ChristiTutionalist Politics | Christian Perspectives on Constitutional Issues

CTP (S3EJanSpecial5) When Tradition Meets A Moving Culture

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics • Season 3

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CTP (S3EJanSpecial5) When Tradition Meets A Moving Culture
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond  
A candid talk with Keith Haney on leading church change with conviction and care, built around his new book Guided by Grace. We swap stories about fear, hope, outreach, and how to update methods without bending the message.
• why narrative helps leaders model healthy change
• churches resisting change while neighborhoods shift
• methods evolve while doctrine stays firm
• practical outreach, mentoring, and digital touchpoints
• human care, stewardship, and caring for workers
• addressing racial divides with Scripture-led tools
• naming fear and building trust with small wins
• where to find Keith’s books, blogs, and podcast  

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Author, Blogger, Podcaster

SPEAKER_02:

Hello, welcome to another episode of Pristitutionalist Podcast. I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard. That's L-E-N-A-R-D. It looks French. It's not without an O. Thank you for tuning in. As Graham Norton used to say on his show. Let's get on with the show. Just wanted to let you know this brief intro. I'm gonna double up for the rest of January. I'll do two during the week rather than one midweek drop on Wednesday. So Tuesday and Thursday, the rest of January. Anyway, let's let's get some guests on this Graham Norton currently says, and I'm borrowing. We're trying this again. Blue tongue, not a blue tongue, not a disease, ate a blue raspberry candy. Welcome back to the show, Keith Haney, after our fifth Wind Suck Mac MacroSuck Windsor 11 blue screen, fifth one in two hours. Let's try to get this in. Welcome to the show, Keith.

SPEAKER_00:

Good to be on again. For the second time today.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I think we lost we didn't get into anything, so what we lost is no big deal. I'm gonna trash it anyway if it's still floating in Zoom. At any rate. So you've authored a new book. Let's not waste any time. If people want to know where you're from and all that, they can go back in the Christitutionalist archives and get the old episode with old episodes with you. Tell us about the new book. The title is what? I got it here, but I'm not gonna look it up. Go ahead, John.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. It's it's Guided by Grace, a narrative to lead organizational change. And it's about um a young pastor going to a congregation for the first time at a seminary, and he's helping lead a congregation through the change process.

SPEAKER_02:

Interesting. So ask the usual question, what inspired it?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it was inspired by my doctoral dissertation. I spent the last three years during COVID at being locked down, not being able to do a whole lot, I thought. And I got the opportunity to go back to school to work on my doctorate. And so I thought I'd find a topic that kind of relates to what I do as a pastor, which is helping congregations do outreach and evangelism. But I noticed that most churches struggle with change. Um we don't like change as organizations. We have a hard time navigating the culture around us.

SPEAKER_02:

The I'm gonna stop you for a second. Sometimes there's too much bad change. Yes, there's too much. We need change back. Please go ahead and continue.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and sometimes what what it really needs is we the community around us changes, but our church is still doing things like it's 1954. And it's not that we won't ever want to change what we're teaching. Right. But sometimes our methods have to be a little different. Like you just talked about Windows 11. Sometimes we're operating with Windows 8, and the computers are all on Windows 11, and the things aren't gelling quite right.

SPEAKER_02:

Everybody's on these damn smartphones.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And AI. Right. AI. And so you got people who don't come to the building, they don't understand that there's so much to be learned from being in person. And so I I hope church is kind of what does it look like to connect again with your community if you've forgotten how to do that? And some of the struggles of doing that. So that's what the book's really about.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Again, this is Keith Haney back in case if we freeze again, and this is going to be a really, really short interview. What's the book title again?

SPEAKER_01:

Guided by Grace, a narrative to leading organizational change.

SPEAKER_02:

And available Amazon and all Amazon, Barnes Noble.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Since we've not frozen yet, you know, not knock on at the head. Where were you born? And now where are you now? And significant places in between.

SPEAKER_01:

I was born in the great state of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as a matter of fact. Um, in the shadow of LSU, which which is going through some changes right now.

SPEAKER_02:

But um Charlie, as we record, as we speak, there's a turning point with Erica and JD Vance gonna be going on. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, exactly. Um, great state to be part of. Uh grew up in a southern background, um, friendly people, more or less. Um then I now live in Iowa, another, another great state, you know, in a in a couple years is gonna be the place where the the the presidential election gets kicked off again. We we are the first in a nation state, and so we get to see all the all the politicians come and try and woo us.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh and I take umbirds to that. Yeah, no, actually I don't, but I've written several pieces. Iowa, I have no problem with Iowa and uh New Hampshire being first, but what follows, in my opinion, should adjust every 10 years to what are the six most up for grabs, purplish swing states. Those are the ones that determine the presidency, so that's where the primaries should be first or after Iowa and uh New Hampshire. Yeah, your thoughts are fine with that.

