Church & Culture With Doug Sharpe

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We're just getting set up today.

We're gonna probably just a few things, but we've we've got um a lot going on.

There was a lot going actually this last weekend.

Uh we had uh a big day yesterday as uh Pastor Malachi, he had been waiting for a whole year, he finally got married.

Hey, Pastor Malachi.

So he and Rebecca are uh on their honeymoon right now, and and they're still celebrating going on going down uh down in the the whack, the chilliwack.

And uh I'm wearing a floral shirt today in honor of Malachi.

So some last week they were saying about influence.

They said, Brody, you don't really have that much.

I I maybe even mentioned it myself that I don't have much influence in women's fashion.

Some would tend to see the shirt and disagree.

So it's uh I may be influencing somewhat.

Um there is a picture, we did get a picture, but I'm gonna just show you two pictures.

This picture up above is a picture of my lunch yesterday.

Now, you'll notice the clarity and the crispness of the sushi in this picture.

It's so crisp and clear.

This is the picture that I got to share with the church today of Malachi and Rebecca.

It's uh a little blurry, but that's because they were just running through the, they were running through uh the the church.

There they are so happy.

We celebrated with them all uh all day yesterday, and they're just pumped.

There are so many of our youth team went down there, and Malachi just wanted to say thank you for all those who actually went down yesterday and came back uh late late last night uh in order to serve in church this morning.

So if you go downstairs and you see a lot of our children's workers are kind of like rubbing their eyes and they're tired, it's because they were out last night.

Um it's a big uh it was a big day for them.

Um over the last few weeks, we've been focusing on Canada and uh the importance of the role of the church and actually engaging culture in Canada.

And we realize that uh as a church, we are actually counter-culture in our system, in our organization, we're counter-culture uh to the nation.

And the way the nation runs isn't the way we get on board if it's the way we see God, God's instructions, the Lord's instructions on the way we ought to be operating, we get behind it.

But we are always looking at what is the Lord saying to us regarding our nation?

What is the Lord saying to us with regards to leading culture?

And so we look at the life of Jesus and the way Jesus modeled a relationship with culture is that he cared for the culture that he was living in.

He didn't bury his head in the sand, he engaged with culture, he influenced culture, he intended on impacting culture in any way that he had opportunity at any moment, at any time, it didn't matter what gender, what race, what age, God, Jesus was engaging with people, no matter what their religious background was or their belief system was, there was an engagement process that he initiated.

And this morning, uh there are people in the community that carry that same similar heart.

And this morning I'd like to uh welcome up um Mr.

Doug Sharp from Canada Family Action, where he leads citizen action in Canada.

And uh would you just get on your feet today, stand up, and let's just welcome uh Doug Sharp as he comes today.

Come on up.

I'll be taking a seat.

And I'm just gonna just uh tell you I had a few uh opportunities to sit down with him just to text over the uh last uh probably three weeks, I would say.

Yeah, two two, three weeks.

And I just want to thank you for taking the time to actually connect with us because I know you're a super busy guy.

You were back and forth from Vancouver and you were traveling.

And you where are you from?

You're actually based in outside of West Bank.

Is that the one?

Well, actually, my home is in Summerland, and our uh Canada Family Action offices are in Pentikton.

So if you're ever down that way, uh give us a call and let us know.

Come on by.

Yeah, so we're glad to have you here with us today.

Um and I hope you feel comfortable.

This isn't this isn't a uh a natural environment in terms of like giving you just giving you a microphone and just letting you go ahead.

We just wanted to just engage with you in some conversations and be able to uh pick your brain.

We know you're a believer.

I'm standing beside you worshiping.

I'm like, good, this guy's a worshiper.

This guy knows how to worship.

And I'm saying, he's out worshiping me.

I you know, I'm like, he's pressing, you know, when you're around people and they're pressing, they're they're they're pushing you into a deeper place of engagement.

That's what you were doing.

And I know like your heart is not only for the Lord, but by having that heart for the Lord, you're actually saying, Lord, uh like he's giving you a heart for Canada.

Yeah, and so would you just take a moment and just share with us and just just uh uh tell us a bit of your story and how you actually came to be where you're at right now.

Sure.

No, thanks so much, and thanks so much for having me today.

It's just such a pleasure to be here.

And uh actually I sort of got to remember to turn over and say hello to you guys.

That's really good.

Okay, that's what we'll do.

There we are.

Uh actually, I as I as I was talking to uh Pastor Brody the other day, we actually, when we met for the first time, um, I was connected through Pastor Dave, who uh who I met not long ago, and that's just been a blessing.

So, of course, you guys are sort of used to your leadership around here.

I'm just like in the wow stage where I'm still really blown away by this guy and uh and still in awe of that family there.

So so I I I was really blessed to meet them quite a while ago, to Pastor Dave, and uh and I couldn't wait to get here.

I just gotta tell you that because when I heard that you guys were not only, I mean it's our dream at Canada Family Action to have to have a church that will spend a service on taking a look at the culture in Canada, and you guys dedicated a whole month to it, and I thought, wow, now that's a crew that's on fire.

