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Doug Schoenwalder: City Settles Lawsuit! First Amendment Win For Christians · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Hi, friends. Today we have a special guest in studio. This is really exciting because an evangelist friend in the Green Bay area
• 0:08
  has a lawsuit with a good positive outcome because he was sharing the gospel. It was a free speech issue and
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  we'll let him tell the story next on World View Matters.
• 0:23
  Welcome to World View Matters discussing controversial issues
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  discerning current events
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  defending biblical Christianity. No topic off limits. And now here's your host, David Fierazzo.
• 0:40
  Hey, friends. This is one of those podcasts where we're going to be reminded one of our
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  privileges and responsibilities as believers in Christ is to share the love of God and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sins
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  that we can have eternal life if we repent. Very important, very simple, but very important message that we forget because we get so busy
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  maybe we don't feel compelled. Well, I'm going to talk to a man in a couple of seconds who has been compelled and who does a great job
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  as an evangelist. I want to bring in Doug Schoenwalder. He's currently serving as a ministry leader at encounter fellowship.
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  He's a member of the Guardian Board for Acts 1-8 ministries out of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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  Leadership Board member of Lifewise Academy in Green Bay, but he's also a street evangelist. This is what I love about this brother and the successful business owner.
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  He's been married to his wife Sarah for 39 years. Almost big four zero has two adult daughters and one son and a lot of Doug Schoenwalder.
• 1:41
  Welcome to World View Matters. Good to see your brother. Thanks for having me, David. Yes. And you're in studio, which makes this really a little bit more
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  personal intimate, but you are a friend. We've known each other not extremely well through the years, but obviously Christian circles, different churches and and now you've got a great story.
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  Not everybody has an outcome that that you have had with the lawsuit. So this is really good and you did it in a way.
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  So other people who want to use their free speech to share the love of God in Christ out in public will not be arrested or given a citation and you that's one thing you pointed out in this article, which will get to.
• 2:23
  But another way of friends, if you want to look this up, it's in the Green Bay press Gazette.
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  Deeper man sued City of Green Bay for violating his first amendment rights, the city settled. Look that article up. We linked in our YouTube and our Rumble podcast when this is up online.
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  But so Doug, tell us about your conversion briefly. And then as you matured in Christ, what really led you or compelled you to start going out and evangelizing and sharing the gospel?
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  Yeah, I've been in the church my entire life. My parents had me in the church from infancy on. So I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for a long time.
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  But right before COVID, I was in Nashville listening to a very bold preacher and I had the Holy Spirit convict me that I needed to be baptized as an adult in my own faith, not my parents faith like I was as an infant.
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  And ever since then, the Holy Spirit has been leading me. I died to my flesh. I now live in the spirit. And that is what has propelled me now to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 3:41
  Awesome. Good answer. I want to also ask you, you put out a recent video, just really clip you set to your friends and people in the Green Bay area about an event that you were going to promote. You're going to go to a discipleship training event.
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  Anyway, one of the things you shared in there at the very beginning, before I get to the message you said, I want to talk to you about baptism. Ask you a few questions. Have you been baptized?
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  Because let's clarify that you can dedicate a baby. Anybody can dedicate a baby. But you are not baptized. And if you are baptized as a baby, so called, you're not saved eternally.
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  Correct. You can dedicate a baby. Explain why that's important to you. What's so important because you are being baptized maybe into a religion. You're being baptized into your parents faith.
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  But you as a mature believer need to confess Jesus Christ publicly. You need to die with Christ in the waters of baptism and come out as a renewed creature.
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  Bible calls us a new creation, where we no longer live in the flesh, but live in the spirit.
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  Buried with Christ and then raised to walk a new life in him in the spirit. That's symbolically when we get baptized. I got baptized when I was 23 when I rededicated my life to the Lord.
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  I was compelled to do that. I searched the scriptures and sure enough, you know, you go through the book of Acts or people get adults being baptized when they come to believe.
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  So it is biblical friends and maybe you haven't been baptized and that's something to look into for yourself personally to make that commitment.
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  So Doug, you're out there sharing the gospel. How long I know you've done a lot of different events. How long have you been doing this until this what year was it?
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  Was it 2023 or that's when you filed the lawsuit when you first got citations for being out there on a public sidewalk sharing the gospel.
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  How long have you been doing that before that? It started right around, you know, the end of 2020.
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  When I started doing street evangelism in the city of Green Bay at the farmers market.
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  Okay. So and the farmers market is downtown with all kinds of booths and tables and products available.
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  Correct. Open to the public on Saturdays.
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  So it says after being stopped multiple times from evangelizing at the farmers market, you eventually sued the city of Green Bay.
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  Were you given fines or citations before you sued the city?
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  Yes, I was. I was giving given fines for religious proclamations at a public event.
