Jeff Nichols 0:10
Welcome to Fellowship One:Seven, a podcast from Child Evangelism Fellowship® for the Christian community. On this podcast, we dive into the world of child evangelism and discipleship through interviews and discussions with ministry leaders and thinkers. This season, we’re launching our partners with purpose series, a chance to shine a light on the amazing ministries and people we get to serve alongside. In this episode, we sit down with Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Council, to talk about the joy our collaboration has brought and how God has been blessing each of our organizations. We hope these stories inspire and encourage you as much as they have us.

Mat Staver 0:49
Hey, Matt Staver, hi.

Jeff Nichols 0:51
How are you doing with you?

Mat Staver 0:52
Good.

Jeff Nichols 0:53
Hey, it’s good to have you here on Fellowship One:Seven. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us today, and we’re excited about about this conversation today, we have a lot in common between Child Evangelism Fellowship and Liberty Council, so I’m excited for our listening audience to be able to hear everything that’s going on with Liberty Counsel and Child Evangelism Fellowship, what spurred the creation of this great organization that you lead. I know our audience would love to hear those details.

Mat Staver 1:20
Well, I was a pastor before going into law school, and it was in 1983 I just graduated from seminary in 1982 and the year after that, 1983 I was invited by some pastors that I was a part of a non denominational evangelical pastors lunch. We were from different denominations and backgrounds, and we had a monthly lunch with different pastors, and someone had approached one of the pastors in that group to show a documentary, and it happened to be about abortion, and it was something that I had never looked into before. I knew a lot of things about the Bible and knew the languages and history, but never knew about abortion, never even researched it. And so this documentary actually was startling. What we’re dealing with is a human life that’s being brutally destroyed. And so that led to the intersection of my Christian faith and the laws and policies of the land, and that got me very involved in the national right to life and the Central Kentucky right to life organization where I studied the issues of the sanctity of human life and the development of the child in the womb, and obviously, the US Supreme Court opinion in 1973 and it was immediately after that I went down to the law school at the Lexington Kentucky, University of Kentucky law school, and read the first legal case that I’ve ever read, and that was Roe versus Wade, the 1973 abortion decision. So that’s a beginning of it. And as a result of that, it was in 1989 after graduating from law school, after in private practice for two years, I went out on my own, started my own law firm, and then also Anita and I started Liberty Counsel in 1989 as well, to advance religious freedom, the sanctity of human life. And then in the early 90s, we added the third prong, which is defending God’s design for family, because that had come under significant, serious attack in the early 1990s.

Jeff Nichols 3:09
That is amazing. You stepped into the fray at a very critical time in this in this nation’s history, and been doing good work since then. As you look at what Liberty Counsel has gotten involved in today, these years later, what are some of those main sources of activity for Liberty Counsel today?

Mat Staver 3:26
Well, we do three primary areas, religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family, and we do that through litigation, education and through public policy. And so we have Liberty Counsel has been the mainstay ministry, the core mother ministry of all these different ministries. But in the 2000s in addition to some of the activities that we’re doing all over the United States, including the United States Supreme Court, we got involved in other areas as well. That advanced our collective Judeo Christian cause and mission in the 1990s and then moving into the 2000s we began to develop with Dr Jerry Falwell a law school, and we were able to work with him to accomplish that. And August of 2004 the first students were admitted. And now it’s celebrated its 20th anniversary. And now moving on 21st anniversary in 2025 that all came out of our work in the legal profession. And of course, Liberty Counsel is separate different from Liberty University, but Dr Falwell had a vision to start a law school when he started liberty in 1971 and we developed a vision to start a law school in the 1990s when we realized that we need to train a whole new generation of lawyers and judges and people in the law and policy arena. And so then in the 2000s we got much more involved in children’s ministries and working with children, and that’s where Child Evangelism Fellowship began in around 2000 2001 but we’ve been working with Child Evangelism Fellowship now for about 25 years, and there was a one of our prayer intercessors said that we would be more involved in the youth and certainly in the last 25 years, we’ve been significantly involved in youth, Child Evangelism Fellowship. We are very pleased. I want to speak more about that, to be able to work with and represent CEF® all over the nation, to get these good news clubs in these school venues and other venues. But we also have launched a K through 12 online Christian Academy, covenant journey Academy. It’s available, 24/7, 365, we have about 300 courses taught by certified teachers with six foreign languages and dual enrollment, so that you can get not only your high school degree, but also a two year associate arts degree upon graduation, wide variety of courses, self paced. And then we also have covenant journey, which works with Christian college students to immerse them in a life changing experience. We take them generally to Israel, to take them to the land of the Bible. We have many other ministry opportunities as well. Faith and Freedom is a ministry that we acquired actually in 2017 in Washington, DC. It’s neither legal like Liberty Counsel or public policy like our 501 c4 Liberty Council action. It’s a discipleship and evangelistic ministry in the nation’s capital, and it’s very unique. It’s one of a kind. And every day in our ministry center, we have scores of young people and members of Congress that come there for Bible studies, fellowship, prayer, discipleship. It’s an amazing ministry that fills an incredible need right there in the nation’s capital, especially for the young people that go there to intern or they work in Washington, DC.

