The Daily Signal - Kris Vallotton on Community Impact, Culture and Political Discord

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

The "Bethel effect" is the term being used to describe the community impact of Bethel Church in Redding, CA. Bethel has gained national and international attention for their hands on approach to serving their city. Pastor Kris Vallotton joins The Daily Signal podcast to explain how and why Bethel Church has chosen to love their community through action. He also explains how we can have real political impact and engage in dialogue with those who hold to different political views than our own. Learn more about the work of Bethel Church and Kris Vallotton, check out these links: https://www.krisvallotton.com/ https://www.bethel.com/ Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Snap up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale. With 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past. And with their latest update, they'll discover their family origins like never before. With even more precise regions and new and exclusive features, their best gift, our lowest price. 50% off Ancestry DNA, only until December 2nd. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, January 27th.

I'm Robert Blewey. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we are talking with Chris Vallaton, a pastor from Bethel Church in Reading, California. Chris is also a best-selling author, international speaker and culture leader. He shares strategy for community impact and influence and discusses how we can engage in dialogue with those who we don't agree with politically. We also share your letters to the editor and a clip from President. Trump's remarks at the 47th annual March for Life, which took place in Washington this past Friday.

Before we dive into today's show, Rob and I want to tell you about one of our other favorite podcasts. It's called Heritage Explains. And every week hosts Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher break down complex policy issues at a 101 level. You will learn about what's going on in Ukraine, where the impeachment trial stands, and how much Medicare for all would actually cost the American people. Heritage explains offers quick 10 to 15 minute explainers that bring you up to speed in an entertaining way. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now stay tuned for today's show. Coming up next. I am joined by Pastor Chris Valleton of Bethel Church in Redding, California. He's also a best-selling

author, international speaker, and culture leader. Pastor Chris, thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Chris, you're the senior associate leader of Bethel Church and co-founder of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. And Bethel has been gaining the attention of not just the church community, but really people all over the world for quite some time. But recently, a lot of that attention has been focused around Bethel's community impact, which we're going to discuss a bit today. And in fact, there's been a phrase coined in Reading for this impact, and people have been calling it the Bethel effect. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a great article about Bethel. This article was published just a little earlier this year,

and they said that no institution in our state is better at engaging with its hometown. And it went on to say that the lack of structure in Bethel's assistance to its hometown suggests a broader lesson for community building. Stop overthinking things and just throw yourself heart and soul into addressing people's needs. it's incredible to see the news media realizing just the amazing impact in this culture of service that Bethel is having in Reading and in Chasta County where you all are located. So how have you all created this culture of service? Well, I don't know that if we've created it actually, let's say we've influenced it. I think there's been, you know, there's a lot of participants.

There's a lot of heroes in the Reading culture that aren't related to Bethel. course. So I can only speak to the part that we play. And that is, you know, some years ago, we asked ourselves the question, like, if it's supposed to be, if Jesus taught us to pray that it be on earth as it is in heaven, and our city at that time, which was about 17 years ago, was listed as one of the worst cities under 100,000 people to live in, how are we supposed to affect that? In other words, if our church, and our church is around, attendance is around 11,000 people on a weekend. Our city's 90,000, as I just said. If a church of 11,000, not including a whole bunch of other wonderful churches in our community, are living in a community,

and the commentary of that community and the social statistics of that community are, this is one of the worst cities in America to live in? What does that say about our actual ministry? And so we started asking ourselves the question, like, is this our problem? Like, as a church, as a leadership team, like, is this our problem? Are these bad statistics our problem? Or is the fact that they're not our problem, the problem? If we're supposed to make disciples of nations, and if we're supposed to pray that it be on earth as it is in heaven, and we're supposed to pray that God prospers and blesses our city, and the commentary on our city is completely opposite of that,

what do we do about that? And so that's where it started. And we started realizing that the truth is that large churches don't necessarily mean healthy communities. I wrote a book that you might know about. It's called Heavy Rain. And in that book, I was doing a statistical study. We did a statistical study on American cities. And we learned that the cities that had the greatest Christian church-going population

had the worst social statistics in our nation. Jesus said you're the light of the world, and the problem is that most of the church thinks that the world needs to get darker and darker, and the church gets brighter and brighter until Jesus gets back. But Jesus didn't say you're the light of the church. He said you're the lie of the world. So if the world's getting darker and darker, it feels like it might be our responsibility to bring some light and hope and be, you know, Jesus is called the hope of the nation. So maybe we're supposed to, like, play a different role in our city. And so that's kind of where it began. It began with, if you will, a theological, philosophical change.

Like, this is our responsibility. It's our responsibility to actually bring heaven to earth. It's our responsibility to bring the full impact of a good God and a prosperous kingdom to bear on a broken city. And you all have taken that responsibility on in really, really practical ways. So I want to ask you about the car fires that happened summer 2018. obviously devastating across Redding and Chaston County. Absolutely. You all were in the center of some of the worst destruction.