And you guys, uh I I just want to want to uh I've been tracking along with you, and and from my perspective, my humble perspective, uh I'm I'm it's not an audit or anything of what you do here, but the teaching that you've been receiving since July 1st is rock solid, is absolutely rock solid, and you can count on that.

That's you're on the right track.

I agree.

And and and and I I actually uh I have a chance to be in a lot of churches, so so I can so I meet a lot of pastors, and sort of everybody's at a different spot, everybody's at a different place.

Well, you guys are like mission ready, you guys are ready to receive the call, especially after a month.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So good on you, well done.

Uh my personal story started really, it's like any any new believers' story, I would think, back in 2000, uh when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

And the truth is, I probably accepted the salvation part first and then sort of submitted to the Lordship later, but maybe that's a consistent theme out there.

Uh but uh uh shortly after I uh I became a Christian, I I joined a church that uh the pastor was really good to me.

He let me uh he let me worship and get to know the Lord and spend about a year and a half crying and sobbing at the altar and really just developing my relationship with him, and uh and that was really a great blessing for me.

But one day the pastor's wife stood up in front of the church and said, and said, if you don't know why you're saved, because you are saved for a reason, then you need to pray to God that Jesus will birth a vision in your heart as to why you're saved and get on it.

And I just thought, okay, well, I mean, I was a new Christian, so I just went, okay, Lord, I'm following the pastor's uh instructions.

Obviously, I submit the uh good counsel, and I said, bring it to me.

And it was about six months of prayer before the prayer was answered.

And uh, and a fellow stood up in the church one Sunday, it was back in 2001, and he said, and he said, There's an election coming up.

And he said, he thinks that that everyone in the church should probably pay a little attention to this because there's some issues that are being discussed, and he said, I think you should all vote.

And like I couldn't even describe what happened at that moment.

I just I just received that, and I just got so excited, I turned to my wife, I said, That's my calling.

That's my calling.

I'm supposed to encourage people to vote.

That's all I got on that day.

And of course, she was really kind of disappointed because she thought it'd be some big business thing, and you know, like, oh we are gonna Lord bring it, right?

But it was that's all I got at the time, and uh and the Lord just started opening up doors, you know, like he just I all I did was I submitted to that one thing and that I'm supposed to encourage people to vote.

I even I pulled the the young adult, actually they weren't young adults, they were kids.

I pulled the kids out because they were the only ones who would sit in front of me, and uh I said, you one day you're gonna be able to vote, so we gotta get ready to vote.

So that's what I did.

I started encouraging people to vote, and then within a very short period of time, the Lord opened up a door, and in a supernatural way, long story short, I found myself sitting in front of Preston Manning, who was the leader of a political party at one time, and I was his riding association president.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

I had got elected to that position, and and but the Lord had supernaturally sort of set up, opened up all these doors, and there I was completely incompetent, with no knowledge.

Preston even looked at me in our first meeting and he said, he said, you know, really, you have no idea what you're doing, do you?

And I said, Well, not at all, sir, but I'm happy to do whatever you need.

What can we do?

You know, let's see.

I was all excited, you know.

And uh, and but the door was open, and I just knew that I just had to walk through it, just had to walk through it.

So that's what's been happening since 2001 as a new Christian.

Every time the Lord's opened a door, I said, I'm gonna walk through it, I'm gonna walk through it.

And he's blessed me, he's blessed my family, he's blessed me.

I've continued to do it.

I've been uh uh praise God, I've been uh the writing association president for Stephen Harper, I was the writing association president for Stockwell Day, I was an executive assistant for Stockwell Day.

I've been involved in multiple political organizations and uh and campaigns, I've led delegations to policy conventions.

I actually had the honor of serving on a committee that merged the policy books of two political parties at one time, and that was really great.

I remember the one meeting that I went to, I had again one of those times where I knew didn't well actually they all the times I didn't know what I was doing, but I showed up at a national council meeting for the party that I was working with at the time, and I knew I didn't know what I was doing at the at the at the at the meeting.

I knew I had no clue what to do what they were gonna discuss.

So I brought my Bible, because I was a new Christian, and I just set it on the table in front of me, and and one of the other counselors says, What's that for?

And I said, Well, hey, I have no clue what I'm doing, but I know the answer's in here.

So if I need something, I'm gonna refer to that.

And to this day, that's been the kind of the way it's been.

So you're saying that we all need an education and a diploma and something to hang on the wall before we make a difference.

Oh, not at all.

As a matter of fact, I found the less you know, and the more willing you are to just walk through that open door.

Praise the Lord.

Yeah.

How many of you are in that camp right there?

You are in the perfect spot for the ignorant.

That's right.

Well, you've got your your thumb on the pulse of what's happening in the nation.

And uh I I'd like to hear from you where you feel like the nation is moving forward to.

Like I know it's uh your organization, uh Canada Family Action, is a non-political organ organization, much like the church, we don't we're non-partisan.

Non-partisan, I should say.

We are engaged politically, yeah.

We are definitely engaged politically.

