Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Doug Schoenwalder: City Settles Lawsuit! First Amendment Win For Christians (REPLAY)

Transcript

Doug Schoenwalder: City Settles Lawsuit! First Amendment Win For Christians (REPLAY) · 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
• 0:16
  we'll let him tell the story next on World View Matters.
• 0:22
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues,
• 0:28
  discerning current events,
• 0:30
  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits, and now here's your host, David Fierrazo.
• 0:40
  Hey, friends. This is one of those podcasts where we're going to be reminded one of our
• 0:45
  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
• 0:54
  that we can have eternal life if we repent.
• 0:57
  Very important, very simple, but very important message that we forget because we get so busy,
• 1:03
  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
• 1:10
  as an evangelist. I want to bring in Doug Schoenwalder. He's currently serving as a ministry leader at encounter fellowship.
• 1:17
  He's a member of the Guardian Board for Acts 1-8 ministries out of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• 1:23
  Leadership Board member of Lifewise Academy in Green Bay, but he's also a street evangelist.
• 1:29
  This is what I love about this brother and the successful business owner.
• 1:32
  He's been married to his wife Sarah for 39 years, almost big 4-0,
• 1:37
  has two adult daughters and one son-in-law Doug Schoenwalder. Welcome to World View Matters. Good to see your brother.
• 1:44
  Thanks for having me, David. Yes, and you're in studio, which makes this really a little bit more personal intimate,
• 1:49
  but you are a friend. We've known each other not extremely well through the years,
• 1:53
  but obviously Christian circles, different churches, and now you've got a great story.
• 1:59
  Not everybody has an outcome that you have had with the lawsuit. So this is really good, and you did it
• 2:09
  in a way. So other people who want to use their free speech to share the love of God in Christ,
• 2:16
  out in public will not be arrested or given a citation, and that's one thing you pointed out
• 2:21
  in this article, which we'll get to. But another way of friends, if you want to look this up,
• 2:26
  it's in the Green Bay Prescazette,
• 2:30
  Deepir Mann sued City of Green Bay for violating his first amendment rights, the city settled.
• 2:39
  Look that article up. We linked in our YouTube and our Rumble podcast when this is up online.
• 2:46
  But so Doug, tell us about your conversion briefly, and then as you matured in Christ,
• 2:52
  what really led you or compelled you to start going out and evangelizing and sharing the gospel?
• 2:59
  Yeah, I've been in the church my entire life. My parents
• 3:03
  had me in the church from infancy on. So I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for a long time.
• 3:12
  But right before COVID, I was in Nashville listening to a very bold preacher,
• 3:18
  and I had the Holy Spirit convict me that I needed to be baptized as an adult in my own faith,
• 3:25
  not my parents' faith, like I was as an infant. And ever since then, the Holy Spirit has been
• 3:31
  leading me. I died to my flesh. I now live in the Spirit. And that is what has propelled me now
• 3:39
  to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Awesome. Good answer. I want to also ask you,
• 3:45
  you put out a recent video just to really clip you set to your friends and people in the Green Bay
• 3:49
  area about an event that you were going to promote. You're going to go to a discipleship or a
• 3:54
  training event. Anyway, one of the thing, a couple of things you shared in there at the very
• 3:58
  beginning, before I get to the message, you said, I want to talk to you about baptism. Ask you
• 4:03
  a few questions. Have you been baptized? Because let's clarify that. You can dedicate a baby.
• 4:08
  Anybody can dedicate a baby. But you are not baptized. And if you are baptized as a baby,
• 4:14
  so-called, you're not saved eternally, correct? You can dedicate a baby. Explain why that's
• 4:19
  important to you. What's so important because you are being baptized maybe into a religion. You're
• 4:26
  being baptized into your parents' faith. But you as a mature believer need to confess Jesus Christ
• 4:33
  publicly. You need to die with Christ in the waters of baptism and come out as a renewed creature.
• 4:41
  Bible calls us a new creation, where we no longer live in the flesh, but live in the Spirit.
• 4:47
  Barried with Christ and then raised to walk a new life in Him in the Spirit. That's symbolically
• 4:55
  when we get baptized. I got baptized when I was 23 when I rededicated my life to the Lord.
• 5:01
  I was compelled to do that. I searched the scriptures and sure enough, you go through the book of
• 5:06
  Acts or people get adults being baptized when they come to believe. So it is biblical friends.
• 5:12
  And maybe you haven't been baptized. That's something to look into for yourself personally,
• 5:17
  to make that commitment. So Doug, you're out there sharing the gospel. How long? I know you've
• 5:23
  done a lot of different events. How long have you been doing this until this? What year was it?