Jeff Nichols 6:29
It’s incredible ministry that you have. Matt, you mentioned the partnership that you have with Child Evangelism Fellowship that goes back to the early 2000s I cannot overstate for our listening audience today, the impact that Liberty Council has had with our ministry, Child Evangelism Fellowship, the ministry is over 88 years old now. For many, many decades, it was just a backyard Bible club and clubs being done in homes and in churches. And then in the late 80s, 90s, someone started doing a club in a public elementary school, and of course, certain aspects of the population didn’t, didn’t like that very much, and took us to court Liberty Counsel came alongside us and helped defend that religious liberty that we have. Matt and and talk a little bit about that Supreme Court case. That was a very unique Supreme Court opportunity that was there. And it’s amazing when we look back that we’re we’re still feeling the impact of that today, and doors are being open today based on that case that was decided by the Supreme Court in 2001

Mat Staver 7:34
You know, it’s very amazing and great timing and God’s providence, because if you go back to the 1990s and even before, people were more open to having their children go down to the neighboring house, that’s right. And fellowship, you didn’t have any concern about them. Now, of course, with things today, there’s a little bit more of a concern. So as that concern began to develop, then Child Evangelism Fellowship, Good News Club started to go into the public schools, and what a better place to go, because these people never come to your church, most of them, they’re there at school. And that’s a great opportunity and a great opportunity for evangelism to reach people they otherwise wouldn’t reach, not only the kids, but then their parents as well.

Jeff Nichols 8:12
That’s right.

Mat Staver 8:13
Because they see the change of their children. And so Child Evangelism Fellowship Good News Clubs began to go into elementary schools. Well, the Court precedent. At the time, it actually created segments for K through five, middle school and high school, and the older you got, particularly high school, the more you’re able to make decisions regarding religious issues.

Advertisement 8:36
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Mat Staver 9:05
So a high schooler, the idea was could discern the difference between the school establishing a religion, if you will, versus some private activity. So in other words, they could discern that after school Bible club by students was a student led organization the school was just allowing you to meet on campus. It wasn’t something that the school was pushing.

Jeff Nichols 9:27
Right, right.

Mat Staver 9:28
But then the younger you got, the argument was, well, the elementary school kids, they don’t know the difference. They’re too young. Well, the good news is that Child Evangelism Fellowship always required parents to give parental permission consent for their children to come to a Good News Club. So when this case went to the Supreme Court, and on June 11, 2001 the United States Supreme Court issued the opinion, some of the dissenting justices said the same thing, well, these are elementary kids. You’re teaching the Bible, you’re teaching worship, you’re teaching scripture reading. Well, you know, the majority opinion written by Justice Thomas said, yeah, that’s That’s right. So what? That’s okay? Because the schools allow these other secular clubs to come on campus. The only reason why they’re stopping Good News Club is because they’re speaking about character development and respect and integrity and so many other things.