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  So the downtown. Yes, downtown Green Bay is the event organizer.
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  But it's done on the city of Green Bay streets and the police in conjunction with downtown Green Bay.
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  And later on we found out there was an office emails between the police department downtown Green Bay, the attorney's office.
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  And all in collusion trying to get me to stop from evangelizing the public.
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  So if someone else, there might be people around the country watching this or listening to this podcast and saying, well, I've been warned.
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  And I've been on a public sidewalk. How could they get a hold of you? How would they get a hold of you?
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  I can give them your email address or we can put it in the podcast because people might have questions about something there.
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  They have gone through or are going through. Right. So let me just give you a few brief things to think about.
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  One is amplification. You have to look in the city ordinances to see if you can use amplification.
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  The city of Green Bay, you cannot use amplification. I knew that so I never used it.
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  The other things is the very important thing is, is it a public event?
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  So is it screened off? Are there fences where it only allows certain people to come in and based on a fee to get in?
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  Right. But if it's open to the public on public property, you have first amendment rights.
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  It's interesting. I know a story of some friends, you know, Matt Trewella. No, I do not.
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  Okay. He's a pastor down in Waukesha, a Milwaukee area. Well, they've got young men from his church were out at a pride event at a public park sharing the gospel and three of them, four of them were arrested arrested for doing that.
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  In fact, I think his son-in-law or daughter-in-law was one of them arrested just sharing the gospel publicly. It was an open to the public event, but they cater to, of course, a certain group, which is discrimination.
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  If it's open to the public and you're just on a sidewalk. So it says right here, then in 2023, that's when you filed the lawsuit.
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  The good news is the city settled. Talk to us about that process because it says the, and this sheet Vivian Barrett, I don't know who she is, I don't know her beliefs.
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  She did a really good job in this article, very fair, factual, even mentioned why you evangelize and what you're trying to do that you're not an idiot, you know, that she didn't frame you as some wacko, which I thought was, was good. It was fair.
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  It says, you defended yourself against the charge and you were found not guilty, quote, due to the absence of any evidence in support of the charge.
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  But there is a new farmer's market rule that prohibits religious proclamations. Is that new because of you?
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  Yes, really? So the first year that I got arrested, I was down there and I was proclaiming the news of Jesus Christ and the gospel and they arrested me. So I went to court and I defended myself in court.
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  And for those of you who don't know, the city of Green Bay has issues, the assistant attorney in the city of Green Bay, who was the representative for the city of Green Bay is a transvestite.
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  And so you know the spirit behind all of this. And so anyway, I just defended myself in court and that case was then I was found not guilty.
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  But then they started to change the rules of the farmer's market to include religious proclamations. They tried to expand the boundaries of the farmer's market and try to keep me out of the farmer's market.
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  You know what's interesting in the article, it says the new rule was instituted at the beginning of the 2022 season. It says political and religious proclamations or protests now protests to understand because some of the special people on the left get kind of violent or it just they're just idiotic.
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  It's chaos, but two of the most important things your faith and government who runs the government who runs the city affairs of the city politics, so politics and religion there, you can't say anything out.
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  It's like, wow, this is America. Did that surprise you the first time when you did you expect resistance from the police or from anywhere else?
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  I did not expect resistance, but as I've come to learn we are we are fighting a spiritual battle and people man they don't like to hear truth.
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  Some people have demonic influences and they will manifest at times. But you just don't know who you're going to come against at when you are evangelizing.
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  I want to bring up Acts 529, I know you know this, but guys, this is a great, I mean, Acts 430 is another good verse, but Acts 529 when the disciples were warned not to speak or preach in Jesus' name anymore.
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  They said, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intent to bring this man's blood upon us and they gave them orders not to continue teaching in Jesus' name, but Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.
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  How will they hear without a preacher? How will they hear without a preacher, Dave?
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  You're quoting Romans now. Go ahead. We need as Christians to obey what God has said, go and make disciples, that's the great commission.
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  The church nowadays, a lot of times we'll teach on the Bible and teach how to get through your day, how to get through your life as a Christian, but they don't teach how to evangelize.
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  And that's a big part of who we are supposed to be as Christ's followers, we are to die to self and live for Christ. And part of that is discipling other people.
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  How will they hear without a preacher? I'll look that up during the break because I want to read that when we come back.
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  But I noticed that in the article, it says, you were show and wilder forced to stop preaching four times handcuffed twice in 2022.
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  But it's interesting when asked for clarification on the new rules about no religious proclamations or political, the executive director Jeff Merck's declined to comment.
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  So you can make up rules and you don't have to explain anything about them. Do you have any thoughts on that before we go to break?
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  Yeah, Jeff Marcus from downtown Green Bay organization is very liberal.
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  Downtown Green Bay supports transvestite murals on the side of buildings in the city of Green Bay.