So help us out there.

How do how do we as a as a church, and we're a non-partisan organization as well as a church.

And so we where do you land in terms of making moving the moving the organization when politics are always a factor?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's an excellent question because uh because in churches, um, our pews across the country are filled with people who are first followers of Christ.

And uh and I've got a real testimony for that because uh that clarity is important for us to always keep it first and foremost in our minds, because sometimes we can lose ourselves within a political movement.

Uh that's exactly what happened to me.

Uh uh, yeah, I was a fired-up Christian, follower of Christ, brand new, but it was really there was a moment in time where I realized, uh-oh, I had just taken a political party and my loyalty to a party, and I had replaced it with my love for Christ.

And I had that was not my first love anymore.

And so I got that rude awakening, so I encourage everybody, followers of Christ first, then whatever else you do later, right after that.

So uh so as a nonpartisan organization, though, um what we do though is we find ourselves in situations where we can have a strategic influence over the decisions within organizations that are political.

And and make no mistake about it, is that civil government, which which which maybe I should back that up one step, the whole reason why we're doing this is because civil government has the uh power and the authority to make decisions that are gonna either impact the lives of our neighbors positively or negatively.

And that the connection between us is that Jesus has called us to love and care for our neighbor.

So if we don't care about the decisions of civil government, you are saying you do not care about your neighbor.

Really, honestly, because every decision they make will impact the lives of our neighbor positively or negatively.

So what we say is that if civil government is gonna make these decisions and we see a strategic opportunity to influence those decisions with Christian principles that we know, because of great teachers and leaders, we know that that they produce positive health outcomes for people.

We know that I've tried, tested, and proven over thousands of years, we know that that is gonna benefit our neighbor.

So we want to look for those opportunities.

If they're in political political pardon me, if they're within political organizations, we can't hit the bricks at the wall at the gate of that organization and say, oh, I can't go in there, it's political.

Sometimes we have to engage and go within the organization because that's where a change is made.

Right now, for example, we're we're preparing, we're working, uh, and we're working with organizations and individuals across the country, and we're preparing for the for a uh a policy convention that's happening within a political organization at the end of August.

And we have Christians all across the country who are gonna arrive on the floor of the of the policy convention and cast a vote for the principles that we believe in.

And they're going to make changes to the policy books of organizations, but you've got to be inside to make that happen.

So that's to the degree that you become politically engaged.

Don't wear the banner as your shield, don't wear it as it's it's just a tool.

Good.

So where is the nation moving in terms of uh having the pulse uh on the on the heartbeat of where Canada's moving, and your obviously your uh intent and where your head is at right now is with regards to families.

Uh what's happening with families right now?

What do you see?

Yeah, it's uh uh with families, I families are made up of individuals, so we really do focus a lot on the individual members of families and the well and the well-being of individuals within families.

Um but when you're talking about the structure of the family itself, it is under attack.

It is under attack.

There is there is a uh an understanding that I've developed over the years that family is a form of government.

I really do believe that.

Uh just as the church is a government here in Canada, uh, just as the marketplace is a government here in Canada, and civil government is another government here in Canada.

And each of those governments, the family government and the civil government, they all have responsibilities and they have limits of authority and they have limits of jurisdictional boundaries.

Well, what I've been seeing here in Canada in the years that I've become awakened to the realities of civil government and and their and their natural tendencies, is that civil government is unique among all the other governments in that again they have the power to legislate and impact the lives of all the other governments.

So what I've been seeing is is a crossing over, a passing beyond the jurisdictional and authority, the limits of authority of civil government into the realm of family government.

And they're and and the objective, in my opinion, and I all I have is my opinion from my perspective, the objective of many within government is to actually break down the family's authority so that the family government will come under the authority of civil government.

They're actually trying to get the family to bow down under the authority of civil government.

So too you could say about the church.

Now there's a very there's a very good reason why I believe that that civil government's tendency is to try to get the family and the church to bow down to the their authority.

The reason is because those are the two last structures that are actually holding out and saying, no, wait a second, you can't have absolute control over my lives.

So if civil government, as its tendency, is to naturally grow and naturally dominate because of its nate it's it's in its nature, to get if you don't break those two things, you're gonna you're not gonna get absolute control.

So what we do is we really encourage people as individuals to spot those moments in time when government advances beyond its limits of authority and actually push back.

Now I don't want every, I don't want to, we don't promote, if you follow our stuff, you know, we don't have a negative, I oppose this, I oppose that kind of a mentality.

We're advancing our own agendas all the time.

We want to do that in a positive way, but it is designed to march against that pressure that's coming on the family, and that's probably the best the best uh uh comment I could make about what's happening to the family right now.

Well, I think like all of us are part of a family, yeah, and all of us are gonna be impacted by whatever legislation happens regarding family.

And so uh with regards to the family structure, we are we're wanting to come behind and actually support it, but how can a a regular citizen uh do that?

How how do we engage?

Uh specifically, and this follows on on what I uh commented on about the the fact that we promote, not oppose.