• 5:30
  Was it 2023? Or that's when you filed the lawsuit. When you first got citations for being out there
• 5:37
  on a public sidewalk, sharing the gospel. How long have you been doing that before that? It started
• 5:44
  right around the end of 2020. When I started doing street evangelism in the city of Green Bay at
• 5:51
  the farmers market. Okay. So and the farmers market is downtown with all kinds of booths and
• 5:56
  tables and products available. Correct. Open to the public on Saturdays. So it says after being
• 6:04
  stopped multiple times from evangelizing at the farmers market, you eventually sued the city
• 6:11
  of Green Bay. Were you given fines or citations before you sued the city? Yes, I was. I was giving
• 6:18
  given fines for religious proclamations at a public event. So the downtown. Yes, downtown
• 6:29
  Green Bay is the event organizer, but it's done on the city of Green Bay streets and the police
• 6:36
  in conjunction with downtown Green Bay. And later on we found out there was in our office
• 6:42
  emails between the police department downtown Green Bay, the attorney's office and all in
• 6:50
  collusion trying to get me to stop from evangelizing the public. So if someone else, there might be
• 6:58
  people around the country watching this or listening to this podcast and saying, well, I've been warned
• 7:04
  and I've been on a public sidewalk. How could they get a hold of you? How would they get a hold of
• 7:10
  you? Through me, you know, how would they get a hold of you? I can give them your email address
• 7:16
  or we can put it in the podcast because people might have questions about something there. They
• 7:21
  have gone through or are going through. Right. So let me just give you a few brief things to
• 7:27
  think about. One is amplification. You have to look in the city ordinances to see if you can use
• 7:33
  amplification. The city of Green Bay, you cannot use amplification. So I knew that microphone,
• 7:37
  right? I knew that so I never used it. The other things is the very important thing is,
• 7:44
  is it a public event? So is it screened off? Are there fences where it only allows certain people
• 7:51
  to come in and based on a fee to get in, right? But if it's open to the public on public property,
• 8:00
  you have first amendment rights. It's interesting. I know a story of some friends, you know,
• 8:06
  Matt Trewella? No, I didn't. Okay. He's a pastor down in Waukesha, a Milwaukee area. Well,
• 8:12
  they've got young men from his church were out at a pride event at a public park, sharing the
• 8:17
  gospel and three of them, four of them were arrested arrested for doing that. In fact, I think his
• 8:23
  son-in-law or daughter-in-law was one of them arrested. Just sharing the gospel publicly, it was
• 8:27
  an open to the public event, but they cater to, of course, a certain group, which is discrimination.
• 8:32
  If it's open to the public and you're just on a sidewalk. So it says here, then in 2023,
• 8:40
  that's when you filed the lawsuit. The good news is the city settled. Talk to us about that
• 8:45
  process, because it says, and this sheet, Vivian Barrett, I don't know who she is, I don't know
• 8:51
  her beliefs, she did a really good job in this article. Very fair, factual, even mentioned why you
• 8:59
  evangelize and what you're trying to do that you're not an idiot, that she didn't frame you as
• 9:04
  some wacko, which I thought was good, it was fair. It says, you defended yourself against the charge,
• 9:11
  and you were found not guilty, quote, due to the absence of any evidence in support of the charge.
• 9:18
  But there is a new farmer's market rule that prohibits religious proclamations. Is that new because
• 9:26
  of you? Yes, really? So the first year that I got arrested, I was down there, and I was proclaiming
• 9:34
  the news of Jesus Christ and the gospel, and they arrested me. So I went to court, and I defended
• 9:41
  myself in court. And for those of you who don't know, the city of Green Bay has issues. The
• 9:49
  assistant attorney in the city of Green Bay, who was the representative for the city of Green Bay,
• 9:54
  is a transvestite. And so you know the spirit behind all of this. And so anyway, I just defended
• 10:02
  myself in court, and that case was then, I was found not guilty. But then they started to change
• 10:09
  the rules of the farmer's market to include religious proclamations. They tried to expand the boundaries
• 10:17
  of the farmer's market and try to keep me out of the farmer's market. You know, it's interesting
• 10:23
  in the article. It says the new rule was instituted at the beginning of the 2022 season. It says
• 10:31
  political and religious proclamations or protests. Now protests, I understand, because some of the
• 10:36
  especially people on the left can get kind of violent or just they're just idiotic. It's chaos.
