Jim: You've tuned in to iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: It is time to clear up an absolute lie that most of us have been hearing in our lives. The lie is Christians should stay out of politics because it's dirty. It's a dirty messy arena fraught with fraud and immorality. No duh! Politics is just that today because Christians have stayed out of politics, and not only politics, but government too. In fact, there are over 570, 000 elected offices in this country, and less than 10 percent are occupied by Jesus followers, and who knows if those 10 percent know that being in politics is okayed by God?

This is a touchy subject. But we know that the Lord commanded us to cultivate the earth as a blessing for everyone. He called us to reach the lost and bring the kingdom to the earth. We certainly cannot do that if we avoid politics. Today, we bring back to iWork4Him Danita Bye.

Danita is a mentor and a thought leader regarding millennials in the workforce. Danita and her husband, Gordon, got involved in politics when they realized the world was going to hell on a freight train, and mostly because we Christians were standing on the sidelines, because politics are dirty. Is it okay for you to serve in a political office or to serve in your government? You can bet our guest Danita Bye has strong feelings about this. Danita, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Danita Bye: Welcome back. What else do we have to say and discuss after that opening?

 (laughter)

Martha: Oh, I think there's a whole lot more.

Jim: I have no idea. I have no idea what it could possibly be. All right. So I intentionally inflamed a little bit because I know we don't agree right away on that political versus civically, but we're going to get into that in a second. Danita, it's been a while since you've been on iWork4Him. Tell our listeners how you first became a Jesus follower.

Danita Bye: Thanks for asking that question. For me, I believe as I reflect on it, that it was a whole journey. I believe that there was some decision I made as a three year old in Sunday school. So I'm a huge fan of ministry to young people. The first time I went to Bible camp as, I don't know, maybe an eight or nine year old, Sunday night first altar call. I found myself the first one to the front on my knees. And then for me, one of the huge life changers is when I was in seventh grade everything looked wonderful on the outside, my mom says. On the inside, it was dark I had been working so hard to try gain approval from people and my approval from God, and it was one night, one in the morning I cried out to God with this crazy prayer, God, if you are there, I need you now. Explanation point. And if you're not, then go away and leave me alone.

That is such a crazy prayer. It doesn't even make sense. And the Holy Spirit showed up in a mighty way. And I became an ardent follower of Jesus at that time. Now, like all of us, we got ups and downs and doing little arounds, but that was really an important point for me.

Martha: That's such a beautiful story, and I love the fact that you make sure to interject that, we love the ability to have places as children to be learning about Jesus and having that constantly influenced into our lives. So thank you for sharing that story.

So we had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time face to face back in 2017, and at that point, we just had such a delightful introduction to each other, but, we thought my goodness, maybe you might even be the governor of North Dakota someday. But God has had some amazing plans for you. What path has he taken you on over these last several years as you have been serving North Dakota specifically?

Danita Bye: I want to back up a bit and talk about what God was doing to form me and even get me interested in serving. One of the first ones was a I'll call it a video series by Del Tackett called The Truth Project. And that, for me, helped to give me a framework about, a biblical framework about how family, church, government comes into play and what their spheres are and very clearly what happens when one sphere wants to take over the other spheres.

So that was a high impact for me. About that same time I was also listening to Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer book. And I'm like going, wow, there are some things here that are becoming strangely familiar. And am I going to sit on the sidelines? So those, so those were a couple of things.

And then the other thing that happened is I was, I took a course for conservative female voices. I was still in Minnesota at the time. I took a course and I found out, Oh, there are others who have the same passion as me that want to serve. That was a 12 month class. And the last class was something that finally sparked in me, and I can do that.

And I think this is Important for all of us to know. The instruction was look at the boards and commissions in your city, your county, your state. They are always desperate for people to serve on boards and commissions. And that's a place to get your feet wet to be able to learn the system, learn the people.

So I moved to North Dakota. The first thing I did when I got my computer set up was look for boards and commissions, found the one that fit for me, and went for it. And then, once you get in and begin serving and begin knowing, then other doors open.

