July 1, 2025 • 25 mins
As a former youth pastor and now US Senator from the state of Oklahoma, Senator James Lankford has a unique message and approach to integrating Christian Faith in the world of politics in American culture today. In this episode, we will both unpack the unique history of American politics and Christian faith as well as how we as Christians can be peacemakers amid a very polarized political culture. Senator Lankford exemplifies the ability to see the image of God in every person, whether he agrees with them or not, and to look for common ground.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, the
apostle Paul encourages believers to pray for all those in
authority so that we might live peaceable and godly lives.
He goes on to say this pleases God so that
all should come to faith. Well, our next guest, Senator
James Lakeford from the state of Oklahoma is not foreign.
To this idea of praying for those in authority. In fact,
(00:21):
he is one of those in authority. He was a pastor,
become senator and so I think you're going to be
encouraged as you listen to how Senator Lankford navigates faith
in the world of politics. Let's go ahead and get
in this episode with Senator Lankford on Kingdom and culture.
(00:48):
Uh, could you just give a little bit of your
background story? I'll, I'll kind of prompt it with this.
You're a US senator and that is in the United
States of America just in case people are wondering what
country is that, uh, here in good old America, and you, uh,
you get to do the, well, you get to do
the work of a senator, but you weren't always a senator.
At one time you were a, hold on everybody, you
(01:10):
were a youth pastor.
And so how do you go from youth pastor to
United States senator and then fill in the blanks with
family and everything else as you see fit?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, glad to be able to do that and I
appreciate you saying people may say, how cool is that?
No one looks at a senator and thinks that they're
really cool.
That just, that just doesn't happen on it. Uh, yeah,
this is what my wife calls life's greatest interruption for us.
I did 22 years of youth ministry, loved working with students.
I was the director of the largest camp in America.
It's a camp called Falls Creek. It's in Southern Oklahoma.
(01:42):
We have 51,000 students that come every single summer.
of that camp, uh, and it's a really just unique place, uh,
to gather. And it's for someone who's in ministry and
who loves ministry and loves seeing life transformation through Christ. Uh,
it is the ultimate place to be able to be
because we would literally see thousands of students that would
come with no background in Jesus, no background with church
(02:03):
that would come.
Get around some other students and for the first time
in their life get calm and start thinking about, OK,
what am I gonna be spiritually? Who am I gonna be?
You know, they think about their dating life and their
financial life and their academic life some, but then when
they come to camp and they start thinking, I've never
thought about my spiritual life, and it gave people the
opportunity to be able to think about it for the
first time and for many of them encounter Christ for
(02:24):
the first time. So it was a tremendous place to
do ministry, and we loved it, but in 2008 and 2009.
God completely interrupted our life and called us to run
for Congress, and it was this long process of God saying,
come follow me and us saying, God, this is the
craziest thing. I have no one in my family in politics.
I have no background in politics. I'm not a lawyer.
(02:45):
I was never involved in any campaigns. I didn't even
run for student council. That was, it was just never
my thing uh for that. I was just a voter
and was engaged, but we really sensed a calling to
be able to do it and finally came to a
point of knowing what I said to my wife one day.
I'm gonna be an old man one day telling my
grandchildren about the time I didn't follow God's leadership, and
I don't want to be that guy. And so I
(03:07):
resigned my position. We spent the next year living off
our life savings, which as a youth pastor, you can
imagine was a lot. So we, we, we lived off
our life savings for a year, ran for Congress, won,
and I've served here since then. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And I know there's a lot of fill in the
blanks in the middle there, so.
Uh, you know, obviously your wife and you did that together.
How many kids can you tell us about your kids?
How did that impact your whole family making that transition?
Ministry is hard enough. It is. And then now you're
going into politics. Yep,
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Cindy and I have been married 33 years now on it,
but we were in the middle of that journey at
that point of life. Our, uh, we have two daughters, uh,
who at that time were in middle school and elementary school,
so it was a big decision and we literally as
a family, I shared.
This is what I think God's calling me too. Cindy,
my wife expressed, this is what I feel like God's
calling me too. We sat down with our girls and
(03:59):
we said, this is a big issue that affects a
little our entire family. Everyone gets a veto. Here's where
we think we are. We wanted our girls to be
able to pray about it as well and to be
able to come back. And one of our daughters literally
came back at one point after about a week of
praying about it. She said, I don't think I like it,
but I really think this is what God called us to.
And we left, I said, thanks for your honesty.
(04:21):
And but she, she still repeats today. This is what
God has called us to and it's hard because I do,
as a dad, I'm flying away from my family. I
got married to spend more time with my wife, not less.
So it's a weird life that I spent half my
time in Washington DC and a little less actually than
half back home, uh, in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, well, and you, you know, you had mentioned um
how leadership doesn't have to be as hard as it is.
Could you share a little bit about, you know, uh,
or as people make it rather, how, yeah, what were
the pieces maybe intricacies in the mind of a students
they're listening to you right now, uh, OK, so I
need to pray and then God's gonna help me run
(05:01):
for Congress, and then I'm going to be in the
US Senate. Like, what are some of the, I don't know,
little pieces there that helped you get that step up that.
You know, obviously finances need to come in. People need
to be getting behind you, all that. What were some
of those little
pieces?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So we, we hear the term all the time and
people will say that God loves you and has a
plan for your life. OK, everybody just kind of flippantly
says that. We, we, we hear like Psalm 23, the
Lord is my shepherd, and everybody kind of that's in Jesus,
everybody knows that term, the Lord is my shepherd, but
at some point we have to stop and go, oh wait,
if he's my shepherd, then that means he leads me.
(05:38):
And then it becomes this hard thing, especially for a
lot of students to say, how do you know it's God?
Do you know it's not some random something else? How
do I actually know if I believe he loves me
and has a plan for my life? How do I
know that if I believe he's my shepherd, how do
I be a good sheep? How do I actually follow
him on that? That is literally learning how to be
able to read scripture and to be able to understand
that and just that just comes with time to be
(06:00):
able to do it. That comes with praying and as
crazy as it sounds, I believe that comes by.
Spending time with God and saying, God, I want to
know how to hear your voice. I, I, I, I
will say yes to the questions that you asked me.