• 10:44
  But two of the most important things, your faith and government, who runs the government,
• 10:50
  who runs the city, affairs of the city, politics. So politics and religion, you can't say anything
• 10:57
  out loud. It's like, wow, this is America. Did that surprise you the first time when you,
• 11:03
  did you expect resistance from the police or from anywhere else? I did not expect resistance,
• 11:08
  but as I've come to learn, we are fighting a spiritual battle. And people, man, they don't like
• 11:17
  to hear truth. Some people have demonic influences and they will manifest at times. But you just
• 11:26
  don't know who you're going to come against when you are evangelizing. I want to bring up
• 11:34
  Acts 529. I know you know this, but guys, this is a great, I mean, Acts 430 is another good verse,
• 11:42
  but Acts 529, when the disciples were warned not to speak or preach in Jesus' name anymore,
• 11:50
  they said, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intent to bring this man's blood upon
• 11:55
  us and they gave them orders not to continue teaching in Jesus' name. But Peter and the apostles
• 12:03
  answered, we must obey God rather than men. How will they hear without a preacher? What's that?
• 12:10
  How will they hear without a preacher, Dave? You're quoting Romans now. Yes. Go ahead.
• 12:19
  We need, as Christians, to obey what God has said, go and make disciples. That's the great commission.
• 12:26
  The church nowadays, a lot of times, will teach on the Bible and teach how to get through your
• 12:36
  day, how to get through your life as a Christian, but they don't teach how to evangelize.
• 12:43
  That's a big part of who we are supposed to be as Christ's followers. We are to die to
• 12:48
  self and live for Christ. Part of that is discipling other people. How will they hear without a
• 12:55
  preacher? I'll look that up during the break because I want to read that when we come back.
• 13:02
  But I noticed that in the article, it says, you were show and wilder forced to stop preaching four
• 13:07
  times handcuffed twice in 2022. But it's interesting when asked for clarification on the new
• 13:15
  rules about no religious proclamations or political, the executive director, Jeff Merck's
• 13:23
  declined to comment. So you can make up rules and you don't have to explain anything about them.
• 13:29
  Do you have any thoughts on that before we go to break? Yeah, Jeff Marcus from
• 13:35
  downtown Green Bay organization is very liberal. Downtown Green Bay supports transvestite
• 13:42
  murals on the side of buildings in the city of Green Bay. So they are a very liberal walk
• 13:51
  organization and he hates it when I'm down there and he was at one point told me that I needed to
• 13:58
  leave and I said I don't need to leave because it's my first amendment right to be here.
• 14:03
  So then of course, he went and called the police on me. Okay, we've got a lot more to get to
• 14:10
  including some details on violating the rule against religious proclamations, which I mean,
• 14:15
  I guess you expect this maybe in some big cities, but in smaller towns, smaller events open to
• 14:23
  the public. Maybe we're a little naive and we shouldn't be anymore because we don't think
• 14:29
  this should happen in America, but and maybe under the new administration some of this will
• 14:33
  let up again, but we'll see because it is a spiritual battle at its core, isn't it Doug? Yes,
• 14:38
  it is. All right, we'll be right back with more on World View Matters. Keep it right here.
• 14:43
  Introducing Patriot Mobile, the wireless carrier that stands with you. We are committed to
• 14:49
  supporting the values that make our nation great. With affordable plans and reliable nationwide
• 14:56
  coverage, Patriot Mobile is not just a wireless service. It's a call to action for those who believe
• 15:03
  in the American dream. Get free activation now with promo code David.
• 15:10
  Hey, friends, thanks to you and of course Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Praise Jesus. Our episodes have
• 15:23
  been surging across various platforms and hey, it's not me. I think it's partly the guests,
• 15:28
  but you are praying for us. You're sharing the podcasts and I really appreciate it so very much.
• 15:35
  I think they're a blessing to the body of Christ and in this one in particular where we're
• 15:39
  sharing the gospel as well. People if they don't know the gospel, if they've never heard it,
• 15:44
  they need to hear it. They need to understand there's a decision to be made. But anyway,
• 15:49
  we're on Apple, Spotify, Facebook, Rumble, YouTube, and if you haven't downloaded the free
• 15:55
  app, Freedom Project Media app, it's in your app store, go and check that out. So we're with Doug
• 16:00
  Schoenwalder. He's an evangelist and a brother from Green Bay to peer actually. But oh, before I
• 16:06
  go to you, Doug, I wanted to read what you referred to and that's Romans 10 backing it up to verse 9.