Jeff Nichols 10:18
That’s right.

Mat Staver 10:19
From a Christian perspective, and that’s what you’re discriminated against. And by the way, they say the parents are the ones who make the decision. So they’re the ones who are of full knowledge that their kids are coming to these after school clubs that opened the entire elementary school population for Good News Clubs. And so between that time and covid, there’s a lot of different cases that we have worked on. There’s all different kinds of ways that schools tried to discriminate. Okay, now they know they have to allow Good News Clubs on campus, so let’s put them at six o’clock, but everybody else at three o’clock as soon as school’s done. No, that doesn’t work. We won those cases. Well, we’ll allow you to meet, but you can’t advertise, because that’s an establishment of religion. No, we won those cases as well. Well, you can meet, but we’re not going to charge the other groups, but we’ll charge you. That’s unconstitutional too. We’ve won that, and even we had a case. Well, there’s a school teacher in South Dakota. She teaches class in an elementary school. She wants to be a Good News Clubs volunteer and teacher after school. So the bell rings in the same classroom. Now she takes off her teacher hat, she becomes a Good News Clubs teacher. And the argument was, well, you can’t discern the difference. Well, again, the parents are making the decision. We won that as well. So now the teacher, immediately after school, can put aside the books that they’re teaching during school and bring out the Bible and teach the Bible to the same or additional students in the same classroom, if you will, or a different nearby classroom in the same public school. So after covid, what’s happened? And this is what we’re seeing right now after covid. You know, we’ve won all these cases before covid. We’ve never lost a case from the history in the last 25 years regarding Good News Clubs, after covid, the schools, of course, they closed down and then they closed down all the clubs, then they opened up for the secular clubs. Many of the schools have used this as an opportunity to discriminate against Child Evangelism Fellowship by not allowing good news clubs back on campus, while allowing the secular clubs back on campus. Well, we litigated against Rhode Island district schools. We won that last year. Hawaii did the same thing. We won that this year against the entire state of Hawaii right Oakland, California did the same thing. We just won an injunction against Oakland California. We have another school that we’re going after in California. We’ll win that as well, I am very confident of and then in other cases, we’ve been able to reopen the doors by giving information to the Good News Clubs leaders or sending out a letter indicating what the law clearly requires in closing. I would just say in terms of that, we’ve had amazing success by God’s grace, but we are incredibly privileged to be able to partner with CEF and the reason why Jeff is that we believe Child Evangelism Fellowship is the most effective ministry in the world, certainly the most effective Christian ministry in the world, the largest Christian ministry in the world, and obviously the largest Christian largest Christian ministry in the world, to children. And it’s because you deal with that four to 14 window that’s right, the most critical age group, and that’s why it’s so important that every public school have a good news club on campus, and that every church makes it their mission to support CEF to make sure that they’re funded. Resources are there, and even volunteers are available, that churches, of all places, they have the great opportunity for evangelism in their community at the elementary school levels, and the way to do it is through these Good News Clubs.

Jeff Nichols 13:57
That’s why we love you as a partner, Matt, and that’s why we love Liberty Council. We are on the same page. I have set with boards of education who understand that ruling from 2001 or their boards of education and director of schools who don’t know about that, and we’re able to help them understand that because of the work that Liberty Council has done. And so thank you so much for the partnership in spreading the gospel that Liberty Council has shared with Child Evangelism Fellowship all of these years. We really could not do what we’re doing without you. It is God that’s doing it. Obviously, he’s using vessels and ministries like Child Evangelism Fellowship and Liberty Council to spread the Good News to the boys and girls in elementary schools. I do want to ask you, though, as we close, we live in a peculiar time, don’t we? We live in a very challenging, segmented, polarized time in the United States, what are some of the challenges that you see for the Christian community right now? And looking out on an event horizon into the future, if you can just to anticipate what you’re anticipating over these next few years, and the challenges to Christian liberty that we can anticipate.