When you say do this, I'm gonna say yes. So
I'm gonna tell you in advance, God, the answer is yes,
but I want to learn how to hear you on this.
And I do believe when Jesus said, come follow me,
(06:24):
he actually intends to lead us, but we have to
make the decision in advance. I'm gonna follow him wherever
he leads me.
And you don't know where he's gonna lead you. I mean, you, you,
you don't know what college you're gonna go to. You
don't know what job you're gonna end up in. You
don't know who you're gonna marry, but I do know
God's faithful, and the more I get to know him
and he guides me, the more I can trust him
in his guidance so that he knows how to talk
(06:46):
to us.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, and, and I know you're gonna, we'll, we'll definitely
want you to ping this at the end you're you're
in the middle of finishing up a book, so we'll
talk about that in a second, just to kind of
help people.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
If I can just mention one thing, the book's called
Turn Around. It is trying to take leadership off of
this elevated.
Level and to take it down to the shelf where
I think God intended it. People get scared when they
hear the term you're a leader, or I want you
to be a leader. And sometimes parents say that to
their kids. I, I want them to be leaders and the, the,
the student feels really intimidated by that. Leadership from a
(07:21):
biblical sense is literally seeing a problem.
Asking someone to help you work on it and then
the 2 or 3 of you working on it. So literally,
if you see a problem and you can text somebody
and say, hey, this is a mess. Let's go clean
this up together, you're a leader. That's really all leadership is. I,
but most people don't want to notice the problems around them,
and even when they see a problem.
(07:43):
They're like, I don't know if I want to actually
do anything about it, but if your problem, think I'm
gonna do something about it, and you literally text somebody
to come help you, you're a leader now. And so it,
it's that straightforward on it. So this book Turnaround that
I put together is really a challenge to look at
politics in a different way, our life in a different way,
but really leadership in a different way. And I'm asking
(08:04):
people to say, if you don't like the direction of
the country or your community or your school or what's
happening around you.
Then see a problem, ask somebody to come help you
and go to work on it and then just see
where God takes that. Forgive
Speaker 1 (08:19):
my pastoral side coming out here, but I think of
David when he saw a problem, a shouting giant speaking
against the people of God, and he's like, hey, what,
what can somebody do about that? And then he had
the answer and then he ran to the battle line
and took down the giant and even on Amazon. Amazon
Prime is recognizing the house of David right now. I mean,
if they're on board with that.
Talk about a shepherd boy literally coming into the battle
(08:42):
and leading and the rest is history, obviously
Speaker 2 (08:45):
we'll see
Speaker 1 (08:45):
that
Speaker 2 (08:45):
over and over and over again. Every one of the
disciples that walked through all the journey on this. It
was very simple that they sense a calling from God
to be able to do it. They saw a problem.
They asked somebody to come help them. They went and
went after it. And so you can take a Paul,
grabbing a Timothy, grabbing a Barnabas, Mark, I mean.
Go through the whole, whole of scripture and you see
it over and over again and especially in chapters like
(09:06):
books like Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a slave cupbearer in a
foreign land, and he hears about what happens, where his
ancestors live. He currently didn't even live there, where his
ancestors lived, and goes, Gosh, that's terrible, God. He stops
to pray about it.
And says, God, that's an awful thing. What do you
want me to do about it? And God then guides
him to go there. He's, he has no background in
(09:26):
wall building or being a leader or any of those things,
but God just equips him to be able to do
it because he sees the problem, ask God what to
do about it, and he gets sent to be able
to do it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's good. I think, I think I wanna read that book.
I'm gonna,
Speaker 2 (09:40):
it's, it's
turnaround. You can actually go on Amazon or Books a
Million or all those different places, uh, uh, Barnes and Noble,
everybody's got it, but it, yeah. So it's out. It's
already out. It's out. Yeah, it's out. So yeah, you
can get a chance to be able to go online
and be able to get it, but the focus of
it is really to be able to challenge leaders to
be leaders and to look at it from a biblical context,
not from a worldview because the world looks at it
(10:00):
very different than a biblical context for leadership.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Awesome. Well, let's talk about that then. So, uh, you're
in the Senate and there's a few things going on.
Can you tell us, and this is not to be political,
I just want people to see a day in the
life of Senator James Lankford. What are you dealing with today?
What and I see your Instagram posts and I, I,
I love how you're like, all right guys, this is
what's going on is what we're doing about it.
(10:24):
You know, all that, that's great, but what are you
dealing with today? I mean, I've heard about things like, uh,
government shutdown, whatever that means, and you know, all the
things that go with, well, high level things like that.
What what's the day in the life of a US senator?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It's nuts. It starts early and it goes till late
and I hate to tell students this, but I have
homework literally every single night. So I start very early.
In the mornings, a lot of interviews, a lot of
research things and be able to do the reading on
it early in the day. I've got meetings that go
through the course of the day, whether it be committee hearings,
whether it be votes. Literally I just left the floor
to be able to come and visit with you from
a vote in the Senate chamber, get a chance to
(10:57):
be able to visit and keep going from there. I
Speaker 1 (10:59):
love it. So you just left a vote on the
Senate floor to come hang out with us to tell us.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So that all those things are really busy, but, uh,
you know, I, I talk about the blending of my
life in this. There's also myself and Steve Danes, who's
a senator from Montana. We, we co-host a Bible study
together that's early on Tuesday mornings. We've got a group
of senators that get together and we do verse by
verse walking through scripture together. So it's still a part
of my life. But while I'm also, that's part of
my life, I'm also working on tax policy right now
(11:27):
because we gotta do a major tax bill in the
United States. We're working on federal debt issues because we
got to deal.
With that, I serve on the intelligence Committee, uh, which
means we're dealing with lots of international issues in Israel,
and Ukraine and in China and all these different hotspots.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa is a
real big hotspot right now. All kinds of things that
we're dealing with on international policy as well. Um, so it's,
(11:50):
it's funny to me at times I'll have people catch
me and say, I've got a former youth pastor writing
tax policy for the United States that either encourages them
or terrifies them, one or the other.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, I, I don't know if it was you or
uh
Uh, John Ashcroft that once said that sometimes senators can
act like a bunch of junior hires, so maybe you're
in the right place. It might have been you.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I have said, I have said often working with juveniles
prepared me for Congress.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
There you go.