What was your community's response to that tragedy? Our city council did a wonderful job. Several believers on the city council went to Santa Rosa where they'd had a very similar fire two or three years before and counseled with them and said, what did you learn from your tragedy? And they brought back some great information there that we said,

What can we do to help relieve the pain that's happening in our community? Of course, we opened up our church building. We partner with Salvation Army. We became the distribution center for food for several weeks. I think it was two or three weeks. And then we called out to our friends and said, can you help us? We've got 1,100 homes that have burnt down. And we raised $1.7 million in two weeks from our friends around the world

who just gave us money to help distribute. So we distribute $1,000 to every person who had lost their home, Christian or not. It didn't matter if they went to church or didn't go to our church. And then several of them we were able to go back and give some more money to. And then we developed a team of people that went through and sifted through the ashes. Oh, it's pretty traumatic. You know, you had to wear a hazmat suit. It was 105 degrees out.

And we just went from house to house, sifting. through the ashes to find valuables. And that sounds crazy, but that was really profound. And then when it was all over and we developed a team and Joyce Myers Ministry partnered with us, which was beautiful, and we were able to take about almost $800,000 and buy equipment because you can't rebuild a house until you clear the property. And we were able to buy tractors and shippers and hire two full-time teams that just went from house to house and took down all the burnt trees and shipped them and got their property

ready to rebuild. And we're still in that process. We have two full-time teams right now that'll probably spend another year and a half finishing just those properties. Wow, that's amazing. Apart from, obviously, you know, I think Bethel got a lot of attention around the car fires, but, you know, you all, it wasn't a new thing to kind of start reaching out and influencing. And I want I want to mention, you all also, when the Reading Police Department was about to lay off for officers due to tight budgets, you all raised the money to keep them on the force, you volunteered your time and resources to clean the large iconic Sundial Bridge in Reading when it was in need of repair. So, you know, we all kind of know that, yes, we're supposed to care for the poor and care for those in need,

but you all have taken this holistic approach to community building and to caring for the community. why did you feel like that was so important? Well, it's our city. One of the things that we are learning together is that until you take ownership of your land, you'll actually never be part of the solution. And when you think about how important land was to the promises of God, you remember the children of Israel were in bondage for 400 years, and God wanted to leave them into a promised land.

You think about First Chronicle 714 of my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves to pray, seek my face, and so on, so forth, I will hear from heaven forgive their sins and heal their land. And it just goes on and on and on. And what we learned is that you just won't solve the problem of your city without taking ownership of it. And we began to say, you know, this isn't just a city. This is our city. This isn't just a people.

This is our people. And I think that you'll see that that strategies throughout the book of Nehemiah in the resolution of the broken walls. You know, what the children, Israel was the walls of Israel were broken down for 114 years. They had tried to rebuild them for 72 years. And what they couldn't do in 72 years, Nehemiah did in 52 days. One of the secrets of the restoration of the walls and gates of Israel is that he made everyone an owner. And even families worked on the wall together. And so we began to realize, like, until we take ownership of our city, until we say, this is our city, we're not going to fix this city.

And so we began to take ownership of it. As you know, we put 2,500 students to work in our city every week. Every single student has to work in our city as part of their education. I want when students graduate from our school and they go back to their homes, we want them not just to think about how do I lead some of the Christ. We want them to think, what can I do to make my city a better place to live in? And what are maybe some of those practical tools that you give, you know, your students or church members who move on to other communities

because it's really easy to hear all the amazing work that Bethel's doing and think, you know, I want to do that here in my own city. But honestly, it's a little overwhelming when, you know, you don't have a lot of resources and maybe, you know, you're the only one, you know, in your community that's really gung-ho about this. So, you know, what would you say to someone

that, you know, maybe is in a church of 100 or 300 or has a community group of 15 and wants to start doing this? Well, first of all, I want to say don't despise the day of small beginnings. Because if I explained to you where we started 17 years ago, you know, you would be like, oh, how is that going to help? It's like, well, you have to start somewhere. You know, and in those days we had no money, you know, and we had a much smaller sphere of influence. And our congregation was much smaller. And so we just began to reach out to, you know, it's like you can't do everything, but you can do something.

You can't help everyone, but you can help someone. And so we just began to evaluate how can we help? And the first thing that we did personally is we went to see our city manager. And we said, you know, this is what we're kind of good at. And, you know, we'd love to help. And we don't know what is your vision. And is there any place where we can help? And you can imagine it takes a long time to build trust.

I'd say it took three to five years to build trust. But we didn't come in and say, hey, here's our vision. We sure like the city council to vote in this way, and why aren't our roads being fixed? And how come you're not, you know, we didn't do that. We went to our city manager and later to our city council and we said, this is the resources we have. And these are the people we have. Is there any way we can help? You know, our city manager was very gracious.

And he said, well, we have a very reduced park and recs budget. We're not able to clean adequately our parks and our rec areas. and if you have any desire to do that, we're like, yeah, we'll do that. And that ended up, you know, the first year was terrible. We did a terrible job. We'd put 50 students on a team with five rakes. We'd have 45 people standing around, you know, just didn't think through it well. But eventually, you know, we hired a person to be in charge of that.

I would say in a smaller church, obviously, you'd have a volunteer. And little by little, we bought a million dollars with the equipment. We didn't do that right away. We did it little by little. We bought tractors and trains. trailers and chainsaws and, you know, we started a certification program for landscape. And what we did is we just did ordinary things in a way no one never seen before. We did simple things like clean a park.

But when we were done clean that park, no one had ever seen a park clean like that. When they gave us streets to sweep, we swept streets like no one had ever seen before. And whatever they gave us to do, no matter how menial the task, we did it like Michael Angelou, who said, I saw the angel in a stone, I carved just said it free. And we were, I'd say, we aren't raking lawns. We are free in angels. And we just began to have a vision to prove to our city that we, as the people of God, have a spirit of excellence on us. And whether you give us a little project or a big project that we were going to handle it with responsibility and excellence and a great attitude. I love that. That's so good. I want to take a moment and dive a little bit

deeper into this idea of impacting culture and discuss it from a political perspective. Today, if I say the words America's political culture, a lot of thoughts and opinions will instantly jump into someone's mind. But Bethel uses the word culture quite a lot, and you specifically talk about creating a culture of honor. Can you explain what you mean by that and what you think it looks like to bring a culture of honor into our political conversations? Well, first of Well, I think it means that every individual deserves honor no matter their opinion, whether it be political opinion or their opinions of life, whether it's around the subject of the gay community or whether it's the Republicans, the Democrats, the independents, whatever. I think, you know, no matter your stance, because you are created by God, you are a child of God, you're a son or daughter of God. So I think that we have to realize that we can have very different opinions and still value somebody.

And I think, you know, when President Obama was president, he didn't carry a lot of my moral values in his presidency, at least publicly. I never have met him personally. But he's my president. He's a man, and he's the son of God. And I would post on my Facebook pages and social pages, and from the podium, I would say, I love President Obama. He's my president. I pray for him. And, you know, some of our people in our movement, which tend to be quite on the republic.

side, they'd write me some really strong statements. And I'm like, I never said I agree with President Obama. I said, I love him, and I pray for him. And now President Trump is president, and I do the same thing with President Trump. I love him and I pray for him. Whether I agree with him on issues or on every issue, that's not the point. What's going to happen if we stop praying for people? What happens when Christians pull out of culture? When we vacate culture, we're leaving that culture to the demonic realm to lead that culture. And that's just dumb. And so, you know, if you want to actually have influence with the king or the queen, you don't want to throw rocks at the palace. So, you know, I think that you have to decide if you want to be a Daniel, Joseph, or Esther,

if you want to actually have influence in our country in the White House or in the, with your mayor, or with your governor, I mean, throwing rocks at them, especially on a public platform is just, it just doesn't make any sense. I understand the frustration that people have, and I've had it myself, and I haven't always gone about it right. But if I'm going to have any influence with someone I don't agree with, because I'm going to have to treat them honorably because you only have as much influence of people's life as they have value for you. If they don't have any value for you, you're not going to be influenced with them. I mean, that's kind of our stance. Yeah, that's great. Chris, you have built relationships with a number of national and international political leaders who's

span across the political spectrum. So how do you go about honoring those leaders in your interactions with them? I meet with political leaders for the last 14 years in several countries and on both sides of the aisle. When I meet with a Democrat or a Republican, I'm not there to talk through their view on abortion. If they want my opinion, I gladly bring it. But I'm there with this one agenda. How do I make your life better? How can I help you fulfill? the call that God's put on your life. And if you're a Democrat, if you're a Republican, you know, my job isn't to question your political values as much as it is to bring wisdom to the decisions that you have to make every day. And some people are like, I don't see how

you could, you know, sit with that person who's pro-abortion. I'm like, well, did you see how Daniel related to Nebuchadnezzar? And four worldly kings, I truly do not understand how people cannot have grace in America for politicians that they don't agree with when we see so much grace demonstrated even in the old covenant by Joseph, Daniel, and Esther. And I ask myself every day, like, how can you be so critical of our president, whether it's a Democrat or Republican president? And how do you expect to influence that president if you post horrible stuff about them? especially the kind of stuff where you judge their motives. Oh, you're trying to kill babies or you're trying to destroy our country.