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  So they are a very liberal woke organization and he hates it when I'm down there and he was at one point told me that I needed to leave and I said I don't need to leave because it's my first amendment right to be here.
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  So then of course he went and called the police on me.
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  Okay, we've got a lot more to get to including some details on violating the rule against religious proclamations, which I mean, I guess you expect this maybe in some big cities, but at in smaller town, smaller events open to the public.
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  Maybe we're a little naive and we shouldn't be anymore because we we don't think this should happen in America, but.
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  And maybe under the new administration some of this will let up again, but we'll see because it is a spiritual battle at its core, isn't it Doug?
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  Yes, it is.
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  Alright, we'll be right back with more on World View Matters. Keep it right here.
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  Get free activation now with promo code David.
• 15:10
  Hey, friends, thanks to you and of course Jesus. Thank you Lord. Praise Jesus.
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  Our episodes have been surging across various platforms and hey, it's not me. I think it's partly the guests, but you are praying for us.
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  You're sharing the podcasts and I really appreciate it so very much. I think they're a blessing to the body of Christ.
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  And in this one in particular where we're sharing the gospel as well, people if they don't know the gospel, if they've never heard it, they need to hear it.
• 15:45
  They need to understand there's a decision to be made. But anyway, we're on Apple Spotify, Facebook, Rumble, YouTube.
• 15:52
  And if you haven't downloaded the free app, Freedom Project Media app, it's in your app store, go and check that out.
• 15:59
  So we're with Doug Schoenwalder. He's an evangelist and a brother from Green Bay to peer, actually.
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  But oh, before I go to you, Doug, I wanted to read what you referred to him. That's Romans 10.
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  Backing it up to verse 9, it says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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  For with the heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
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  The scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. And then verse 13 says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
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  And then 14, here's where you come in or all of us should come in, right? How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
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  And how will they believe in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?
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  Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things?
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  So Doug, you're one of those that is bringing the good news. We all should, I don't want to put heavy burdens on people, but it is encouraged in the Bible that we need to be sharing the love of Christ.
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  Absolutely. And you know, the thing about street evangelism that I've come to learn in overtime, God has refined me is that I don't need to go out there and point fingers at people because they know that they are sinful.
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  Nobody has to teach them how to lie, cheat or steal. That comes to us naturally. We don't have to beat them over the head saying you're a sinner on your way to hell.
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  We need to be patient with them. We need to be loving as much as you can be, but yet they need to hear the truth. And they need also to hear that God has not sent his son to condemn us, but to save us.
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  So everybody knows John 3.16 for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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  But then John 3.17 says for God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but that through him, meeting Jesus, we might be saved.
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  So we don't have to hit people over the head because they're conscience and the Holy Spirit will condemn them already, but they just need to understand that broad as the way that leads to death and destruction.
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  So back to the article briefly, because we're already running out of time, it says you were violating the rule against religious proclamations and a trespass arrest authorization was completed against you.
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  And an officer told you on July 16, 2022, from this day forward, you are not welcome here while the farmer's market is going on and that you would be arrested if you returned.
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  Well, it violated your first amendment rights, the city lacked lawful basis, and you did return. You were arrested, as were our friends, I mentioned down in water town at a public park during a pride event when they were on the sidewalk sharing the gospel.
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  And in fact, walking away, Marcus Schrader was one of the young men in his 20s. He was handcuffed. And on the back of his shirt, he's a police officer taken him away in the back of his shirt. There's a photo. It says, I will speak the truth, even if I have to speak it alone.
• 19:28
  Is that good? That's there are people that are going to do it and they understand this free speech battle. But what, what are some of the things you say when you first approach someone? I'm sure that you ask questions or do you just
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  court of scripture? What are a couple of the first things you say? Right. I do a lot of prayer before I go and I ask Holy Spirit to guide me. So it's not always that I'm proclaiming the gospel out loud. Sometimes I'm just handing out tracks. Sometimes I will stand there with the sign. And then as people come by, I'll ask them, what do they think about my sign? Hopefully started dialogue. So I just do as the Holy Spirit leads and no Saturday farmer's market or Wednesday farmer's
• 20:13
  market is the same or interaction is the same. It's all just, okay, let's see what happens here Lord today and just guide my steps, use my mouth as an instrument for your word to come forth. Different people, different backgrounds, Holy Spirit can give a specific leading for each person. And I would imagine
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  the responses being receptive are very few. But we don't know how the gospel and how the words that you are speaking will affect them down the road. Or if they're thinking about that later on that night, or how that's going to affect because God said is my word will not return to me void, right? It will accomplish what I sent my word to do. So you hand out tracks saying God allows you turns. That's one of the tracks you give out. And
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  I want one also go on to this article that says based on decisions from the US Court of Appeals, our police department cannot remove those persons expressing or distributing first amendment protected speech in public spaces considered public form. So that was a turnaround for the city of green Bay. And you said later on, I'm looking for the actual quote where you did this in order to help people.