Yeah, it was you then. There you go. Now I
hope that doesn't get you in trouble for that, but
uh you're just describing what is. Um, so as a,
as a former full-time pastor, because I think what I'm
hearing you say, you're still pastoring just in a different way. um.
Uh, how, how could young Christians that
(12:36):
I remember as a young kid I would go door
to door. I, I would drop these little American flags
with my markers and go door to door selling them
for 25 cents each. People actually pay me and they're like, wow, ingenuity, capitalism,
all that stuff, and I didn't know. I just, I
loved America. I loved American flags and I watched, remember 1984,
uh Walter Mondale get shellacked by Ronald Reagan in the
(12:58):
uh in the election in 1984 watching all the states
go red and Ronald Reagan, he was, he was the man.
Um, so from a young age, I always had this
interest in, uh, not just politics, but America and the
destiny of our nation. So that I, there's got to
be right now as we're talking, students out there, they
don't know why, but they care. They like you were
(13:20):
talking about, they care about what happens in America, they
care about what happens in their city, their state, um,
their home even maybe it starts there, but they care
maybe
More than the average person. What would you say to
a student like that that cares and wants to see change,
but like you had mentioned, can feel overwhelmed with the
the daunting reality of what is, what would you say
(13:40):
to them? How can they take, they take steps into
leadership and
Um, yeah, and maybe that's part of the journey that
you had into youth ministry, which then led you to
where you are now. So yeah, what would you say
to a student going through that?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
First things first, uh, your, your walk of Christ is
going to be the foundation of everything else that you're
gonna do, and your service as it comes to be
able to serve is not about drawing a crowd to
be able to serve you. The the social media world
that we live in right now is all about how
many people can I get to follow me. You've got
Jesus off to the side.
Why don't you come follow me and then watch and
see what happens, uh, to see, so it's getting that
(14:13):
priority straight on it and then it's asking God, God,
what do you want me to do? You, you made
me for a purpose.
What do you want me to do? How can I
actually be involved in serving other people and finding those
practical ways to be able to serve youth ministry or senate,
all those things are servant roles on it to be
able to find ways to be able to serve other
people on that. So serving on your campus, serving your family,
(14:34):
serving your neighbors, finding ways to be able to plug
in with different groups that just need help on that
to make a difference. But I tell people that are
passionate about our country.
Some people will say, well, gosh, I want to immediately
run for office. I'm like, well, why don't you start
serving the people around you and to see what happens.
If I can say the Nehemiah story on this again, Nehemiah,
when he came and he went to Jerusalem to help
(14:54):
them rebuild the city, it had been decimated for 100
years at that point, but there were people that were
living in the ruins of the city.
And he said, OK, why don't you start working on
the section of the wall right next to your house.
And in 2 months, they rebuilt what had been down
for a century because everybody worked on the section right
next to them. As crazy as that sounds.
(15:14):
If, if we want to see a better nation, we
have better families, we have better communities, that means people
start to be able to serve people around them. So
if you're in middle school, what can you do to
be able to serve a teacher? If you, if, if
people are really angry, what can you do to be
able to reset? If you don't like culturally how we're doing,
if you don't like the anger of social media, what
can
You personally do to be able to change the direction
(15:34):
of that. And I know not many people are doing that, right?
That's why it needs a leader. That's why it needs
somebody to go set a better example. If you don't
like what we see, if I can say it this way,
like the mirror, if, if people look at Washington DC
and they see all the angry, anger in DC.
And I look at them and say, you realize Washington
DC is a representative republic. That means we're a reflection
(15:55):
of the country. This is who we are right now.
And if you don't like what you see, you can
either gripe at the mirror, or you can fix what
is actually us, how we're doing life and how we're
doing things. So first things first, find out what your
calling is, just pray about it, and then ask God
for opportunities to be able to serve, do that, and
then see what else he takes you to be able
(16:15):
to do in the future.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
That sounds like a a what I would call a
godly challenge right there for people to step into that
and and it's as simple as maybe it's as simple
as listening to mom and dad when they say, hey,
wash the dishes.
Yes, mom. Yes, Dad. Sherman.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It's a biblical thing to be able to both love
your family, honor your father and mother, but it is
um we get greater joy by serving than being served,
and nobody believes that on social media because uh the
social media folks all look like everybody's after them, and but,
but when you talk to some of those folks, and
I've had the opportunity to be able to talk to
those influencers.
(16:50):
They'll often tell you they're just lonely and they want
to be able to serve other people. That's really where
you get joy and no one believes it until you
do it and you're like, oh, I get it now.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, and everybody needs that personal connection, uh, just to
know that somebody is with them or they're with others
and helping others and being a part of something bigger
than themselves. Um, man, uh, so as you continue in
your work, uh.
When I was out in DC a while back, you
had done these capital prayer walks. Do you still do
(17:21):
those with folks?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I do once a quarter. It's a pretty quiet little gathering.
It's typically and we will.
Uh, go through the Capitol and get a chance to
be able to pray in the Senate and the House chamber,
the Supreme Court and for the President, and just spend
some time doing that. I, I still circle my floor, uh,
that in my office, uh, building that's across the street
from the Capitol. I get a chance to be able
to walk my floor and to be able to pray
(17:44):
for all the others that I serve around.
Again, this is just, it's resetting my heart, but also
asking God to be able to work in them. This
is an angry place. It just is. And I need
times to be able to reset and to try to
get God's perspective and to say I can either live
in the angry culture or I can try to live
out of a biblical mindset to say, I disagree with someone,
and some people out here, I really disagree strongly with.
(18:06):
I don't, I don't, I don't follow at all that direction,
but it doesn't mean I have to belittle them and
attack them in the process. I have to find a
way to be able to persuade them.
And I need my heart right to be able to
do
that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Well, and I think even uh with how stylistically you
approach things, you, you talked about the Imago day seeing
the image of God in others and setting that example
and I just wanna, I wanna encourage you because because
you're in such an important place, but also as you said,
a well, a very tense place, um.