It's like, oh, gosh, stuff like that, just not wise, you know. Yeah. And it's also not true. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I want to ask you, you know, you have so many great resources on this topic and a host of others. So how can our listeners learn more, follow your work and find out more about what Bethel's up to? Well, they can get on my website, kvministries.com or kvministry.com. I'm on all the social pages.

Or you can get on bethel.com and find out everything you want to know about Bethel. And there's all kinds of free resources on both those sites. If you're so like what you see there. And then also we have obviously webcast and podcast and Bethel TV, which is the morning. You can get on Bethel TV and watch what we preach in the morning for free. and it's quite extensive. Awesome. Well, Pastor Chris, thank you so much for your time and for joining me today.

Virginia, thank you so much for having me on. I hope I help some people. Absolutely. Really appreciate it. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to Skodas 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor.

Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show and in the Morning Bell email newsletter. Virginia, who's up first? Rosaline Wheelock writes, I look forward to reading my email from the Daily Signal. Thank you very much. It's a great way to stay informed. You're the first mail I read. Please keep doing what you're doing.

It is so much more informative than TV news. Thank you. If you would like to start receiving the Daily Signal's Morning Bell email, every day, just visit DailySignal.com and click on the Connect Buzz. at the top of the page. And Jose Carlos Salamio writes, thank you for your precise, informative morning bell email. I'm from Brazil, and our media is also dominated by Soros Lackeys, both when reporting international and local news. Your daily bulletins are one of the resources I use to see the other side of the coin,

actually to see the coin that is not counterfeit. I especially appreciate the concise, precise, and clear way you express yourselves. our letter could be featured on next week's show, send an email to letters at dailysignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. Americans have almost entirely forgotten their history. That's right. And if we want to keep our republic, this needs to change. I'm Jared Stepman.

And I'm Fred Lucas. We host the Right Side of History, a podcast dedicated to restoring informed patriotism and busting the negative narratives about America's past. Hollywood, the media, and academia have failed a generation. We're here to set the record straight on the ideas and people who've made this country great. Subscribe to the right side of history on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Stitcher today. Friday was the 47th annual March for Life, and it was a historic one. President Trump delivered remarks becoming the first president to ever attend the march in person.

In 2018, President Trump addressed the marchers via video stream from the Rose Garden of the White House. But on Friday, he stood on the National Mall with thousands of pro-lifers from across America and declared that we are a nation that values life. Take a listen to a portion of the president's remarks. It is my profound honor to be the first president in history to attend the March for Life. We're here for a very simple reason to defend the right of every child born and unborn to fulfill their God-given potential. For 47 years, Americans of all backgrounds have traveled from across the country to stand for life. And today, as President of the United States, I am truly proud to stand with you.

I want to welcome tens of thousands. This is a tremendous turnout. Tens of thousands of high school and college students who took long, bus rides to be here in our nation's capital. And to make you feel even better, there are tens of thousands of people outside that we passed on the way in. If anybody would like to give up this spot, we can work that out. You have a tremendous group of people outside. Thousands and thousands wanted to get here. This is some great success. Young people are the heart of the March for Life, and it's your generation that is making America the pro-family, pro-life nation.

The life movement is led by strong women, amazing faith leaders, and brave students who carry on the legacy of pioneers before us, who fought to raise the conscience of our nation and uphold the rights of our citizens. You embrace mothers with care and compassion. powered by prayer and motivated by pure unselfish love. You're grateful and we are so grateful these are incredible people to be joined by Secretary Alex Azar and Kellyanne Conway and thanks also to Senators Mike Lee and James Langford who are here and representatives Steve Scalise Chris Smith, Ralph and

Ralph Abraham, Warren Davidson, Bob Latter, John Joyce, Lloyd Smucker, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Brad Winstrup. Thank you all. And I have to say, and I look at it, and I see it exactly. We have many, many more politicians in the audience, but if you don't mind, I won't introduce them all. All of us here today understand. eternal truth, every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every human life.

When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God's creation. When we hold a newborn in our arms, we know the endless love that each child brings to a family. When we watch a child grow, we see the splendor that radiates from each human soul. One life changes the world from my family, and I can tell you, I send love, and I send great, great love. And from the first day in office, I've taken a historic action to support America's families and to protect the unborn. And during my first week in office, I reinstated and expanded the Mexico City policy, and we issued a landmark pro-life rule to govern the use of Title X taxpayer funding. I notified Congress that I would veto any legislation that weakens pro-life policies

or that encourages the destruction of human life. At the United Nations, I made clear that global, bureaucrats have no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that protect innocent life. Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White

House. And as the Bible tells us, each person is wonderfully made. We are going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce radio studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rikoshae

audio network. All our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It really means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to even more listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The DailySignal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen, sound design by Lauren Evans,

Belia Rampersad, and Mark Geine. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.