There's there's a um there's a political strategy and tactic out there that I learned.

I actually used it for many years when I was activated in that in that realm.

Um and it's where you bait your opponent to change the narrative of whatever whatever you're dealing with.

You know, I mean it's uh it's it's sometimes what what uh political uh activists will do that oppose our worldview is they will throw down bait that we'll pounce on to drive us off of our agendas, to drive us off of what we consider to be our our plan of attack.

Our plan of attack, which we will not be moved off of, is to promote the things that we believe in about the families we live in and encourage others to see the benefits of that.

We don't get caught up in the in the battling, uh uh you know, face-to-face, going head-to-head with people on uh on battling their ideas.

We promote our own ideas and continue to do that.

That's the best strategy that somebody could use.

So there's so what you're saying there too is that there's a there's been a change in the way that uh organizations or and people are relating now to government and relating to change to change in general.

Um and it really it's requiring a creative way or a creative measure of us being able to engage government.

Um I think about social media, I think about uh the the grassroots system, and what we've realized right now is that it a minority can make a difference, and that even just having a voice and speaking out can make a difference.

Are there creative ways that are coming to the surface of ways for?

For people to be able to engage in terms of making change.

Absolutely.

Creative, but not new.

I mean, it's really taken advantage of quite old systems because we're not always the ones that set the rules of engagement within the church.

Within the church we do, but out in the world, in the world of politics and governments where these decisions are made, it's other people that set the rules.

So for example, I mentioned the policy convention that we're attending at the end of August.

There's one policy, I mean, we're talking about change, there's one policy within the policy book of this political party that says that as government, this political organization will not advance any abortion legislation.

And the reality of it is, is and I know that you've mentioned this before here, is that we live in a we you know, sadly, we live in the only democracy in the world that doesn't have any abortion laws.

None on our books.

As a matter of fact, of the three countries in the world that have no abortion law on their books, we're one of three, and the other two are China and North Korea, to give you an idea as to the company we're keeping there.

So if we look at if we look at the desire to change that, and we do it from the right perspective, which is the biblical one, right?

If we if we actually do it with the right heart, where we're focused on not engaging in the battle to change it for the sake of winning the war or winning that battle, but we do it because we believe that the people, by a lack of laws or policies, that people are being harmed, our neighbor, their lives are being impacted negatively by this.

If we do it from that perspective, then we can creatively, perhaps you could say, get engaged in that process, the policy development process, and actually help change policy within political organizations.

Just to give you an idea, uh what the numbers shake out like, you want to be encouraged right now?

Yeah.

Okay, so political organizations.

I the the the uh political party that I'm that I'm uh talking about, I'm being real careful not to mention any names because we're nonpartisan, but it doesn't matter with that.

But a political party typically has about 200,000 members in the party nationally.

If maybe there's a leadership review or if they're gonna pick a leader or something, it might spike up to 275 or 300,000.

Well, at the very minimum, in Canada, there are 11,000 evangelical churches and 4 million evangelicals.

So anybody want to change or influence the policies of a political party?

You know, you could put a few guys together and really have an impact.

There's gonna be 2,000 people on the floor of the convention at the end of August, and they're gonna be deciding on whether we actually take that out of their policy book.

In other words, we are going to enable this party from a policy perspective to advance abortion legislation, to actually put something in the books and law.

And uh and 2,000 people, I mean, come on, if if we all got on the phone, how this one church alone, if we all got on the phone, we could probably fill the place, right?

Yeah, it's true, right?

It's true.

I I agree.

How many of you got oh I can't, I gotta watch what lines I talk about here.

But in terms of like we have an MLA in our in our writing, and you have an MLA, and I know that um many of us don't engage the way we need to be able to engage.

Now you've worked with a number of different MLAs.

Uh you mentioned Stockwell Day, and you mentioned your relationships with others in the in the community, and you're you're in front of them at times and just working alongside of them.

Uh how do we we know that we're supposed to pray for our leaders, but what about just knowing them?

Oh how important is it just to know them?

Know their name, know their kids' names, know their the name of their spouse.

And so when we're praying and we're bl we're we're carrying them in our hearts, we're carrying them with an intelligence and with an emotion and with we're praying for them in a deep way.

Yeah, absolutely.

Pastor Brody, that's the heart.

That's the heart that's needed right there.

Um I worked uh I worked for six years as an assistant uh to uh a federal cabinet minister and um had had an opportunity to work in the office, in the in the actual front office where where we would meet the constituents, the people that would come in and they would want to share uh whatever their what whatever their circumstances are.

The saddest thing to relate to you about that experience, there was so much joy in so many ways, but the number of people that just walked through the door and said, you know, hey, I just wanted to find out if there's anything we could pray for you guys, or I mean just anything like that, or even the even just cut to come through the door and go, hey, I just wanted you to know that uh I I may not agree with you politically, but I just thank you for for the work that you're doing to serve the community, and not thanking me, because quite honestly, I mean I I felt blessed to be there necessarily, although that was nice to hear too.