The work you're doing is good. It's good work. And
(18:40):
um and I think that's kind of what why I
asked about the Capitol Prayer Walk is that people would
see that even though the media may show the darker
side of things at times, and it's not all untrue
and some of it is very fabricated in terms of
puffed up, uh, there's good things happening on the hill
and there's good people, there's godly people on the hill. um.
(19:03):
And, and that's where we're thankful for you and and
what you do, you know, in California, um, where I'm
based and hopefully other people from other states, I don't
know what their representatives look like, but I, I look
at what you're doing and, and as a, as a
fellow believer in Christ, I think I could speak for
a lot of believers and say thank you. And uh
(19:23):
how can we pray for you? How can people that
are listening, students, how can they even after listening to
this podcast, get on their knees and say, OK, God.
Here's how we can pray for Senator Lankford and his
team as they fight the good fight on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I, I really appreciate that, and I do, I do
challenge people to be able to stop and be able
to ask God to be able to speak to others,
but speak to themselves as well on that and to
be able to step into the challenge because if there's
a need, people should not be afraid to follow God
wherever he leads them. And lots of folks that say
that's a really dark place. I was like, yeah, how
odd of God to send light to dark places.
(19:59):
So, uh, whether it's journalism or the theater or politics,
or there's so many places that we look at and go,
I don't see a lot of believers there, a lot
of Christ followers there. If God calls you to be there,
don't be afraid to be able to follow where he
guides you to that. My family and I, we always
ask for wisdom.
In this place, I tell you, there's new problems, there's
new issues every single day, multiple times a day, and
(20:21):
we need God's wisdom to be able to know what
to do and how to be able to encourage others.
I need God's favor because I work in a legislative role.
I work with, as you mentioned earlier, there's 100 people
in the Senate.
So anything I want to do, I can't just walk
in the room and go, everybody, I demand you to
do this. I gotta persuade at least 59 other people
in the Senate to have 60 votes to be able
(20:42):
to move an idea. So I need not only God's
wisdom and what to do, but I need his favor
with other people to be able to move a set
of ideas on that. And then always pray for what
God's doing in other, other places. Uh, again, folks watch
the television and they sometimes see people in politics and
they start yelling about all those people and they get
angry about it.
And I will typically say, hey, that's my mission field.
(21:04):
I forgot has placed me. As you see people on
the television, pray for them and their families because they
have real lives and real families and real struggles as well.
So pray that I would have the wisdom on how
to be able to share with them. There are other
people that are here in Capitol Hill area that also
follow Christ.
they would have opportunities to be able to share Christ
and God's love with them, but also to be able
(21:24):
to represent God's reconciliation to them as well. It's good.
It's a pretty broken place. Reconciliation is a good idea.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, and first, Timothy too says that to pray for
all those in authority that we may live peaceable lives.
And so that that's a command of God. So thank
you and and.
And so you heard it, everybody pray for Senator Lankford
and others on on the hill and in leadership. um,
so as we get ready to wrap this up, um,
and I am gonna ask you to pray over us
(21:52):
so that you can uh get your pastor mojo on there, uh,
and I do think if you made a poster of
you in a suit or something and signed it, people
would hang those posters up in the room. You could
be the cool senator. I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I, I, I, I, I, I never would aspire to that.
I'm never gonna achieve it. I was the, I was
the kid in Latin Club.
banned in high school and I never obviously was pursuing
to be the coolest. I can't achieve it now. Well,
there
Speaker 1 (22:15):
you go. At least you're you're self aware. Good job.
All right. Well, um, so where can people follow you
if they want to keep up with a day in
the life of Senator Lankford, where they, where can they
go follow you?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So if they're gonna follow me on it, they can
go to just uh at Senator Lankford, any of the
social media platforms. Got you, Senator Lankford, and they can
follow me there. Uh, the website is Langford.senate.gov. That's GOV
as in government. Langford.senate.gov is the website, uh, but just
any of the social media platforms at Senator Langford, they
get a chance to follow us there. Awesome,
Speaker 1 (22:48):
awesome.
And uh and your book again, it's called The Turnaround.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It's just called Turnaround. It's available. Amazon, Books a Million,
Barnes and Noble, all those different sites if you want
to get a chance to be able to get it
and hopefully it's an encouragement to folks and encouragement about
Speaker 1 (23:01):
leadership. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, um, I, I wanna respect your
time as you got to go back to the Senate
floor and
Help keep the American government afloat, um, and, uh, would
you pray a blessing on our listeners, on students as
they're considering what God has for them next, whether they'll
be youth pastors and then run for Congress and end
(23:22):
up in the US Senate one day or president who knows,
who knows what will happen from here, but if you
could pray, that'd be great. I
Speaker 2 (23:29):
to. Let's pray together. Father, I do pray that you
would speak to each of the students that this conversation
would not be just a conversation between the two of us.
But that you would be the one that would speak
to them today. May your Holy Spirit guide and encourage.
And that you would teach each one of these students
and parents your voice.
(23:49):
How you can speak to them, pray that you make
the scripture alive to them, that they would read your word,
and that they would see you for who you are,
and they would not be afraid to follow you where
you lead them.
God, we as a nation need your help.
Yes, we're angry, we're divided. We're in debt, we're struggling.
(24:11):
You spoke peace to a storm.
You can definitely speak peace to our nation, or that
you would help each one of us to know what
to do and how to do it, what to say
and how to say it.
Help us to each be a part of what you
want to do in this great country that you have
set aside.
God let it be in the name of Jesus, I ask. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Senator James Lankford, thank you so much for your time, uh, and, uh,
and hanging out with us and all the students and
parents and everybody that's checking this podcast out. And, uh, yeah,
God bless you and what you do on Capitol
Hill.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Thanks very much. Look forward to getting a chance to
chat with you face to face and seeing a lot
of the students.
Maybe end up here serving alongside.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes sir, yes sir. And, and, uh, yeah, and you
come back to Orange County anytime. Well, it's hard enough
to talk politics with your family or friends around the
dinner table. Try being a Christian in Washington DC doing
politics on the daily. As you just heard, that's Senator Lakeford.