Jim: We've had a little controversy between you and me, because, I say, Hey, we need more Christians to get involved in politics, and you say that people should get engaged civically. What's the difference? It seems like semantics.

Danita Bye: Thank you for your pushback, Jim, because

 (laughter)

Jim: it was so much work to find some way to push back...

Danita Bye: because I've been thinking, I've been thinking about the word. Is it civic engagement? Is it community engagement? Is it government engagement? For me, it has become civic engagement.

And I look at Jeremiah 29: 7, where the prophet tells the people to help Babylon prosper, that they would also prosper. And statistics would say that we're, we are a post Christian nation. And in light of that, it is still our role, I believe the Bible calls us as part of our role and responsibility to be able to serve and to help our community prosper.

I was visiting with someone about this upcoming interview and they said, Danita, how can we help our neighbor unless we are involved and engaged in the civic and civic slash government around us? Which includes school boards, city council, park boards, starting there and then branching out to state and federal government. So I don't think that answers your question, but..

Jim: No, it was like a really circular answer. You must be in politics because I asked one question and you gave me a civics lesson.

 (laughter)

Jim: But the bottom line is you're saying that as believers, everybody around us should be benefiting from our faith, whether they believe in Jesus or not. And especially we should be bringing flourishing through our involvement in civic organizations, including politics, getting elected to offices. And we're going to get back to that in just a second. Martha?

Martha: Yeah, so we've been talking about Christians and this whole idea of getting involved in things, and it really brings up another thought about how we navigate as believers in a broken world. We know that there are a lot of companies out there that directly oppose our biblical standards yet we all continue to utilize their services because it's convenient.

So we have recently identified several services that our audience needs and have found kingdom solutions for them. And I encourage you to go to the sponsor page on our website to learn more about these solutions and to connect with these organizations today. Just go to iWork4Him. com forward slash sponsors to learn more about some of the things that God's revealed to us and we want to share with you.

Jim: All right. So Danita, is it okay for Christians to be involved in politics? To be involved civically, to be civically engaged, whatever you want to call it, just lay it out.

Danita Bye: Absolutely. Now, what I thought might be interesting, I'm going to pull up my notes on this are the yes, and there are different ways that people show up. And I also want to give God room that when people show up differently, that's okay. I have seven type of Christians that I have seen involved and all of these people are people who have run for an office and have won. So number one, someone who is a biblically grounded statesman.

Jim: Okay.

Danita Bye: And they typically, although they get hit by the media, they they often will have positive regard across the place.

Jim: Can you give us an example? That's nice. Can you give us an example in current today of a biblically grounded statesman?

That hesitation was pretty significant, by the way.

 (laughter)

Danita Bye: So obviously across the country at least, so we have legislative session every two years ago. You've got critical race theory that has invaded our schools, our educational system. And he sponsored a bill that put some boundaries on critical race theory. He didn't scream about it. He didn't holler about it. He presented facts.

Jim: Who was that? Who was that?

Danita Bye: It was not me.

Jim: No, i'm like give me a name. Come on! Okay, you don't want to give names. All right.

Danita Bye: I'm gonna go through these archetypes.

Jim: Okay, go ahead Give us the archetypes.

Danita Bye: Yeah number two is someone who's biblically grounded, but they can get shrill at times. And when they get shrill, I believe they lose their influence. Number three a guy who calls himself a Christian but is easily swayed and will appease anyone he's speaking with. They call themselves a Christian.

Another one is loud, brash, unspoken, outspoken, judgmental, unwilling to listen, learn. They call themselves a Christian but their entire testimony gets undermined by their behavior. Here's another one. The sixth archetype is someone who says church is for Sunday and I don't let it interfere with the rest of my week.

And then the seventh one is someone who calls themselves a Christian and believes that government has taken the place of the church and therefore government should be serving the poor. So it's when we talk about Christians and politics all of these people would call themselves Christians in politics.

I want to aspire personally to be the first one that I mentioned. Someone who's biblically grounded, who's full of truth and full of grace wise and bold at the same time.