But you wouldn't believe the sacrifices that elected representatives make, especially from British Columbia, that serve federally because they have to go to Ottawa obviously every week, and it's an extra travel day, and it's the time they come home, everybody thinks that they come on and take the weekend off.

No, they come home and I pick them up at the airport, and then we go to work.

We're working all weekend long.

And so no time with family, the sacrifices are so so getting to know your member of parliament or your MLA is a really good idea because you can encourage them, you can establish a relationship with them, and most importantly, is is that when those issues come up where you want to have input or want to provide some insight and some help, you can have a relationship with them and you can influence, and definitely influence you can do at a local level.

Now, the the enemy, as soon as I said that, I just want you to tell you something.

I know the enemy, because the enemy he loves this battlefield, he loves rolling through the political landscape of Canada, crawling inside the minds of all of the constituents out there, and saying, you know what, you don't know enough to go in and meet with your member of parliament, or you don't know enough about this issue to do that.

I gotta tell you, that is such a lie.

That is such an absolute lie.

You, as a matter of fact, you have within this riding, especially, you're Kelowna Lake Country, a lot of you guys are here.

I got a boundary sheet out there if you want to know what riding you're in.

You have something that nobody else has, not even I have, in your riding.

You have constituent authority.

You live here.

You can you can go into your MP's office in Kelowna Lake Country, and obviously I'm not talking about banging your hand on the table and being obnoxious.

I'm saying you can go in there and you can express your view on absolutely everything, and there is zero expectation of performance.

You have every bit of authority just by virtue of the fact that you live in this riding, and nobody can take that away from you unless they kick you out of the riding, which I don't think that's allowed in Canada.

So, so you can go in there, encourage them, offer your input, offer your advice, ask questions, do all those things.

And you can also invite them into your areas.

Like you could bring them here as a church, you're allowed to do that.

You're allowed to bring people into your church and not to not to you know put them up here and just fire on them from the pews.

That's not what I'm talking about.

But you bring them to find out, hey, how many kids you got, you know?

Tell us about your family, you know.

That's that kind of thing could carry the day a long way.

So you've you've obviously gone over the last number of years, you've dealt with a handful of different issues.

Give us an example of an of something that you had handled at one point in time or you were a part of, that was a huge win for you that that you just look back and you go, man, this was like of all of them, this stands out as like a win.

That uh well, I sometimes just walking off the political battlefield in one piece is a win.

Okay.

But uh probably the the one of the more interesting ones that I it's actually this is this is I this is I don't know why I love this so much, this one, because everybody goes, that's no win.

Uh the last policy convention, I mean this is just one, by the way, we engage in all sorts of different areas, but but politically we we do engage in that area.

But at the last policy convention of a political party that uh that I saw a strategic opportunity, remember, I saw a strategic opportunity for people of faith to have influence on the decisions of that party, and I was in there capitalizing on that opportunity.

That's why I'm there.

Whenever I'm talking to politicians and they look at me and they look at anybody from our organization or people that that that that use our materials, I always make sure that that politician knows follower of Christ first, don't make the mistake of considering me part of your base.

I'm not, I'm in here to have some influence, and if you if I don't like what you're doing, I'm not gonna vote for you.

That's how it works, right?

I mean, I'm not in love with you.

Like I love my wife.

I'm just here to to use the system, right?

Like that's all I'm trying to do.

So I went to the last policy convention, and that was a couple years back, and within the policy book of the political party that uh that I was uh working with, and or working in there within that structure, uh, there was a vote on the floor to remove from the policy book the traditional definition of marriage.

So so it said in the policy book, marriage between a man and a woman, and and there was 2,500 or so people in the room that were about to vote on whether that stays in the book or leaves the book.

So marriage was going to be redefined within that policy book at that moment.

And there was at that policy convention, there was 450 really fired up new people.

Like, you know, after you spend a little bit of time in politics, you get to know who all the players are.

So when 450 young, fired up people join the room, you kind of can spot that they're brand new.

You go, hey, I haven't seen that crew before, that's a whole new crew.

And uh and they were so excited, and they were showing up and they were they were getting ready to vote, and all of them, okay, let's remove that from the policy book, all in favor, and all 450 of them, you know, let's let's get rid of that.

They they they voted to remove it as a block.

It was one of the most well-organized uh political uh executions I've ever seen of a strategy.

You know, they really did a fantastic job.

And of course, I'm all excited, and people are going, Doug, wait a second, they just removed the poll, they they won the vote.

They actually swung the whole vote, and definition of marriage was taken out of the uh of traditional definition of marriage was taken out of the book.

And I'm bouncing around there and I'm going, this is fantastic, this is fantastic, and going, Doug, what are you doing?

Like, this is crazy, this is crazy.

They just proved it.

They just proved that it can be done.

They just showed up.

They all showed up together.

They all voted one way, they voted the way they felt.

Yeah, we gotta sit down with 450 kids now and kind of help them to understand things a little bit better.

But they did what we have been teaching.

They they executed a political strategy working within the rules, they saw an opportunity to have influence, and they seized it.

And they got it wrong, maybe from our perspective, right?