Mat Staver 15:10
Well, I think that Christians and the church need to take our faith seriously. We need to understand the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged. Let’s take a look just at some of the issues that have happened in 2025 and of course, most recently is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk was actually sharing the gospel. He said that Jesus died, was buried and rose again. And the next question he was asked of was about the trans shootings that have happened around the country, many of them we just saw recently, with regards to the Catholic school, where this person came on site, if you look at what’s happening here with our youth, if you look at what’s happening with our youth, they are targeted. And we have said before this issue of human sexuality, the idea that is very damaging and false, that you can change your sex, just like you change your hair color or clothes, you can choose this kind of food or this kind of food. Doesn’t really matter. You can change it. Your taste can change you can be a male or female combination of both, neither. You can be a furry, whatever you want to be. That is a direct assault on God who created us in His image. So why do we see this issue colliding with religious freedom. And this is what we see, for example, in some of these schools, particularly in California and other places, where they’ll say, Well, we don’t want Child Evangelism Fellowship, Good News Clubs on campus, because you believe in biblical marriage, marriage as a man and a woman, you don’t believe in the LGBTQ agenda. And if you’re going to work here, you’re going to have an event here, you’re going to be after school. You got to subscribe to all of that. That’s a damaging ideology. It’s an ideology that is attacking our young people. For example, in Montgomery, Maryland, the public schools, they’re bragging right now, and they were a few years ago that they had a 386% increase in what they call gender non conforming students. That means kids that don’t know whether they’re male or female, they’re all confused, and they’re proud of that. Why? Because they’re pushing that agenda. It’s very destructive. So when you say something like marriage is the union of a man and woman, that there are fundamental rights and wrongs, that Jesus died and rose from the dead, that Jesus is the only way. He’s the only answer that is a confrontation to the spiritual forces in heavenly places that want to literally capture the children. Capture the children, destroy them, and destroy them by giving them a false understanding that they can take puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and cut off their body parts and they could be something different than what God created them. They can create themselves in their own image. It’s a direct rebellion against God. So what you’re doing is so fundamentally important, because the only answer to this is Jesus Christ, and that’s what you provide through Child Evangelism Fellowship, Good News Clubs. And so that’s vitally important. But I think for Christians, the battle right now is between religious freedom, being able to exercise our religious freedom, and this issue that is so coercive, so damaging, so hateful, literally, that wants to wipe you out because you disagree. And that is this LGBTQ agenda that we need to be aware of, and why we need to be aware of. Number one, there are people who are trapped in this environment, this lifestyle. We need to set the captives free. The only way you can set the captives free is through Jesus Christ, He came to give sight to the blind, to allow those who can’t hear to hear, that’s right, and to break the chains that Satan puts around you. To set the captives free. There are people that are hurting. We need to have compassion and pray for them. The only answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But at the same time, we cannot remain silent in the face of this destructive agenda, because it is targeting the children. Why is it targeting the children? Because that four to 14 window, that critical age group, is so critical to the development of the rest of your life. And if you can fool a kid in kindergarten that they don’t need to think that they’re male or female, that they are born in the wrong body, that they can create themselves as something they’re not, you can trap them, and that’s what Satan’s snare is trying to do, and that’s why it’s so important for the church to wake up, to understand the issues, not shy away from them. That’s right, to speak with compassion, to speak with truth, and to support this amazing, incredible life changing ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship and Good News Clubs.

Jeff Nichols 19:34
Yeah, it’s very easy to be paralyzed by that fear, isn’t it, and to see that the chaos of the world around us. I’m so encouraged by the promises from God’s word, especially when Jesus says, Take heart, I have overcome the world. And we live on that promise. We live on promises like that. Thank you so much for being with us today on Fellowship One:Seven, Matt, we appreciate you. We appreciate your commitment to the gospel and to the good news, and your commitment and partnernship with Child Evangelism Fellowship. Thank you very much for being with us today.

Mat Staver 20:04
Thank you, Jeff. It’s a pleasure, and we actually have a page dedicated to CEF. It’s called LC.org/CEF. LC.org/CEF,

Jeff Nichols 20:11
Thank you for sharing that. Have a great day. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai