A New Wineskin For A New Time – With Theresa Barbale: What if you could help save someone’s life? How is Planned Parenthood reaching the next generation…and what should we learn from them? What new tools can be used to reach youth who are depressed or seeking significant answers? Click the link to hear Theresa Barbale explain the “new wineskin” she’s developed to bring truth that is saving lives on the “cyber sidewalk”!

Air Date: 05/24/2022

Guest:Theresa Barbale

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we take on the hot topics of the day, pretty much all of them. I don’t think there’s any topic we’ve avoided here on WallBuilders Live. But we take on these hot topics so that we can look at them from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

If you’re new to the program, you may not have heard that; if you listen to the program regularly, you hear that every day of the program because that’s what needs to drive our positions on issues, it needs to drive our philosophy, our worldview, it needs to be a biblical perspective. We got to know what the Bible says about these things. 

It needs to be a historical perspective because there’s a lot to learn from history. History is not boring. History is instructive. It actually is a way to make sense of the different ideas that are out there and see what works and what doesn’t work. When it’s been tried in history before, we can learn from those things.

And then, of course, a constitutional perspective means that as an American, we live under the American Constitution and therefore we need to know how that constitution works, especially if we’re going to be good stewards of this government that God has given us, good stewards of this freedom that God has given us. So that’s why we look at a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective on every issue of the day.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. I appreciate you joining us here on WallBuilders Live. Normally here on WallBuilders Live, two other folks with me, Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and David Barton, He is America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders.

But today, we’re going to be going straight to Theresa Barbale, she’s got a phenomenal new organization, well, not real new. I mean, they’ve been at it a little while. But they’re really figuring out some things that for this culture for this time, for the current way that people communicate, we need to all know about this. I think we’ve been missing the boat in so many ways because we’ve been putting everything into old wineskins instead of new wineskins.

And mymentorprogram.org is the program we’re going to be talking about today. And I hope you’ll pay close attention. You may initially as we jump into this conversation, you may have trouble kind of picturing, if you will, or getting your hands around what we’re talking about and how this actually works and how this is reaching young people and saving lives. I had a hard time with it initially because it doesn’t fit into the box that I’m used to in terms of thinking of how kids communicate, how people meet and talk and how someone would end up mentoring a young person and steering them away from a Planned Parenthood or some other dangerous, frankly, life-taking organization and instead steering them to life-giving organizations.

So just stay with me, if you will, stay with me through the break. But then stay with me in this interview and listen carefully and realize this saves lives and you can be a part of that. And you can not only help this organization be strong, but potentially steer people to the organization that could be a big part of it. I love the way that they sign up mentors and allow people to participate in what they’re doing. 

Because a lot of people are asking what can I do? They want to make a difference; be a part of something; give of their life,  fortune,  sacred honor to help preserve liberty, to save lives, to minister to others. And this is a great way that you can do that and actually quite literally save lives.

My Mentor program is the name of the organization. Mymentorprogram.org is the website. And the founder will be with us when we return from the break. Stay with us. You’re listening to Walters live

SUMMER INSTITUTE

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton, I am interrupting the normal broadcast to bring you something pretty special. This summer, we are doing a special program for college aged students 18-25 year olds. And it’s something that is becoming more and more special based on where the climate is.

In the middle of a crazy culture, in the middle of a nation going in crazy directions and right now we’re seeing in academia where even Christian universities are promoting critical race theory, teaching the 1619 project, we want to do something to help equip young people the next generation, to know the truth, the truth of the Word of God, the truth of America, the truth of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the free market, we want to get into a lot of this. 

And this is something that if you are an 18-25 year old, or if you are a parent or grandparent, if you have an 18 or 25 year old, if you’re in church, you know 18-25 year olds, this program is something that can be life-changing for them, you want them to be a part. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the summer institute to be part of this program.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. So, excited to have Theresa Barbale with us. We had a chance to meet at a conference just a few weeks ago. Wasn’t that not long ago, but it seems like it was forever ago and I was blown away by her organization and what they’re doing. It’s exactly the kind of thing we need to be thinking about for the future and working on for the future and doing actually right now. 

But it’s basically new wineskin. This is the place to go if you’re prolife. These are the types of things we need to be doing to save lives and to save this next generation. Theresa, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate your time today.

Theresa:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be on and to share about what I’m doing with the My Mentor program and the My Mentor app and just let you know that we’re out there so that people are aware.

Rick:

Mymentorprogram.org is the website folks can go to learn more. So let’s start at the beginning. What gave you the idea for this? And what’s the need that you’re trying to fill?

Theresa:

So, I’ve been working with abstinence education in the school system. And what I had been seeing was that people were moving away from abstinence curriculum and moving into directed programs through apps and through chatbots particularly the chatbots from Planned Parenthood. So they were using the Planned Parenthood Roo app in schools in Florida as well as throughout the rest of the country. 