So, but they're young, we can work with that, right?

They show up, right?

So, anyway, that's a win.

So the church needs to show up.

Oh, please, Lord.

But you know what?

You know what?

Do you hear that?

Do you hear that in your heart today?

Yeah, the church needs to show up.

Like we sing about the song, Awake My Spirit, Awake My Heart.

That means just to wake up and and not to get not to get radical, radicalized, or or something.

Or even what you're already doing.

Like you've been called to something else.

To wake up and to engage.

And that that would bring joy to your heart.

Oh, I mean, this brings joy to my heart.

You can spend a month on culture in Canada here in this church.

I mean, I getting a church to what I call mission ready, where mission ready, where where we can just roll in and go, by the way, there's a vote coming up on such and such a day, and this is happening, and this is happening, and we just drop a call to action into the mix.

Well, if you guys are already running down the field, and I almost got to like catch up to you to give you the call to action, that's what I see happening here in this church.

This is a representation of what it is.

Now, I don't mean, I'm again, I'm not a political activist, nobody, please, unless you're called to it, don't step out on that battlefield because you'll have zero anointing, zero cover, zero.

But the the things that God has put in you like the opportunity with constituent authority, for example, you know, I always think about it from this perspective.

Do you mind if I just would just say I get excited about this because this is, I love this.

This is my favorite scripture.

So in Luke, the Good Samaritan, when the Good Samaritan comes across the man on the road that was set upon by thieves.

You don't remember that?

Everybody knows that story, right?

It's just awesome.

Jesus is trying to make this point real clear.

And the Good Samaritan did something, first off, that the priest and the Levite didn't do.

He actually had compassion on the man, right?

Like he had compassion on the man.

But what did he do?

He went over to where the man was.

So, first of all, he served them where they were at.

So I'm not trying to suggest that anybody get dragged out onto a different battlefield.

No, wherever you're at, you can serve there.

You can serve that person right there where they're at.

But the Good Samaritan took oil and wine and poured it over the man, right?

That's the things that he had on him at the time.

And he took the man and put him on his animal.

The animal he had with him at that time.

Whatever you've got, whatever God has given you, if you have an opportunity to positively influence a decision of government, just with what you have now.

I'm not talking about going out and don't go to political school or become a, unless you want to be go to political school, give me a call, let me know if you want to do that.

But if but I'm just saying with what you've got right now, God has given you things, tools that can positively influence the decisions of politics and government that can have a positive influence on the lives of your neighbor.

Just with what you've got with you there and now.

And that's and then and then, of course, further down, if you follow that story right to the very end, what does the Good Samaritan do?

He takes the he takes the man to the inn and then he actually says to the innkeeper, take care of him, and pulls out some cash.

Drops some cash on it too, right?

So went into a political campaign.

Feel free to do that at some point.

But he what he actually did by saying that was he turned to another person and he set policy.

He said, This is how we're gonna take care of the man on the road.

Yeah.

This is how we're gonna do that.

Yeah.

So I'm setting the policy, I'm paying the bill, yeah.

So don't go trying to change the policy because I'm the decision maker on that one, right?

So you see the scripture a whole different way than I'm gonna do.

It's open up every instant through that.

I see people all the time in culture in Canada, I see people all the time that have been set upon by thieves.

I uh, you know, injured people on the road, you don't you don't perform a hundred thousand abortions a year in Canada without there being some women on the road that are injured, right?

You know, and it breaks my heart because there's people out there that are going to jail standing up for that right now, you know?

And within within within our pockets, within our pockets, we've got uh we've got constituent authority, you know, we've got citizen authority, like citizens as Canada, as citizens, we we have this authority.

And we all all we have to do is exercise it.

And that's what we do at Canada Family Action, is we help you to discover what's in your pockets, maybe digging, not not cash, but the other stuff, and we actually help you use it in an effective way to help those people that are injured on the road.

That's really what we do.

Wow.

That's awesome.

That's great.

That's really good.

Um so if we want to connect with you and we want to be like we want to hear more, you inform a lot of the Christians, a lot of citizens about what's actually happening.

Because in in our situation, there are times where we don't know what media sources like how you can't go to Facebook for your news, or you can't go to like online, just type something in.

You don't know where your source is actually coming from.

But your uh your platform allows you to be able to, like your web platform gives you information, allows us to have information on what is actually happening in Canada and informs us that way.

Yeah, it's definitely uh that's that's an ongoing challenge because the uh the space that we operate in, um the the um the web space, you know, it's it's it's a space that is just there's noise everywhere.

You guys see it out there, you know.

It's just like and then actually there's a political strategy that's been employed over these last four years um uh to actually increase the level of noise.

There's actually a political strategy that is to surround, like let's say Pastor Brody gets all lit up, gets all fired up.

Well, there's a strategy to actually surround him with so much new noise and spin that he doesn't know what's up and it confuses him so that he doesn't he isn't effective anymore.

