:12.000And so the TPUSA staff, if you see them, thank them.
00:01:16.000They are doing such a remarkable job for liberty and for freedom and for our country.
00:01:21.000So I want to just start by kind of framing these next couple days.
00:01:30.000Well, a year ago, we launched this project and this program with a heart and a desire to try and help you, America's pastors, to speak boldly with conviction and clarity as our liberties and freedoms seem to erode seemingly by the hour now.
00:01:48.000If the American church does not rise up with boldness, Western civilization will be something that we tell our grandkids about.
00:01:56.000Now, a couple years ago, I met my now pastor Rob McCoy, who you'll hear from in just a second.
00:02:58.000I realized that the church community at Godspeak was hungry for this message, that they wanted to be told that it's okay to care about current events, that they should do something about their local school boards, and that Christians have a moral and biblical commandment to actually contest in the public square.
00:03:48.000Pastor Todd and Pastor Joe, I see so many of you here.
00:03:51.000But let's be honest, you're in the minority.
00:03:53.000So when I started to speak at many of your churches here, Steve Smotherman's church for one in 2020, many of you started to tell me something similar.
00:04:10.000I was just in Albuquerque with a guy that's talking just like you.
00:04:14.000I was just in Bangor, Maine, or I was at Pastor Gary's church.
00:04:17.000And it seems as if you guys need to get to know each other because you might feel like you're the only one, but that is a tactic from the enemy to try to make you feel as if you're in isolation and confusion.
00:04:30.000And so we got to thinking, we prayed about it, and we never had any sort of plan to do this before.
00:04:36.000We said, what if we start a program where we use some of the expertise that we had on college and high school campus organizing and just try to do something meaningful in America's churches?
00:04:47.000Now, when you try to do anything in the faith space, the immediate question you get is, Charlie, what is your stance?
00:05:44.000And so when we started TPSA Faith, we were very focused on the Nicene Creed, inerrancy of scripture, and allowing you, the pastor, to find whatever theological perspective you want to bring to your congregation.
00:07:39.000Now, the reason why so many of you, I know, traveled across the country to be here is you feel a sense of urgency and a massive lacking in this moment of time that the church is not currently doing enough.
00:07:52.000What I also noticed on my travels during kind of the thought process and reflection of before we launched TPSA Faith is people would say, I'm the only one, and also privately be like, Charlie, what exactly do I do?
00:08:07.000I agree with you, but how do I give a sermon properly on the Constitution?
00:08:15.000How do I go and do an election day sermon?
00:08:17.000What are the legal parameters for me as a pastor?
00:08:21.000Because I'm told by all of my pastor friends that we must be Romans 13 and never question the government at all.
00:08:29.000Every one of those questions will be answered for you in these next couple of days.
00:08:32.000I cannot think of a better group of experts that you're going to hear from Bill Federer, from Dave Barton, from Larry Arn, from pastors, from legal experts.
00:08:51.000You're going to have the Jack Hibbs model, who's just total cowboy, where he mails his sermons to the IRS, asking them to audit him.
00:09:00.000That will be on the buffet line for you to choose.
00:09:05.000Or you'll get the Liberty Council update of, we're here to represent you.
00:09:10.000And if you want to challenge the IRS, or here's some safe harborways.
00:09:14.000So you're going to have all of that presented in front of you.
00:09:17.000But, you know, one of the verses we want to focus on these next couple of days is Jeremiah 29, 7, which is, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in, because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
00:09:29.000That is the Lord speaking in Jeremiah 29, 7.
00:09:32.000I am not saying that the welfare of the nation is the most important thing.
00:09:37.000No one will make that contention these next couple days.
00:09:42.000But if we act as if this does not matter, as if this is a component that is not a prerequisite or an ingredient, then the tyranny that I think a lot of us have been warning about that we're all of a sudden shockingly see on the news, especially in the last couple days, I'm not going to be able, I'm not going to live with myself if I inherit a free country and pass down an unfree country, especially us as Christians.
00:10:08.000And here's the thing that I think that so much we have to get better at articulating and challenging our friends lovingly and gracefully is we are the inheritors of a nation that was founded by courageous Christians.
00:10:22.000Let's be courageous Christians as well.
00:10:28.000And so the next couple days, I want to challenge you to meet people you haven't met before, to ask questions that might push your own boundaries, and ask yourself, what can I bring back to my church to advance the cause of liberty?
00:10:45.000What can I bring back to my church to maybe open up my church to allow pod schooling or homeschooling to allow at our church?
00:10:52.000What can I do at my church to educate my congregation on their civic right to vote?
00:10:57.000Calls to action in every single way possible.
00:10:59.000Because here's what I can guarantee, and this is the one thing about pastors' conferences that I know that, you know, some of you, just from some of the feedback, is pastor conferences are interesting.
00:11:09.000I'm going to steal one of Rob McCoy's lines.
00:11:20.000The one thing I want to challenge you, though, is that every speaker might be able to give you one or two or three things that could change your church, change your community.