SPEAKER_01:

After that, I'm you can as long as we don't lose our first one nation's tax.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Well, I'm I'm a I'm a traditionalist, I want to keep that tradition, but at the same time, right, you know, it it again, good change, sent logic, reason, thought, not oh my god, touchy feeling change for the sake of feelings because it'll make me feel better, nonsense. No. Now, you mentioned Iowa again, the uh blue tongue, apologize, blue raspberry candy earlier. What's what are you doing these days in Iowa besides releasing a book?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So I I work uh at Iowa District West. I I'm the mission executive there. I work with 164 congregations helping them to do mission, uh evangelism, stewardship, and human care. And human care for us is taking care of the church workers and also uh for a while was on the front line of dealing, helping churches deal with COVID. So I work a lot with those kind of human human care issues. Uh we talk about life. We're really, really pushing a whole life agenda here with um our congregations helping them learn um to make because for one you may not know this, but Iowa at one point until just recently had the most uh progressive abortion law in the nation. We had we spent the last six years going back and undoing a really horrible uh decision that was made by the Supreme Court. So we've gotten back in line with what kind of the values of Iowa's constitution are.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, I hear you on that. We've gone through that battle here. You know, the Supreme Court, thankfully, with Chief Just ass Rob turds, as I call him, constantly wanting to moderate the court and have limited scope rulings rather than really judging on the merits of everything involved in the case, ignoring the 14th amendment. But thank God they at least bothered to recognize, hey, look, there's a 10th Amendment, so let's just send it back to the state. So, yeah, our Michigan Constitution had no abortion, uh abortion ban or prohibition since the early 1900s. And of course, our state is all currently left-wing controlled, including our Michigan court. So they put a ballot proposal on, lied there, oh, it's just codifying Roe v. No, it's a lim it literally legalized pedophilia by you know talking about sexual freedom and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sexual rights. Nothing to do with whether you kill a baby or not, even further legalizing pedophilia to a degree. And the Supreme Court says, ah, yeah, we're fine with that, right? So yeah, I I yeah, again, they're just I'm webmaster for Upper Down River Michigan right to life. Udmi dash RTL.org. Udmi-rtl.org. So, you know, some of that's gone into there, uh, the lies they told. Uh, but anyway, I I'm worried about macro suck windslow 11 freeze again. What's the website where people can find you before it nukes us again?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Look up becoming bridgebuilders.org is where you can find all my podcasts, so you can find access to the books and the blogs I write, which I write uh uh weekly blogs on different topics. Right right now, we're talking about uh finding mentors. What does it look like to find a good mentor for you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I knew that. I forgot it. I knew that I forgot that, but yeah, so I wrote it down to make sure you know we we get it on the bottom scroll for the behind the scenes video. So through the generosity of Macrosuck, we're still on the air, so we got that important stuff out. Now, uh, did you author other books or are there any other in the works?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. My very first was a Bible study um back in 2016, published by Concordia Publishing House, and it's a downloadable uh Bible study, and it was called One Nation Under God Healing Racial Divides.

SPEAKER_02:

And that can be found at becoming bridgebuilders.org.

SPEAKER_01:

It's best to be found at uh CPH uh cph.org, uh concordia publishinghouse.org. That is the publishing house that it's on.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you, but I'm trying to sneak in pertinent as quick as possible in case if we get nuked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and that was written because it was written during the Michael Brown situation in in Ferguson, Missouri.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, the gentle giant that attacked the cop trying to take his gun. Yeah, oh, the gentle giant lies, lies, lies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there was a lot of churches that were trying to figure out how do we talk about race in a in a biblical way. The book didn't really take off until the George Floyd incident happened. And all of a sudden, yeah, we were locked down, and all of a sudden, churches realized that there was something we wanted to figure out a way to do this positive. So the Bible study was really written to give churches the tools to talk about race in a way that's grounded in scripture and not grounded in all the stuff that you hear in the world around us.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, we've had similar here in Michigan, malice green, again, criminal, drug addict, drug dealer, resisted arrest, brought upon his own death. The only one responsible for any of these deaths are the criminals. And it has nothing to do with skin tone. Right? We are one human race, different subcultures from different subregions, but one human race. Yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And what and what I do in the book is I talk about the fact that often racism is really about spiritual warfare, not about whether you like or dislike.

SPEAKER_02:

Cultural Marxism, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So we focus on the fact that it's a Satan finding ways to tell us a little bit of the truth, not the whole story, so that we continue to fight with each other. And as long as we're fighting with each other, nothing ever improves.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, I hear you on that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

So the name of this book again is Guided by Grace: A Narrative to Lead Organizational Change.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's great. Here's what it looks like Keith Hain. Uh oh. It's not working on the green screen. Not working on I do that a lot too with my. I've got the book of the Book of Kennedy Project Carpe Diem is one of my recent novelettes, and you can see it's green. I'm amazed. It's actually the green screen is cooperating right now because normally it won't show up, and yours wasn't showing up. So, yeah. Oh, goodness gracious. Keith Haney, do you put a middle initial in there?