Life. So let's keep Senator Lankford in prayer as he
serves God in that capacity and all people in authority
(25:17):
so that we might live quiet and peaceable lives. They
are on the front lines of culture and we can
take part in the advancement of God's kingdom in that
area as we pray for all those in authority. We'll
see you next time on Kingdom and Culture.
In 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, the
apostle Paul encourages believers to pray for all those in
authority so that we might live peaceable and godly lives.
He goes on to say this pleases God so that
all should come to faith. Well, our next guest, Senator
James Lakeford from the state of Oklahoma is not foreign.
To this idea of praying for those in authority. In fact,
(00:21):
he is one of those in authority. He was a pastor,
become senator and so I think you're going to be
encouraged as you listen to how Senator Lankford navigates faith
in the world of politics. Let's go ahead and get
in this episode with Senator Lankford on Kingdom and culture.
(00:48):
Uh, could you just give a little bit of your
background story? I'll, I'll kind of prompt it with this.
You're a US senator and that is in the United
States of America just in case people are wondering what
country is that, uh, here in good old America, and you, uh,
you get to do the, well, you get to do
the work of a senator, but you weren't always a senator.
At one time you were a, hold on everybody, you
(01:10):
were a youth pastor.
And so how do you go from youth pastor to
United States senator and then fill in the blanks with
family and everything else as you see fit?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, glad to be able to do that and I
appreciate you saying people may say, how cool is that?
No one looks at a senator and thinks that they're
really cool.
That just, that just doesn't happen on it. Uh, yeah,
this is what my wife calls life's greatest interruption for us.
I did 22 years of youth ministry, loved working with students.
I was the director of the largest camp in America.
It's a camp called Falls Creek. It's in Southern Oklahoma.
(01:42):
We have 51,000 students that come every single summer.
of that camp, uh, and it's a really just unique place, uh,
to gather. And it's for someone who's in ministry and
who loves ministry and loves seeing life transformation through Christ. Uh,
it is the ultimate place to be able to be
because we would literally see thousands of students that would
come with no background in Jesus, no background with church
(02:03):
that would come.
Get around some other students and for the first time
in their life get calm and start thinking about, OK,
what am I gonna be spiritually? Who am I gonna be?
You know, they think about their dating life and their
financial life and their academic life some, but then when
they come to camp and they start thinking, I've never
thought about my spiritual life, and it gave people the
opportunity to be able to think about it for the
first time and for many of them encounter Christ for
(02:24):
the first time. So it was a tremendous place to
do ministry, and we loved it, but in 2008 and 2009.
God completely interrupted our life and called us to run
for Congress, and it was this long process of God saying,
come follow me and us saying, God, this is the
craziest thing. I have no one in my family in politics.
I have no background in politics. I'm not a lawyer.
(02:45):
I was never involved in any campaigns. I didn't even
run for student council. That was, it was just never
my thing uh for that. I was just a voter
and was engaged, but we really sensed a calling to
be able to do it and finally came to a
point of knowing what I said to my wife one day.
I'm gonna be an old man one day telling my
grandchildren about the time I didn't follow God's leadership, and
I don't want to be that guy. And so I
(03:07):
resigned my position. We spent the next year living off
our life savings, which as a youth pastor, you can
imagine was a lot. So we, we, we lived off
our life savings for a year, ran for Congress, won,
and I've served here since then. Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And I know there's a lot of fill in the
blanks in the middle there, so.
Uh, you know, obviously your wife and you did that together.
How many kids can you tell us about your kids?
How did that impact your whole family making that transition?
Ministry is hard enough. It is. And then now you're
going into politics. Yep,
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Cindy and I have been married 33 years now on it,
but we were in the middle of that journey at
that point of life. Our, uh, we have two daughters, uh,
who at that time were in middle school and elementary school,
so it was a big decision and we literally as
a family, I shared.
This is what I think God's calling me too. Cindy,
my wife expressed, this is what I feel like God's
calling me too. We sat down with our girls and
(03:59):
we said, this is a big issue that affects a
little our entire family. Everyone gets a veto. Here's where
we think we are. We wanted our girls to be
able to pray about it as well and to be
able to come back. And one of our daughters literally
came back at one point after about a week of
praying about it. She said, I don't think I like it,
but I really think this is what God called us to.
And we left, I said, thanks for your honesty.
(04:21):
And but she, she still repeats today. This is what
God has called us to and it's hard because I do,
as a dad, I'm flying away from my family. I
got married to spend more time with my wife, not less.
So it's a weird life that I spent half my
time in Washington DC and a little less actually than
half back home, uh, in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, well, and you, you know, you had mentioned um
how leadership doesn't have to be as hard as it is.
Could you share a little bit about, you know, uh,
or as people make it rather, how, yeah, what were
the pieces maybe intricacies in the mind of a students
they're listening to you right now, uh, OK, so I
need to pray and then God's gonna help me run
(05:01):
for Congress, and then I'm going to be in the
US Senate. Like, what are some of the, I don't know,
little pieces there that helped you get that step up that.
You know, obviously finances need to come in. People need
to be getting behind you, all that. What were some
of those little
pieces?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So we, we hear the term all the time and
people will say that God loves you and has a
plan for your life. OK, everybody just kind of flippantly
says that. We, we, we hear like Psalm 23, the
Lord is my shepherd, and everybody kind of that's in Jesus,
everybody knows that term, the Lord is my shepherd, but
at some point we have to stop and go, oh wait,
if he's my shepherd, then that means he leads me.
(05:38):
And then it becomes this hard thing, especially for a
lot of students to say, how do you know it's God?
Do you know it's not some random something else? How
do I actually know if I believe he loves me
and has a plan for my life? How do I
know that if I believe he's my shepherd, how do
I be a good sheep? How do I actually follow
him on that? That is literally learning how to be
able to read scripture and to be able to understand
that and just that just comes with time to be
(06:00):
able to do it. That comes with praying and as
crazy as it sounds, I believe that comes by.
Spending time with God and saying, God, I want to
know how to hear your voice. I, I, I, I
will say yes to the questions that you asked me.
When you say do this, I'm gonna say yes. So
I'm gonna tell you in advance, God, the answer is yes,
but I want to learn how to hear you on this.
And I do believe when Jesus said, come follow me,
(06:24):
he actually intends to lead us, but we have to
make the decision in advance. I'm gonna follow him wherever
he leads me.
And you don't know where he's gonna lead you. I mean, you, you,
you don't know what college you're gonna go to. You
don't know what job you're gonna end up in. You
don't know who you're gonna marry, but I do know
God's faithful, and the more I get to know him
and he guides me, the more I can trust him
in his guidance so that he knows how to talk
(06:46):
to us.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Well, and, and I know you're gonna, we'll, we'll definitely
want you to ping this at the end you're you're
in the middle of finishing up a book, so we'll
talk about that in a second, just to kind of
help people.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
If I can just mention one thing, the book's called
Turn Around. It is trying to take leadership off of
this elevated.
Level and to take it down to the shelf where
I think God intended it. People get scared when they
hear the term you're a leader, or I want you
to be a leader. And sometimes parents say that to
their kids. I, I want them to be leaders and the, the,
the student feels really intimidated by that. Leadership from a
(07:21):
biblical sense is literally seeing a problem.
Asking someone to help you work on it and then
the 2 or 3 of you working on it. So literally,
if you see a problem and you can text somebody
and say, hey, this is a mess. Let's go clean
this up together, you're a leader. That's really all leadership is. I,
but most people don't want to notice the problems around them,
and even when they see a problem.
(07:43):
They're like, I don't know if I want to actually
do anything about it, but if your problem, think I'm
gonna do something about it, and you literally text somebody
to come help you, you're a leader now. And so it,
it's that straightforward on it. So this book Turnaround that
I put together is really a challenge to look at
politics in a different way, our life in a different way,
but really leadership in a different way. And I'm asking
(08:04):
people to say, if you don't like the direction of
the country or your community or your school or what's
happening around you.
Then see a problem, ask somebody to come help you
and go to work on it and then just see
where God takes that. Forgive
Speaker 1 (08:19):
my pastoral side coming out here, but I think of
David when he saw a problem, a shouting giant speaking
against the people of God, and he's like, hey, what,
what can somebody do about that? And then he had
the answer and then he ran to the battle line
and took down the giant and even on Amazon. Amazon
Prime is recognizing the house of David right now. I mean,
if they're on board with that.
Talk about a shepherd boy literally coming into the battle
(08:42):
and leading and the rest is history, obviously
Speaker 2 (08:45):
we'll see
Speaker 1 (08:45):
that
Speaker 2 (08:45):
over and over and over again. Every one of the
disciples that walked through all the journey on this. It
was very simple that they sense a calling from God
to be able to do it. They saw a problem.
They asked somebody to come help them. They went and
went after it. And so you can take a Paul,
grabbing a Timothy, grabbing a Barnabas, Mark, I mean.
Go through the whole, whole of scripture and you see
it over and over again and especially in chapters like
(09:06):
books like Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a slave cupbearer in a
foreign land, and he hears about what happens, where his
ancestors live. He currently didn't even live there, where his
ancestors lived, and goes, Gosh, that's terrible, God. He stops
to pray about it.
And says, God, that's an awful thing. What do you
want me to do about it? And God then guides
him to go there. He's, he has no background in
(09:26):
wall building or being a leader or any of those things,
but God just equips him to be able to do
it because he sees the problem, ask God what to
do about it, and he gets sent to be able
to do it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's good. I think, I think I wanna read that book.
I'm gonna,
Speaker 2 (09:40):
it's, it's
turnaround. You can actually go on Amazon or Books a
Million or all those different places, uh, uh, Barnes and Noble,
everybody's got it, but it, yeah. So it's out. It's
already out. It's out. Yeah, it's out. So yeah, you
can get a chance to be able to go online
and be able to get it, but the focus of
it is really to be able to challenge leaders to
be leaders and to look at it from a biblical context,
not from a worldview because the world looks at it
(10:00):
very different than a biblical context for leadership.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Awesome. Well, let's talk about that then. So, uh, you're
in the Senate and there's a few things going on.
Can you tell us, and this is not to be political,
I just want people to see a day in the
life of Senator James Lankford. What are you dealing with today?
What and I see your Instagram posts and I, I,
I love how you're like, all right guys, this is
what's going on is what we're doing about it.
(10:24):
You know, all that, that's great, but what are you
dealing with today? I mean, I've heard about things like, uh,
government shutdown, whatever that means, and you know, all the
things that go with, well, high level things like that.
What what's the day in the life of a US senator?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It's nuts. It starts early and it goes till late
and I hate to tell students this, but I have
homework literally every single night. So I start very early.
In the mornings, a lot of interviews, a lot of
research things and be able to do the reading on
it early in the day. I've got meetings that go
through the course of the day, whether it be committee hearings,
whether it be votes. Literally I just left the floor
to be able to come and visit with you from
a vote in the Senate chamber, get a chance to
(10:57):
be able to visit and keep going from there. I
Speaker 1 (10:59):
love it. So you just left a vote on the
Senate floor to come hang out with us to tell us.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So that all those things are really busy, but, uh,
you know, I, I talk about the blending of my
life in this. There's also myself and Steve Danes, who's
a senator from Montana. We, we co-host a Bible study
together that's early on Tuesday mornings. We've got a group
of senators that get together and we do verse by
verse walking through scripture together. So it's still a part
of my life. But while I'm also, that's part of
my life, I'm also working on tax policy right now
(11:27):
because we gotta do a major tax bill in the
United States. We're working on federal debt issues because we
got to deal.
With that, I serve on the intelligence Committee, uh, which
means we're dealing with lots of international issues in Israel,
and Ukraine and in China and all these different hotspots.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa is a
real big hotspot right now. All kinds of things that
we're dealing with on international policy as well. Um, so it's,
(11:50):
it's funny to me at times I'll have people catch
me and say, I've got a former youth pastor writing
tax policy for the United States that either encourages them
or terrifies them, one or the other.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well, I, I don't know if it was you or
uh
Uh, John Ashcroft that once said that sometimes senators can
act like a bunch of junior hires, so maybe you're
in the right place. It might have been you.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I have said, I have said often working with juveniles
prepared me for Congress.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
There you go.
Yeah, it was you then. There you go. Now I
hope that doesn't get you in trouble for that, but
uh you're just describing what is. Um, so as a,
as a former full-time pastor, because I think what I'm
hearing you say, you're still pastoring just in a different way. um.
Uh, how, how could young Christians that
(12:36):
I remember as a young kid I would go door
to door. I, I would drop these little American flags
with my markers and go door to door selling them
for 25 cents each. People actually pay me and they're like, wow, ingenuity, capitalism,
all that stuff, and I didn't know. I just, I
loved America. I loved American flags and I watched, remember 1984,
uh Walter Mondale get shellacked by Ronald Reagan in the
(12:58):
uh in the election in 1984 watching all the states
go red and Ronald Reagan, he was, he was the man.
Um, so from a young age, I always had this
interest in, uh, not just politics, but America and the
destiny of our nation. So that I, there's got to
be right now as we're talking, students out there, they
don't know why, but they care. They like you were
(13:20):
talking about, they care about what happens in America, they
care about what happens in their city, their state, um,
their home even maybe it starts there, but they care
maybe
More than the average person. What would you say to
a student like that that cares and wants to see change,
but like you had mentioned, can feel overwhelmed with the
the daunting reality of what is, what would you say
(13:40):
to them? How can they take, they take steps into
leadership and
Um, yeah, and maybe that's part of the journey that
you had into youth ministry, which then led you to
where you are now. So yeah, what would you say
to a student going through that?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
First things first, uh, your, your walk of Christ is
going to be the foundation of everything else that you're
gonna do, and your service as it comes to be
able to serve is not about drawing a crowd to
be able to serve you. The the social media world
that we live in right now is all about how
many people can I get to follow me. You've got
Jesus off to the side.
Why don't you come follow me and then watch and
see what happens, uh, to see, so it's getting that
(14:13):
priority straight on it and then it's asking God, God,
what do you want me to do? You, you made
me for a purpose.
What do you want me to do? How can I
actually be involved in serving other people and finding those
practical ways to be able to serve youth ministry or senate,
all those things are servant roles on it to be
able to find ways to be able to serve other
people on that. So serving on your campus, serving your family,
(14:34):
serving your neighbors, finding ways to be able to plug
in with different groups that just need help on that
to make a difference. But I tell people that are
passionate about our country.
Some people will say, well, gosh, I want to immediately
run for office. I'm like, well, why don't you start
serving the people around you and to see what happens.
If I can say the Nehemiah story on this again, Nehemiah,
when he came and he went to Jerusalem to help
(14:54):
them rebuild the city, it had been decimated for 100
years at that point, but there were people that were
living in the ruins of the city.
And he said, OK, why don't you start working on
the section of the wall right next to your house.
And in 2 months, they rebuilt what had been down
for a century because everybody worked on the section right
next to them. As crazy as that sounds.
(15:14):
If, if we want to see a better nation, we
have better families, we have better communities, that means people
start to be able to serve people around them. So
if you're in middle school, what can you do to
be able to serve a teacher? If you, if, if
people are really angry, what can you do to be
able to reset? If you don't like culturally how we're doing,
if you don't like the anger of social media, what
can
You personally do to be able to change the direction
(15:34):
of that. And I know not many people are doing that, right?
That's why it needs a leader. That's why it needs
somebody to go set a better example. If you don't
like what we see, if I can say it this way,
like the mirror, if, if people look at Washington DC
and they see all the angry, anger in DC.
And I look at them and say, you realize Washington
DC is a representative republic. That means we're a reflection
(15:55):
of the country. This is who we are right now.
And if you don't like what you see, you can
either gripe at the mirror, or you can fix what
is actually us, how we're doing life and how we're
doing things. So first things first, find out what your
calling is, just pray about it, and then ask God
for opportunities to be able to serve, do that, and
then see what else he takes you to be able
(16:15):
to do in the future.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
That sounds like a a what I would call a
godly challenge right there for people to step into that
and and it's as simple as maybe it's as simple
as listening to mom and dad when they say, hey,
wash the dishes.
Yes, mom. Yes, Dad. Sherman.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
It's a biblical thing to be able to both love
your family, honor your father and mother, but it is
um we get greater joy by serving than being served,
and nobody believes that on social media because uh the
social media folks all look like everybody's after them, and but,
but when you talk to some of those folks, and
I've had the opportunity to be able to talk to
those influencers.
(16:50):
They'll often tell you they're just lonely and they want
to be able to serve other people. That's really where
you get joy and no one believes it until you
do it and you're like, oh, I get it now.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, and everybody needs that personal connection, uh, just to
know that somebody is with them or they're with others
and helping others and being a part of something bigger
than themselves. Um, man, uh, so as you continue in
your work, uh.
When I was out in DC a while back, you
had done these capital prayer walks. Do you still do
(17:21):
those with folks?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I do once a quarter. It's a pretty quiet little gathering.
It's typically and we will.
Uh, go through the Capitol and get a chance to
be able to pray in the Senate and the House chamber,
the Supreme Court and for the President, and just spend
some time doing that. I, I still circle my floor, uh,
that in my office, uh, building that's across the street
from the Capitol. I get a chance to be able
to walk my floor and to be able to pray
(17:44):
for all the others that I serve around.
Again, this is just, it's resetting my heart, but also
asking God to be able to work in them. This
is an angry place. It just is. And I need
times to be able to reset and to try to
get God's perspective and to say I can either live
in the angry culture or I can try to live
out of a biblical mindset to say, I disagree with someone,
and some people out here, I really disagree strongly with.
(18:06):
I don't, I don't, I don't follow at all that direction,
but it doesn't mean I have to belittle them and
attack them in the process. I have to find a
way to be able to persuade them.
And I need my heart right to be able to
do
that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Well, and I think even uh with how stylistically you
approach things, you, you talked about the Imago day seeing
the image of God in others and setting that example
and I just wanna, I wanna encourage you because because
you're in such an important place, but also as you said,
a well, a very tense place, um.
The work you're doing is good. It's good work. And
(18:40):
um and I think that's kind of what why I
asked about the Capitol Prayer Walk is that people would
see that even though the media may show the darker
side of things at times, and it's not all untrue
and some of it is very fabricated in terms of
puffed up, uh, there's good things happening on the hill
and there's good people, there's godly people on the hill. um.