00:11:29.000And it's also going to say, you know, you might not like that person's theology.
00:11:33.000You might not like what they have to say at one point, but they're on the stage here to hopefully bless you and give you the expertise and give you the information to allow you to become the best pastor possible.
00:11:44.000Let me just kind of close with this before I invite Rob up.
00:12:08.000And so in the next couple days, I know that there will be moments where some of you want to then apply this into action.
00:12:19.000That's the next thing that we offer here at TPUSA Faith.
00:12:22.000So as I mentioned, we have 32 full-time people all across the country that are there to literally help you make this possible.
00:12:30.000So for example, if you feel convicted and you want to bring a biblical citizenship class to your church, we're there to help you make it happen.
00:12:37.000We're already doing it with some of you in the audience here.
00:12:39.000If you want to then do a Freedom Night in America like we do at Steve Smotherman's Church or Pastor Troy's Church in North Carolina or Pastor Luke Barnett's church where we do a weeknight gathering focused on current events around a biblical lens, we're there to help you do it.
00:12:52.000If you see a speaker here on stage and you're like, boy, I'd love to have that speaker come to your church, we're more than happy to help make that happen.
00:13:00.000So it's all in front of you and we want to make it possible where all of a sudden next year we don't just have 400 pastors and wives.
00:13:07.000Why not 4,000 pastors and wives from across the country?
00:13:12.000And so let me tell you about how this conference came to be.
00:13:18.000The person who helped underwrite this conference, we have amazing donors at Turning Point USA.
00:13:25.000And I would say she's a Christian, but she doesn't necessarily attend church regularly.
00:13:30.000And she sat down, we sat down and said, Charlie, what's the most impactful thing that is not yet currently funded that you need help with?
00:13:37.000I said, boy, if we could get hundreds of pastors together in August before a consequential fall, I think it could help change the course of the country.
00:13:46.000And she said, sure, I'll fund the whole thing.
00:13:48.000And I wanted to just go a step further.
00:13:50.000I said, well, really, you don't really seem that interested in church and all that.
00:13:54.000She said, listen, she was raised Catholic, tough experience, long story.
00:13:58.000The point, though, is that she said, I've done the math.
00:14:01.000If the church doesn't actually start to grow a spine, the country's done.
00:14:12.000That coalition of liberty that is there to try to bless you for the next couple of days to make it easier for you to be able to have hopefully some rest and some comfort and enjoy the scenery and the beauty.
00:14:22.000But also, from our picture as a country right now, the forces to be, they want pastors to do nothing right now.
00:14:54.000Praise God that this is able to come together the way it did.
00:14:56.000And so challenge yourself, challenge your friends, and just love on our speakers as they present to you what I think is just an amazingly robust program.
00:16:20.000Um, and that's okay because, Rob, how many stories have we seen of pastors that were, boy, I'm uncertain about speaking about this, but now two years later, they're vocal, they're empowered, they're leaning in on these issues.
00:16:33.000Yeah, and talk a little bit about that.
00:16:35.000I was thinking that the first person came to mind was John Randall.
00:16:38.000He's in here the last couple days, and it was his kids that said, You got to listen to Charlie Kirk.
00:16:41.000And he's he was the ATPs like me, and you're just looking at it going, Well, I'm not really sure.
00:16:45.000You know, I just preach the gospel, I don't do politics.
00:16:48.000And then all of a sudden, John starts to realize that even if you believe in a separation of church and state, you're watching the state come into the church.
00:16:55.000And wherever you are on that, we're seeing you know this.
00:16:58.000It's never been done like this in the history of our country.
00:17:01.000So, watching John take a stand and seeing San Clemente blessed by that movement.
00:17:07.000And I think, like I've told you, pastors are peace-loving, but the misconception is that peace is the absence of conflict.
00:17:14.000And it's not, it's the presence of Christ in the midst of the conflict.
00:17:17.000And we think, well, you know, we're submit to authority like you had alluded to with Romans 13, but that doesn't mean unlimited submission to tyranny.
00:17:39.000Because I remember when I first met you at that conference at Don Dix, who's gone to be with the Lord, he had put on at the conservative radio thing in Ontario.
00:17:46.000And you said, I didn't know a guy like you existed.
00:17:50.000I said, I didn't know a guy like you existed.
00:17:52.00026-year-old, you know, conservative going on campuses.
00:17:55.000Like, you have a death wish or something.
00:17:58.000And it just from there, we started to realize there's a part missing.
00:18:02.000And the church desperately needed what you were sharing.
00:18:06.000And I, being in politics, I had to understand the issues better.
00:18:10.000And I'm grateful for what God's done with you.
00:18:12.000Yeah, on the Romans 13 deal, I got this from Bill Federer, who you'll hear a couple tomorrow, I think, which is, you know, a lot of pastors will say, hey, we have to submit to Romans 13.
00:18:22.000Well, the founding fathers gave us an amazing gift, which is, you know, it says in Romans 13, submit to all rulers and those in authority.
00:18:28.000Well, we, the people, are the rulers and the authority in the Constitutional Republic.
00:18:33.000And so technically, the mayors, the governors, the congresspeople, and the presidents, they should submit to us.
00:18:40.000And, you know, in the time in Rome, okay, you know, whoever's the emperor of Rome, Nero after that.
00:18:46.000But in this country, the people are the sovereign.
00:18:48.000That little civic education, I know, inspired some pastors in this room to feel even more empowered to take a stand against the tyranny.
00:18:56.000And you're right, Rob, you know, for a long time they said, you know, separation of church and state, which is not in the Constitution.
00:19:02.000And, you know, one, a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention, which actually was trying to tell the Baptists the state wouldn't come after them.
00:19:11.000However, even if that was true, you're so right, Rob.
00:19:14.000That means the church never should have been shut down.
00:19:16.000That means the church never should have been subject to vaccine mandates.
00:19:19.000That means the church never should have been subject to mask mandates.
00:19:22.000If separation of church was actually ever true, what they're really trying to say is, hey, you Christians, please don't get involved because you outnumber us.
00:19:31.000I learned this from not only Bill Federer, but also David Barton and Rick Green, Jonathan Mayhew, who died in 1766.
00:19:39.000But John Adams attributed this exegetical work of Romans 13.
00:19:42.000He attributed the War of Independence to Mayhew because he looked at Romans 13 and he said that God appoints all positions of authority were to submit to him.
00:19:50.000But he said, but they're there for our good.
00:19:52.000And when they cease to do good, they cease to be the authority.
00:19:55.000And he coined the term disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God.
00:19:58.000And that's what John Adams said started the War of Independence.
00:20:01.000And they needed the politicians, politicians are actors performing a script written by the audience.
00:20:07.000And God gave the sovereign in this country, we the people, a president needs a cabinet, a king needs counselors.
00:20:14.000Our founders in their wisdom gave the people a counselor in the First Amendment.
00:20:18.000The press, the pulpit, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to peacefully assemble for right of redress of grievances.
00:20:48.000You know, you see the eloquence in the Declaration of Independence when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary.
00:20:53.000And then you see the preamble of the Constitution, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.
00:20:58.000They establish the three branches of government, and the one branch which is most powerful, that holds the purse strings, is the one we directly elect, which is the Congress.
00:21:06.000And then they write the First Amendment.
00:21:26.000Now, Rob, some pastors will say, if I speak out on this, I will lose attendance, I will lose tithes and offerings, of which I say, so what?
00:21:46.000Because I look around the room right now that the pastors that I know that have taken the boldest stands over the last two years have actually seen their attendance grow.
00:21:55.000They need bigger buildings and their tithes and offerings have increased.
00:21:59.000So talk about even if that were true, or if one day that will be true, who cares?
00:22:04.000Secondly, Rob, your church has been blessed beyond imagination since the government came after you.
00:22:14.000So when we were given the restraining order by the county and the state, I asked our attorney what we would lose, and there was a legal pad full of, you know, you lose your house, you lose your church, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:22:25.000You're going to get, you know, your son loses NRTC scholarship, all these things.
00:24:06.000We baptized more people in a year than the attendance of the church was a year ago.
00:24:16.000The accusation I got is we preach the gospel as though insinuating I don't.
00:24:21.000You want to hear some of the stories of the folks who come to Christ, agnostics.
00:24:25.000There was an atheist who owned a gun store, and he came out on the day that we violated the restraining order when they were going to give a thousand citations.
00:24:31.000He had a sign that said, it took this SHI, and then you can fill in the last letter.
00:24:36.000He said, it took this SHI to get this atheist to come to church.
00:25:14.000So, Rob, in closing here, before we welcome Pastor Juergen, can you just talk a little bit about kind of the buffet line we've developed at TPUSA Faith of different options, different takeaways that they'll hear the next couple of days.
00:25:26.000Biblical citizenship, Freedom Night in America, the different speakers, the regional pastors' events, the booklets, the materials, and how your church has incorporated some of those things.
00:25:36.000Yeah, so when Charlie and I were just conceiving or thinking about getting a room full of pastors that, you know, theologically are, I call it the island of misfit toys.
00:25:48.000We've got five-point Calvinists swinging from the chandelier, charismatics, and kind of in the middle.
00:25:52.000Calvary's, we believe the gifts are today, but we keep them in the closet.
00:26:22.000So we've got biblical citizenship to understand historically, footnoted with absolute accuracy by the best scholars imaginable, an understanding of a history of this nation so that if you forget your past, Jesus always said, remember, the Lord always said, remember.
00:26:37.000The longest running family meal in world history is the Passover.
00:26:40.000Remember, you were once slaves, you're now free.
00:26:42.000This is critical to remember who you are.
00:26:48.000We also do this idea where we have this education that has been obliterated in California and brilliant Turning Point Academy where we can provide any family in America for $1,500 a year an education with certified teachers and pods that are, it's remarkable.