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, the middle and middle initial is Keith. My first name is Byron.

SPEAKER_02:

So you know, my friend, I don't know. I I think I knew it, but probably one of those that I facts that I've forgotten. Because, like me, Joseph M. Leonard, and again, it's not French, it looks French, it's not Lennard, it's Leonard without an O. Have to put the middle initial in my books, on my books, because there is a Joseph Lennard out of South Carolina who is also a Christian author, and I got to avoid, you know, the confusion. I get emails of hey, what did you mean when you said this in this book? No, wrong Joseph. Right. And I've tried reaching out to him, he never gets back to me. I'd love to have a conversation with him on this show. What did he write? Uh, the last so far is the one I keep getting emails about. So that's the one I'll mention. But, you know, I obviously I want people buying my books, not his books. So I don't pay much attention to what he's written, other than what people keep asking me questions about. I like to joke. I am not he, he is not me, and neither of us are Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_01:

There you go. What's your new book about?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh life and living. You know, right? Kennedy, a female lead. Uh like I got a review, I just put it up, who said, you know, I didn't like this book at the start, but the more I get into it at the end, I love this book. I I get it now that I've actually read the whole book, right? It's a modern tale told in a modern way about a modern woman trying to navigate positively through our modern fallen world, right? So I'm not writing it like Shakespeare because it shouldn't be written like Shakespeare. We're not in those times. Right. But you know, not everybody's gonna get that. So good for you. Um yeah, I was surprised. I just got that review in last night, so it's rushing my head here. I don't know what to ask next. I I'm shocked that we're actually still on the air. So let me ask an open question. What would you like to say to the audience?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I guess I'd like to say a couple things. You know, you and I have often talked about how sometimes the society around us is causing us to live in kind of a fear-based approach to things. But as believers, we know that we know how the story ends. And no matter what the outside world tries to put on us in terms of having us afraid or even in conflict with each other, I think the the part to the title of your thing, Christitutionalist, Christ still reigns supreme. Yeah, yeah. And we we lie we rely on and lean into him as the source and the one who still sits on the throne, and we find our strength in him. And and nothing else around us has the ability to make us feel a certain way or do a certain thing.

SPEAKER_02:

And why I started the show, why there are four companion books to the show uh modern world versus tradition and biblical community, free will and charity through our own blood and chazer versus worldly communism, which is force and theft, right? There's a big Jesus wasn't a socialist or a communist. It's the whole Bible needs to be read in full context to get biblical community versus the Bradford colony, where communism already failed on our continent, and the Mayflower Compact was scrapped, and he instituted free market capitalism, private property versus communal, individual rights and responsibility, and the rest, as they say, is history. America was founded on those values, not the Mayflower Compact. Communism long before Marx and Mao and Che and Castro and all them is history. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think that's why I wrote the book too because the church is the one organization that has the ability because it is founded in in Christ's message to bring hope to a lost and dying world.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, amen, brother. Okay, well, I I'm tempted between wrapping it up and just going till it till it shuts us down, but I I think I will go ahead and wrap it up. This will be a shorter show. You've been on before. Again, people go back in the Christitutionalist podcast, archives, find the other appearance. I think you might have been on twice already. Once or twice, once for sure, maybe twice. I'm not sure. I don't because I was on your show. I may be confusing the numbers here, but it's becoming bridgebuilders.org.

SPEAKER_01:

And the name of the book again is Guided by Grace: A Narrative to Lead Organizational Change.

SPEAKER_02:

By Keith Haney. Thank you, Keith, for stopping by and putting up with my computer issues. And uh and also the confusion. I confused myself on the time. I wrote down one. We changed it a few times, and I wrote down one thing on my notes, and it's another thing in the computer, and good thing it's later with all those blue screens, uh, we'd had more problems than even this.

SPEAKER_01:

God knew what he was doing. So

SPEAKER_02:

It was a divine intervention in there.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for having me on, Joseph. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02:

Love you, brother. I'm glad you were here. Mr. Keith. I would just trick what is it again? West. I would just trick West. Yeah, I knew there was something else on there. But again, my I'm so frustrated, dude, on a computer. My brain is mushed.

SPEAKER_01:

You should move to Mac.

SPEAKER_02:

Alright, take care. God bless. Blessings. Announcing Christitutionalist Podcast Gear. CTP gear or CTP wear, if you prefer. Headgear, like hats, torso gear, apparel, drink gear, mugs and glasses, and the sort. So subscribe to CTP at tinyurl.com slash subscribe to CTP. Get your CTP gear via tinyurl.com slash ctp gear. And of course, get your Joseph M. Leonard Media Manuscripts via Joseph MLonard.us slash shop. And again, that's Leonard without an O. Joseph M L E N A R D dot US slash shop. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.

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Joseph M Lenard

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