(19:03):
And, and that's where we're thankful for you and and
what you do, you know, in California, um, where I'm
based and hopefully other people from other states, I don't
know what their representatives look like, but I, I look
at what you're doing and, and as a, as a
fellow believer in Christ, I think I could speak for
a lot of believers and say thank you. And uh
(19:23):
how can we pray for you? How can people that
are listening, students, how can they even after listening to
this podcast, get on their knees and say, OK, God.
Here's how we can pray for Senator Lankford and his
team as they fight the good fight on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I, I really appreciate that, and I do, I do
challenge people to be able to stop and be able
to ask God to be able to speak to others,
but speak to themselves as well on that and to
be able to step into the challenge because if there's
a need, people should not be afraid to follow God
wherever he leads them. And lots of folks that say
that's a really dark place. I was like, yeah, how
odd of God to send light to dark places.
(19:59):
So, uh, whether it's journalism or the theater or politics,
or there's so many places that we look at and go,
I don't see a lot of believers there, a lot
of Christ followers there. If God calls you to be there,
don't be afraid to be able to follow where he
guides you to that. My family and I, we always
ask for wisdom.
In this place, I tell you, there's new problems, there's
new issues every single day, multiple times a day, and
(20:21):
we need God's wisdom to be able to know what
to do and how to be able to encourage others.
I need God's favor because I work in a legislative role.
I work with, as you mentioned earlier, there's 100 people
in the Senate.
So anything I want to do, I can't just walk
in the room and go, everybody, I demand you to
do this. I gotta persuade at least 59 other people
in the Senate to have 60 votes to be able
(20:42):
to move an idea. So I need not only God's
wisdom and what to do, but I need his favor
with other people to be able to move a set
of ideas on that. And then always pray for what
God's doing in other, other places. Uh, again, folks watch
the television and they sometimes see people in politics and
they start yelling about all those people and they get
angry about it.
And I will typically say, hey, that's my mission field.
(21:04):
I forgot has placed me. As you see people on
the television, pray for them and their families because they
have real lives and real families and real struggles as well.
So pray that I would have the wisdom on how
to be able to share with them. There are other
people that are here in Capitol Hill area that also
follow Christ.
they would have opportunities to be able to share Christ
and God's love with them, but also to be able
(21:24):
to represent God's reconciliation to them as well. It's good.
It's a pretty broken place. Reconciliation is a good idea.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, and first, Timothy too says that to pray for
all those in authority that we may live peaceable lives.
And so that that's a command of God. So thank
you and and.
And so you heard it, everybody pray for Senator Lankford
and others on on the hill and in leadership. um,
so as we get ready to wrap this up, um,
and I am gonna ask you to pray over us
(21:52):
so that you can uh get your pastor mojo on there, uh,
and I do think if you made a poster of
you in a suit or something and signed it, people
would hang those posters up in the room. You could
be the cool senator. I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I, I, I, I, I, I never would aspire to that.
I'm never gonna achieve it. I was the, I was
the kid in Latin Club.
banned in high school and I never obviously was pursuing
to be the coolest. I can't achieve it now. Well,
there
Speaker 1 (22:15):
you go. At least you're you're self aware. Good job.
All right. Well, um, so where can people follow you
if they want to keep up with a day in
the life of Senator Lankford, where they, where can they
go follow you?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So if they're gonna follow me on it, they can
go to just uh at Senator Lankford, any of the
social media platforms. Got you, Senator Lankford, and they can
follow me there. Uh, the website is Langford.senate.gov. That's GOV
as in government. Langford.senate.gov is the website, uh, but just
any of the social media platforms at Senator Langford, they
get a chance to follow us there. Awesome,
Speaker 1 (22:48):
awesome.
And uh and your book again, it's called The Turnaround.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It's just called Turnaround. It's available. Amazon, Books a Million,
Barnes and Noble, all those different sites if you want
to get a chance to be able to get it
and hopefully it's an encouragement to folks and encouragement about
Speaker 1 (23:01):
leadership. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, um, I, I wanna respect your
time as you got to go back to the Senate
floor and
Help keep the American government afloat, um, and, uh, would
you pray a blessing on our listeners, on students as
they're considering what God has for them next, whether they'll
be youth pastors and then run for Congress and end
(23:22):
up in the US Senate one day or president who knows,
who knows what will happen from here, but if you
could pray, that'd be great. I
Speaker 2 (23:29):
to. Let's pray together. Father, I do pray that you
would speak to each of the students that this conversation
would not be just a conversation between the two of us.
But that you would be the one that would speak
to them today. May your Holy Spirit guide and encourage.
And that you would teach each one of these students
and parents your voice.
(23:49):
How you can speak to them, pray that you make
the scripture alive to them, that they would read your word,
and that they would see you for who you are,
and they would not be afraid to follow you where
you lead them.
God, we as a nation need your help.
Yes, we're angry, we're divided. We're in debt, we're struggling.
(24:11):
You spoke peace to a storm.
You can definitely speak peace to our nation, or that
you would help each one of us to know what
to do and how to do it, what to say
and how to say it.
Help us to each be a part of what you
want to do in this great country that you have
set aside.
God let it be in the name of Jesus, I ask. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Senator James Lankford, thank you so much for your time, uh, and, uh,
and hanging out with us and all the students and
parents and everybody that's checking this podcast out. And, uh, yeah,
God bless you and what you do on Capitol
Hill.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Thanks very much. Look forward to getting a chance to
chat with you face to face and seeing a lot
of the students.
Maybe end up here serving alongside.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes sir, yes sir. And, and, uh, yeah, and you
come back to Orange County anytime. Well, it's hard enough
to talk politics with your family or friends around the
dinner table. Try being a Christian in Washington DC doing
politics on the daily. As you just heard, that's Senator Lakeford.
Life. So let's keep Senator Lankford in prayer as he
serves God in that capacity and all people in authority
(25:17):
so that we might live quiet and peaceable lives. They
are on the front lines of culture and we can
take part in the advancement of God's kingdom in that
area as we pray for all those in authority. We'll
see you next time on Kingdom and Culture.
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