• 16:11
  It says, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
• 16:17
  in from the dead, you will be saved for with the heart of person believes, resulting in righteousness
• 16:24
  and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. The scripture says, whoever believes in him
• 16:31
  will not be disappointed. And then verse 13 says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord
• 16:36
  will be saved. And then 14, here's where you come in or all of us should come in, right? How then
• 16:43
  will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in whom they
• 16:48
  have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they
• 16:54
  are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good
• 17:01
  things. So Doug, you're one of those that is bringing the good news. We all should, I don't want to
• 17:07
  hear it put heavy burdens on people, but it is encouraged in the Bible that we need to be sharing
• 17:14
  the love of Christ. Absolutely. And you know, the thing about street evangelism that I've
• 17:20
  come to learn and over time, God has refined me is that I don't need to go out there and point
• 17:26
  fingers at people because they know that they are sinful. Nobody has to teach them how to lie,
• 17:34
  cheat or steal. That comes to us naturally. We don't have to beat them over the head saying,
• 17:39
  you're a sinner on your way to hell. We need to be patient with them. We need to be loving
• 17:45
  as much as you can be, but yet they need to hear the truth. And they need also to hear that God
• 17:52
  has not sent his son to condemn us, but to save us. You know, everybody knows John 3, 16 for God,
• 17:59
  so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish,
• 18:04
  but have everlasting life. But then John 3, 17 says, for God did not send his son into the world
• 18:11
  to condemn it, but that through him, meaning Jesus, we might be saved. So we don't have to hit
• 18:18
  people over the head because they're conscience and the Holy Spirit will condemn them already,
• 18:22
  but they just need to understand that broad as the way that leads to death and destruction.
• 18:29
  So back to the article briefly, because we're already running out of time, it says you were
• 18:33
  violating the rule against religious proclamations and a trespass arrest authorization was completed
• 18:39
  against you. And an officer told you on July 16, 2022, from this day forward, you are not welcome
• 18:46
  here while the farmer's market is going on and that you would be arrested if you returned. Well,
• 18:54
  it violated your First Amendment rights, the city lacked lawful basis, and you did return.
• 19:00
  You were arrested. As were our friends, I mentioned down in Watertown at a public park during a
• 19:07
  pride event when they were on the sidewalk sharing the gospel. And in fact, walking away, Marcus
• 19:15
  Schrader was one of the young men in his 20s. He was handcuffed. And on the back of his shirt,
• 19:20
  he's a police officer's taken him away in the back of his shirt. There's a photo. It says,
• 19:24
  I will speak the truth, even if I have to speak it alone. Isn't that good? Amen. So that's
• 19:29
  said, there are people that are going to do it and they understand this free speech battle.
• 19:35
  But what are some of the things you say when you first approach someone? I'm sure they're,
• 19:41
  do you ask questions? Or do you just quote a scripture? What are a couple of the first things you say?
• 19:46
  Right. I do a lot of prayer before I go and I ask Holy Spirit to guide me. So it's not always
• 19:51
  that I'm proclaiming the gospel out loud. Sometimes I'm just handing out tracks. Sometimes I will
• 19:57
  stand there with a sign. And then as people come by, I'll ask them, what do they think about my
• 20:04
  sign? Hopefully start a dialogue. So I just do as the Holy Spirit leads and no Saturday,
• 20:11
  farmers market or Wednesday, farmers market is the same or interaction is the same. It's all just,
• 20:17
  okay, let's see what happens here Lord today and just guide my steps, use my mouth as an instrument
• 20:24
  for your word to come forth. Different people, different backgrounds, Holy Spirit can give a
• 20:29
  specific leading for each person. And I would imagine the responses being receptive are very few.
• 20:39
  But we don't know how the gospel and how the words that you are speaking will affect them down
• 20:45
  the road or if they're thinking about that later on that night or how that's going to affect,
• 20:49
  because God said is my word will not return to me void, right? It will accomplish what I sent my
• 20:55
  word to do. So you hand out tracks saying God allows you turns. That's one of the tracks you give out.
• 21:02
  And I want to also go on to this article that says, based on decisions from the US Court of
• 21:09
  Appeals, our police department cannot remove those persons expressing or distributing first
• 21:16
  amendment protected speech in public spaces considered public forms. So that was a turn around
• 21:22
  for the city of Green Bay. And you said later on, I'm looking for the actual quote where you did
• 21:27
  this in order to help people, yes, you continue to preach at the market and hope the lawsuit will
• 21:35
  protect others in the future. Talk to us. We've got a few more minutes. Talk to us a little bit
• 21:38
  more about that and your intention there and your hopes that other people will get involved, right?