And so that our challenge now is to create these safe places where people can go to get the information that's real on issues like, you know, I mean the the best one was uh uh best example of that, pardon me, is when when we passed euthanasia law here in Canada, probably one of the most uh uh misunderstood pieces of legislation that I that I have ever seen passed in the House of Commons.

I mean, we as a country, uh really the reality was we as a country, a few years back, when we passed this piece of legislation, made a decision as to under what circumstances we were going to kill someone else legally.

I mean, I'm gonna call it what it what it is.

They removed the barrier in the in law that that made it possible for us to commit what's called culpable homicide.

That's the the criminal, the the criminal code definition.

And we had an election at that time, and not one word was said about the fact that we were about to make that decision as a country.

Because it wasn't politically expedient to discuss that issue during it.

So we want to create a safe space where people can go.

There I go, using the safe space word.

My goodness, did I just say that?

Safe space.

There's no place safe.

We want to create a space where people can go to get good information, and and and uh it's coming together.

We've been building it over the last few years, but it's uh we're not there yet because it's a big noise machine we're going up against.

And I'm happy to help.

So you said that there were four areas when you were talking to people that are are the primary kind of like top top layer uh issues that you say as a constituent, as a citizen, you should be aware of.

What are those areas?

Right.

I I yeah I'm gonna answer that question, but I want to tell you where I got that information from first.

It was just uh in the fall of 2016, Canada Family Action, uh uh we really sort of turned the attention inward because we were talking to a lot of people, but we were looking at the number of folks that were actually activated by the information that we were sharing, and and we wanted to increase that percentage, and so we were going, where are we where are we missing this?

So we started surveying the church.

We started surveying leaders.

Maybe some of you took some of our surveys out there, and thank you very much if you did respond.

But we started asking questions of, you know, hey, look, if you don't want to talk about what we're bringing forward, what's important to you?

You know, you tell us.

That's good.

And we got all sorts of input back from the church.

But what we asked them to do, by the way, just so you know, is we asked them to make sure if I was talking to a Christian leader or a pastor, I said, I need you to share with me what is on your heart, but make sure it's something that you would happily trumpet and freely trumpet from your pulpit.

And I also said, but make sure it's something you could also defend in the streets to the unchurched.

So it had to fit certain criteria.

And I said, please, at the very last thing is please express it to me in secular language because I cannot turn into the world that I'm at and start what Jesus said.

That doesn't that doesn't work.

So so I got but I got such amazing feedback, and what I learned was is you know how people always say, I hear this around a lot, I see that the sleeping church or the the number one problem with the church is they're uninformed.

You know, okay, yeah, there's information we need and all that stuff.

That's that's for sure.

But the in the feedback I got back just boggled my mind because it is exactly the heartbeat of the challenges that we're that we're facing right now.

Get this, listen to this, listen how good this advice is that we got from the church.

The number one thing that the church told us was important to them in Canada was that a parent, that we as parents just want the right to raise our kids.

Kids the way we want.

I mean that and that's how it was expressed.

It was expressed in that very simple.

Do you guys agree with that?

Is that popular?

Okay.

Okay, so so here, so let me just give you an idea.

So let just imagine this.

Think about all the every seat in the House of Commons, 338 seats in Ottawa, just that one point alone.

There's three more, but there's one this one point alone.

Imagine if every seat in the House of Commons and every legislature across the country and every province and territory and every town council and every school board and every school board trustee, if every one of those people believed in just that one thing, that parents should have the right to raise their kids the way they want, is that wisdom coming from the church?

You tell me.

Does that sound like wisdom?

Yes.

That was fantastic.

That was so fantastic.

No applaud, that's good.

Yeah.

I'm good with that.

How about the the second one that came from the church?

The second point that came from the church was the church told me that they really want people in the displaces that where decisions are made to believe in preserving and protecting freedom of conscience, belief, and freedom of religion in Canada.

That's important to the church.

That's a good one?

Yeah?

You guys wrote it in.

The third one, the third one is, and this is the heart of the Good Samaritan and what Jesus was trying to share, which came through from the church.

The third one was that the laws and policies of government, whatever they decide on, should provide primarily, as a primary responsibility for the safety and security of the citizens they serve.

So if a law or policy is detrimental and does not produce positive health outcomes, that is not a good law or policy.

Is that fair?

And in particular, the case, the little footnote on the end of that was especially the vulnerable people within the communities that we live in.

That laws and policies, is that a good, if that was the meter by which all policies and laws were judged, that okay, what does that policy have, the impact have on the homeless?

Or the girl who at 16 years of age made a mistake or had made a mistake and is pregnant and considering abortion.

Do you think that that that we might see a little bit different euthanasia law?

Because vulnerable people, I got news for you, I've been there, vulnerable people are at great risk with the new euthanasia laws that we've passed here in this country, but they are in need of amendment for sure.

And the fourth point, this is the thing, again, I love the church.

The fourth point is that it is not appropriate for government at any time to heap debt upon the backs of our children and our children's children.

That's a good one, yeah?

And we know it, we see, you know, we watch government spend money, and we know we're not paying for that.

We know that's not it.

We know for a fact, as soon as debt becomes structural in Canada, it automatically carries an interest rate, and we are talking decades to pay that money back.