Martha: You actually bring up a really great point, which is really the basis of iWork4Him in our conversation, Jim, on the radio, because when we started understanding that our workplace was our mission field, Jim would run into people that would be like I'm a Christian. You should do business with me. And he'd be shaking them and saying, don't tell people you're a Christian if you're going to act the way I saw you act in the parking lot with your customer that you were mad at or whatever. So you're exactly right.

Jim: It's true. I really did that.

Martha: To just say blanket, if you're a Christian, does it necessarily mean you're showing all of the godly characters characteristics that he wants us to have? And so what a great point. Don't just go into it. Don't just decide to serve and not do it in a way that's going to be God honoring. So let's try to be that number one as we have this conversation to be a biblically grounded statesman in all that we do.

Jim: So let me just come right at it, so we're saying it's okay for Christians to be involved in politics. Is it mandated by scripture that we be involved, civically engaged or involved in politics, involved in the government, the things that run our cities and our counties and our states and our country? Is it mandated by scripture that we get involved?

Danita Bye: I believe it. So I'm a little I don't know about the word mandate.

Jim: Oh, wait a minute. Do you not think it's part of the cultural mandate?

Danita Bye: But I do believe that it's an incredible stewardship responsibility of ours to help our nation flourish, to love our neighbor and to be able to serve in this way, to be a steward of the incredible gift that we've been given of a constitutional republic.

People have fought for the freedoms that we enjoy for at least 700 years before our country was formed. And for us to not appreciate the incredible gift that we've been given is I guess I don't know the right word for it, but it's an incredible gift. And that we need to step up the plate and steward that gift and so that we can pass it on to our nation.

And it is indeed a gift. If we don't have a constitutional republic, if we move to some other forms of government, you have Venezuela that had a flourishing economy and within 10 years is bankrupt, all because of the government. And this what government is supposed to be doing. And that takes me back in my mind as I say that I think about the truth project. And the different, how God has designed the family and the church and civic government and the other spheres of influence.

Martha: Okay so a couple things I want to let our listeners know as I take a little pause here. Danita, you have gone on an incredible learning journey that God has brought you to this point, and I want our listeners to know that I'm going to put a list of resources that you've given me in the show notes so people can dig into the Truth Project and the different things that you were referring to, and that we may not even get to, so that they can dig into this a little later on their own and say, Lord, what is it that you want for me to do with this information?

So I wanted to put that out there. So let's assume that we're going to talk for a minute about the biblically grounded statesman Christian. What kinds of positive things have you seen as a result of them getting involved?

Danita Bye: Some of the things that I've seen are for our Children. There's a movement going on right now: don't mess with our kids. That is a grassroots movement, and that energy, I believe, also feels our legislators. So we have protection for our children. We have protection for our families. Who owns our children? Does the state own our children? Or do the, the parents have the stewardship responsibility for the children? So that's a couple of places that I see. One of the resources that we'll be in a link is a book called well versed. Jim Garlow. Oops. I'm not sure I get this in.

Martha: If you're watching the video She's holding it up. But yes

Danita Bye: One of the things, so a well versed biblical answers to today's tough issues and he's got a section on what does the Bible say about religion in the public square? What does the Bible say about family and life issues? What does the Bible say about economics, law, and society? I actually have distributed this to many of North Dakota's lawmakers and it's actually been distributed around the world, as a place when you're struggling... what does the Bible say about issue? It's an encyclopedia.

Jim: And I'm sure that Jim Garlow thinks that religion in public square or anywhere else is useless, but the power of the Holy Spirit living inside believers, impacting the world around them, that's what we need. We don't need any more religion That's what we're dealing with right now in this country. We've got a progressive religion that is destroying our country. It's a religion that we're dealing with today.

We're talking about the positive and negative things we see in politics when christians get involved. It's such an interesting conversation and one we often need to have because Christians need to get more involved. We are all sinners saved by grace and one way to protect our nation in our situations is to really commit this nation and the people that we work with to prayer.

The iWork4Him Nation has some very helpful steps to help you put this into action and how you can be intentional living out your faith in your workplace go to iWork4Him. com forward slash join the nation and really get in touch with what changed our lives, which launched the ministry of iWork4Him.

Danita, we're running out of time. This is a conversation that could go on for a long time, but I really wanted to talk about christian nationalism. Because that's something that, some term the media made up about how evil christians could be in support of our nation, but we don't have time for that. You are currently a public servant that is serving in a role appointed by the governor of your great state of North Dakota and confirmed by the Senate. How else might you serve the state of North Dakota or the nation? How has God been using you in North Dakota and how else do you think God's going to use you going forward?

Danita Bye: The first thing is that I do believe my current assignment is in the current role that I am. So it's important to me to humbly hear and to courageously obey in this public sphere, which is difficult. And there's mounting and horrendous issues that we need to face. So that's number one. That is my current role. Number two is I'm starting to get involved in higher ed in more of a national basis. And so I'm exploring, where are the people of peace and where to, where do those relationships seem to be?

And then number three there's an incredible, for the last six months, an incredible resource that I've been involved in has been offered by the Heritage Foundation, and it's called Project 2025, and it's a series of classes that would help prepare people who feel like there might be a role for them in the future when there's a conservative president.

Martha: Which is so huge, and I want to make sure we get that information to our listeners as well, Danita. I'm just thinking about the listener right now that's listening, and I want you to speak directly to them about how do they discern? How do they know if they're being called to get civically engaged or to help in running this very country, the city, wherever they may live and whatever that may be, how do they know? Speak to them about that calling.

Danita Bye: There's lots of books and resources up on there about, how to hear what the Holy Spirit is directing and where it's leading. I think one is to look at yourself, to watch yourself about the things that you become interested in and then to be able to take that before the Lord. Also along with that is to look at the people, the believers, the Christ followers that are in your network. What are they saying? What kind of affirmation are you having? And then, one of the things that's been so incredible for me is to have a a prayer team and an intercessor team.

I was into serving on the North Dakota State Board of Higher Ed about a year. And I just, I was at my ropes end. Am I making any impact at all? And call this lady. I didn't know her very well, but I knew that she was a prayer warrior, a prayer intercessor, and I started to kind of unload, paint the scenario, and we're like 90 seconds into it, and she said, Stop, Danita. Has the Holy Spirit told you to abandon the ship yet? And I said, No, I'm frustrated. I don't feel like I'm really making a difference, but I haven't heard any clear word from the Holy Spirit.

She said, You stay there until you hear that word. So that was, that helped to clear some of the debris away. And so just to have that prayer support team that is with you and encouraging you along the way.

Jim: And just as Danita heard those words stay until you're told to go, many of you have been told to go and you've been staying. And we desperately need you, but do not kid yourselves listeners. As each one of us engages civically in this country, make sure you are biblically grounded and that you have prayer warriors around you because you want to be a number one on that list of seven that Danita talked about. And we have way too many two through sevens. We need people who are grounded, who cannot be moved by the enemy, who cannot be bribed into compromise.

We need to be serving the Lord. Get out of debt, live humbly, so that the money can't twist you. Danita, we're out of time, but I'm going to give you the last words. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

Danita Bye: The final thought is that I believe that our nation is at a critical crossroad. I would recommend reading Letters to the American Church by Eric Metaxas. When you take a look at what's happening on college campuses as well as throughout our country in many mountains, you realize that it's important for us to be salt and light and to make a difference wherever we are. My dad has a favorite comment, which is the rules are made by those who show up.

It's true. Isn't it? And then here's what I have taped to my computer. I'm gonna tear it. It says - this is not from the Bible. It's from Plato, but I think the Bible and Plato agree. It says, if you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

Jim: Pretty sure he got that from Solomon. Pretty sure. Danita Bye, thank you so much for being on iWork4Him today, for sharing from your heart. Again, a lot of things in the notes today. Make sure you check out the show notes. We're so grateful. Danita, thanks for being with us today.

Danita Bye: Thank you for the invitation.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace is our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.