• 21:43
  I was spurred on to continue on with this lawsuit by a couple close friends and a couple pastors
• 21:50
  that I know. And it's not about me. It's for the gospel moving forward in this area. And I was
• 21:59
  given the opportunity to walk away based on the city just giving me money. But I said, I will not
• 22:06
  accept just money. I will accept some kind of apology for what you have done because they knew
• 22:13
  they were doing it. It was they knew they were breaking the law by doing it. We had a couple
• 22:20
  officers under oath say to my attorney that they knew they were breaking the law, but they were
• 22:27
  under orders from the upper echelon in the police department to do what they were doing, which was
• 22:35
  arresting me and removing me from the premises. And a lot of people run into that because someone
• 22:41
  higher up is committed leftist or they're really hostile toward the Christian or the biblical
• 22:47
  worldview and they just have a bone to pick. So they're going to single out Christians. A lot of
• 22:53
  people run into that, Doug. And so you're not alone after that gives you any great comfort at this
• 22:59
  point. But this is interesting. A result, the city of Green Bay also ordered was ordered to provide
• 23:04
  additional first amendment training to all of its officers, the police officers. I find that
• 23:10
  to be helpful. And if other cities would do that, then maybe they would understand, oh, hey, yeah,
• 23:15
  I guess we shouldn't go and threaten that man or arrest them. What are your thoughts on that
• 23:22
  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
• 23:34
  against any police administration that wants to come against the street preachers. And there will
• 23:40
  be many coming in from many different states to the NFL draft year next month. Yes. So this is a
• 23:47
  preemptive strike against them. And we are now on the offense, per se. So there's another interesting
• 23:55
  sentence in the article, instead of having interactions with officers shown while they're said he
• 24:02
  has seen them defend his rights to people who may take issue with your preaching. We want to hear
• 24:08
  that because that's a positive thing. Yeah, that's a great thing because they used to just come to
• 24:13
  me automatically when somebody would complain. They'd run right over to me and shut up or can you move
• 24:20
  or do whatever to keep it down, blah, blah, blah, whatever it was for that particular day.
• 24:25
  But now the police officers, I can tell, know the law. They know I meant business when I brought
• 24:31
  forth this lawsuit. So they are now helping teach the public what their rights are as well. Amen,
• 24:39
  brother. Now, are you aware of anything being organized for people going out during the NFL draft
• 24:46
  in Green Bay? There's going to be people. It's going to be crazy. Yes. There is a organization that I
• 24:52
  also belong to. It's called sports fan outreach international. And they go all over America,
• 24:59
  the big sporting events showing the gospel. So they will have teams of people here. Sports fan outreach
• 25:05
  international. I know there's a Facebook page. I think I'm yes. I've used to see some of their
• 25:09
  news feeds out. You don't see everything anymore. Anyway, two and a half minutes left. Doug
• 25:13
  Schoenwalder, thank you for doing the work of God. I just want to leave you an opportunity here
• 25:19
  in about two minutes, just to talk to people who maybe haven't shared the love of Christ. Maybe
• 25:28
  people closest to them don't even know they're a Christian. Just share your heart for a minute or two.
• 25:35
  Yeah, you don't have to have a special gift to evangelize to somebody. You don't necessarily have
• 25:40
  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
• 25:53
  of Jesus Christ with them. I also belong to Acts 1, 8 ministry and they have a really good outreach
• 26:00
  plan to they call them pack events, which is an acronym for planned acts of Christian kindness,
• 26:07
  where you just do an act of Christian kindness for somebody and then you explain to them the love
• 26:12
  of Jesus Christ. Give us an example. Yeah, what's one of those acts? Okay, Mother's Day. Mother's Day,
• 26:19
  they buy roses. We'll go up in hand, women roses and just say, we respect you as women. God
• 26:26
  loves you as a woman. Do you know Jesus Christ because he has the ultimate love for you? And
• 26:33
  do you know the gospel and what he's done for you? And then, you know, we can have those deeper
• 26:39
  conversations as to whether or not they're living for Jesus Christ. Planed acts of Christian kindness.
• 26:47
  I'm also see you've got a round to it there. Did you get a round to it? Show everybody. Show
• 26:53
  that up so the camera can see it. It's my favorite track. It's called a round to it. So a round to it
• 27:01
  is unique in that it is round and a lot of people don't think it's a gospel track, but on the back,
• 27:07
  it reads, you've pacified your conscience by saying you would get right with God someday.
• 27:13
  Well, now you're getting around two of it. It's great. So it gives a Bible versus on the back
• 27:19
  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
• 27:29
  for all you do. God bless your efforts and large your territory. Give you good success when it comes
• 27:34
  to people receiving the gospel. Thank you. Thank you, David. God bless. You're welcome. Well,
• 27:38
  friends, a good example, right? Some, a lot to think about. God bless you and as always,
• 27:44
  keep speaking the truth about things that matter.