That's your kids paying for it with taxes.

That's how it's but the church spotted that.

They see, so so when people say the church is on, yeah, okay, maybe the church is a little bit uninformed because maybe they don't know how to express that and activate that in the in the in the political and government realm.

But they're they're spot on on what's the prior what the priorities are.

How many of our problems in Canada?

Think about all of the individual issues that you face as a parent in education right now with SOGI.

You brought Pastor Dave, thank you for bringing SOGI to the awareness of your folks.

I mean, that this is this is just absolutely a direct attack on parents.

But does that problem go away again if those four things are in the hearts and minds of the elected people in our in our in our country?

So, what we're doing at Canada Family Action is we took those four points and we said, we're building a national voter coalition based on what you told us.

We're actually nation to nation, side, one side of the nation to the other.

We're actually bringing people of faith all together, and we're going to train them and teach them how they can activate those things and create scenarios where they can elect people that believe in those things to make the decisions on their behalf in government at all levels.

And that voter coalition is called Operation Rise, if you want to just ask us about that later.

So you have I you have a table out in the lobby today.

You're gonna be around for a little while.

I'm gonna be around and I'm gonna give you my cell phone number too.

Yeah, that's good, that's good.

Text, text away, yeah, and and you're gonna have information there on how they can connect with you on the web and be a part of like that Operation Rise, which includes phone calls and and updates and items like that.

Before we close, I just wonder if Pastor Dave, would you be willing to come up here and let's pray?

Would you would the church would you stand with me today and uh just take the mic from um from mom and just come on up here and let's pray together.

Can I can I share one scripture before we is that is that okay if I did it just before we pray?

This is this is something that that guides our organization.

Uh uh obviously we we get guidance for the whole Bible, but we see we certain things we sort of hold out in front and we say, you know what, this is a really this is really good advice.

And in Philippians, uh Paul was talking to uh sort of a little bit more mature church, and you guys have been doing this now for a month, so you're actually a little bit, you're more mature.

So this is if you're wondering what's in our hearts at Canada Family Action, as we step forward and take action, as we act, the the the advice of Paul I think is really sound.

In Philippians 1, verse 27, it says, Whatever happens, let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Philippians 1:27

So whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

Not in any way terrified by your adversaries, because I have to tell you that as soon as the people that oppose your worldview catch even the slightest wind that you're getting it together, you're an adversary.

Okay?

But it says here, wait a second, it says, but not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them proof of perdition, but to you of salvation and that from God.

That is a good guiding scripture, and of course, Philippians 4 4, rejoice in the Lord always.

I say rejoice.

Amen.

Isn't that a good one?

That's a good one.

Let your gentleness be known to all men, the Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing.

Nothing.

No matter what happens out there on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, if you come across somebody and they're injured on that road, don't be anxious.

The Lord is at hand.

Amen.

Amen.

But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests requests be known, be made known to God.

And this is love.

This is God's love speaking to you today.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Praise God.

That's where we want to be, right?

Amen.

Awesome.

Praise God.

Thank you so much.

Doug has become a really good friend over these last few years.

We've uh been walking the same walk together, and there is uh a sincerity and a calling upon Doug's life and upon the ministry that God has given him.

It's not easy what he's uh taking on.

I would encourage every one of you to go to the back, get connected, yeah.

Pray for him.

He's taken a lot of shots in the last number of years.

And I know that the issues that I addressed when I spoke and some of the issues that are addressed today are very complex issues.

There's no simple answer.

But the church has got to awaken to the fact that we are facing some very serious challenges that are going to have an impact on our children and our grandchildren and upon the destiny of a nation.

Unless the church arouses itself and rises up and begins to speak the life of God into a country that is lacking that biblical foundation.

Amen.

So, Father, we just pray for.

I just feel like to pray for you, Doug.

Would you just stretch your hands out towards him today?

Father, thank you for men who are standing in the gap.

We need watchmen on the wall that are warning the city of things that are impending or coming, and are preparing the city to, in terms of its fortifications and its ability to defend itself.

We need Christian rationale.

We need to understand how to speak into our culture from biblical foundations and Christian values in a way that a generation and a culture will listen.

We need to care not only for our kids and our grandkids, but we need to care for our neighbor.

We need to care for what they do not see, because you said the enemy, the God of this world, has blinded the minds of unbelievers and believers alike.

He's blinded their minds to the reality of the threat.

And so, Lord, thank you for men who are carrying around a trumpet that are blowing the trumpet in Zion and are warning the church and warning the culture, and uh will stand before you one day and be able to say, I was I was faithful to do what you told me to do.

Thank you, Lord, for that moment in time and a number of years ago now, 2000, when he surrendered his life to you and then surrendered his life to the call of God.

Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness to the call and uh honoring that, you and your family, because we know there's a price that you've paid.

Thank you for being a voice to the church.

Thank you for activating us in a way that will be beneficial to our city, to our culture.

Amen.

We bless you, Doug.

You and your family in Jesus' name.

Amen.