• 21:31
  Yes, you continue to preach at the market and hope the lawsuit will protect others in the future. Talk to us. We've got a few more minutes. Talk to us a little bit more about that and your intention there and your hopes that other people get involved.
• 21:43
  I was spurred on to continue on with this lawsuit by a couple close friends and a couple pastors that I know. And it's not about me. It's for the gospel moving forward in this area.
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  And I was given the opportunity to walk away based on the city just giving me money, but I said, I will not accept just money. I will accept some kind of apology for what you have done because they knew they were doing it.
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  It was they knew they were breaking the law by doing it. We had a couple officers under oath say to my attorney that they knew they were breaking the law, but they were under orders from the upper echelon in the police department to do what they were doing, which was arresting me and removing me from the premises.
• 22:38
  And a lot of people run into that because someone higher up is committed leftist or they're really hostile toward the Christian or the biblical worldview and they just have a bone to pick. So they're going to single out Christians.
• 22:52
  A lot of people run into that, Doug. And so you're not alone after that gives you any great comfort at this point. But this is interesting. A result. The city of Green Bay also ordered was ordered to provide additional first amendment training to all of its officers, the police officers.
• 23:10
  I find that to be helpful. And if other cities would do that, then maybe they would understand, oh, hey, yeah, I guess we shouldn't go and threaten that man or arrest them. What are your thoughts on that before we wrap it up? Yeah, that's very crucial. And somebody brought it to my attention.
• 23:28
  Because we have the NFL draft happening in Green Bay here. And they said, wow, what a preemptive strike against any police administration that wants to come against the street preachers. And there will be many coming in from many different states to the NFL draft year next month. Yes.
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  So this is a preemptive strike against them. And we are now on the offense, per se. So there's another interesting sentence in the article. Instead of having interactions with officers.
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  Showing while they're said he has seen them defend his rights to people who may take issue with your preaching. We want to hear that because that's a positive thing. Yeah, that's a great thing because they used to just come to me automatically when somebody would complain they'd run right over to me and shout out or can you move or do whatever to keep it down blah blah blah whatever it was for that particular day.
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  But now the police officers I can tell know the law. They know I meant business when I brought forth this lawsuit. So they are now helping teach the public what their rights are as well. Amen, brother. Now are you aware of anything being organized for people going out during the NFL draft in Green Bay. There's going to be people. It's going to be crazy. Yes. There is a organization that I also belong to. It's called sports fan outreach.
• 24:54
  Outreach international and they go all over America. The big sporting events show in the gospel. So they will have teams of people here sports fan outreach international. I know there's a Facebook page. I think I'm I've used to see some of their news feeds. I you don't see everything anymore. Anyway, two and a half minutes left. Doug show and Walder. Thank you for doing the work of God. I just want to leave you an opportunity here in about two minutes just to talk to people who
• 25:24
  maybe haven't shared the love of Christ. Maybe people closest to them don't even know their Christian. Just share your heart for a minute or two. Yeah, you don't have to have a special gift to evangelize to somebody. You don't necessarily have to do what I'm doing. You can approach anybody, whether it's in a grocery store, aisle at the checkout.
• 25:48
  Anybody that you come against or not come against, but come in contact with. Just share the love of Jesus Christ with them. I also belong to Acts 1, 8 ministry and they have a really good outreach plan to they call them pack events, which is an acronym for planned acts of Christian kindness, where you just do an act of Christian kindness for somebody and then you explain to them the love of Jesus Christ. Give us an example. Yeah, what's one of those acts. Okay, on Mother's Day.
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  Mother's Day. They buy roses will go up in hand. Women roses and just say we respect you as women. God loves you as a woman. Do you know Jesus Christ because he has the ultimate love for you. And do you know the gospel and what he's done for you. And then, you know, we can have those deeper conversations as to whether or not they're living for Jesus Christ.
• 26:43
  Plan acts of Christian kindness. Yes. I'm also see you've got around to it there. Yes. Did you get around to show everybody show that up so the camera can see it. It's my favorite track. It's all around around to it. Yes. So around to it is unique in that it is round. And a lot of people don't think it's a gospel track, but on the back it reads you've pacified your conscience by saying you would get right with God someday.
• 27:12
  Well, now you're getting around to it. It's great. So it gives a Bible versus on the back and the gospel presentation and then where they can go if they need to get additional information.
• 27:24
  Living waters. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Well, brother, thank you for coming in studio. And thank you for all you do. God bless your efforts and larger territory. Give you good success when it comes to people receiving the gospel. Thank you. Thank you, David. God bless you're welcome.
• 27:38
  Well, friends, good example, right? Some lot to think about. God bless you. And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.