And when I would address this and say, this is the most diabolical, disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, they would say, well, there’s no competitors to it. You know, there’s nothing else that answers children’s questions or youth’s questions, so this is what we have to do. So I immediately told my husband, I said, we should find a competitor and encourage that. And when we couldn’t find a competitor, we decided to build one ourselves.

Rick:

And really what they’re doing, they’re essentially befriending the kid, right? I mean, they’re basically come alongside of us, and hey, we’re a voice in your life that you can come to with no judgment, no condemnation, we’re just going to be a sounding board. And so they build a relationship with them essentially.

Theresa:

And it’s a chatbot robot, and it suggests questions, it’ll suggest them trying other genders or suggest them trying sexuality at young ages. When I tell people I said, I hate to tell you to look at Planned Parenthood to increase their views. But if you don’t believe that this is going on and you don’t believe it’s going on in your community, take a look at it and then you need to go to the school. And they’re using it as an outside source. So it’s usually not considered a primary source. So they’re hiding it in our school system.

Rick:

So how do you compete with that? How do you take My Mentor program and compete with that?

 

Theresa:

So we’re making it better. We took it, and we’re going to use real people. So we’re building on our training. Actually, next week, we are filming all of our training modules at Leadership Institute. We are training real people.

Based on Integrity

We have an app built that houses it, that protects kids. So really, all their information on Planned Parenthood’s website can’t be stolen because it’s not real secure. It’s not an app. It’s not designed to have integrity, so to say.

And what we’ve done is we’ve taken all that and made it a program that is based on integrity. It has real people talking to them to answer real questions. We’re basing it in morality and our training is based on morality. We are prolife. So people are not realizing that this is where the abortion industry is moving.

And we had heard rumors that the Dobbs v. Jackson decision might come out or there might be indications of it. That was really a huge push for us because if Roe v Wade is overturned, the abortion industry is going to only focus their abilities on children to change this because they want to focus on the next generation. They also need to fund their abortion kill industry, which will not be changed in this situation. It’s 61% of abortion right now.

Rick:

I’m going to get you to back up and one more time. So give me the walkthrough of how a kid ends up on that Planned Parenthood app and then how you hope to be the alternative to that. But backup again to put me in the kid’s life. Like what causes them to start this engagement on the app?

Theresa:

So a lot of times it’s just the school; the school gives the QR code and says look this up, and they’re providing it in the school and telling the kids to look at it. Maybe it’s a pop up in their social media. I mean, I get pop ups on my Instagram or Facebook or TikTok that is for Roo in Planned Parenthood. So they get this suggestion to go and look at this. And in our community, they’re pushing…

Rick:

To get to go and look at what? Like what is it sold as?

Theresa:

Roo, well, to get your questions answered.

Rick:

So you’re curious about things you might not have anybody else to ask, here’s a place you can go to ask it, I get it, okay.

Theresa:

Planned Parenthood wants a division in between parents and children. They want to start that as young as they can so they can be sure that they’re able to sell four to five abortions to women in between the ages of 15 and 25. That’s their goal. And by dividing the child and their family, they’re more likely to do that.

Rick:

Yeah, and becoming the resource, becoming the friend, becoming the voice in their life. And so when you do this, so you basically give them an alternative source, then how do you reach them? Can you get schools to actually put it in front of them? Or do you have to then raise the money to do advertisements to get in front of that kid with some sort of a QR code where they’ll see the app and be drawn to it?

Theresa:

So right now we are in schools, we are allowed to be in schools, we are promoted by schools. We have schools that want to use our program. So that’s really, really setting, especially public schools. So we’re just going to really, school board members in the school board change that we’re seeing right now, and saying, do you have this in your school or do you want something else? We have built into our platform a specialized system for schools. This is not something you’re going to get from Planned Parenthood.

So say your school will say, you’re South Texas high school and South Texas high school has 1,000 kids that they’re going to give the QR code to use our app, they can get a report weekly of the kid using the app and how they’re rating emotionally based on their mentoring. And that’s really important to our schools because our suicide rate is through the roof.

So we’ve seen the teen suicide rate escalate and teachers in schools really can’t keep up with it. I mean, usually, the school that size will have 2-3 counselors, 2-3 counselors is never going to catch a mental health issue with every one of the kids. 

So if they have an additional resource that’s answering questions that actually gives a report to that school, that will help the school in helping the kids earlier and helping their mental abilities and preventing suicide, which we all know Planned Parenthood increases the rate of suicide. So we’re basically countering everything Planned Parenthood does on every front.

Rick:

Wow. It’s incredible what you guys are doing, Theresa, we got to take a quick break. Everybody stay with us, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out, wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Theresa Barbale with us talking about really what is desperately needed to combat what’s happening with Planned Parenthood. Theresa, the reason before the break I ask you to repeat how people get engaged in this, how the app actually works, for no guy like me, it’s hard for me to comprehend that someone would trust the questions and the advice of a total stranger going through an app.

I remember we had Shaun Dunn on a couple of months ago with Ground Wire which does a similar thing on sharing the gospel in terms of getting people through the app to a live person and directly answering questions about God and faith and that sort of thing. And I asked him the same thing; it’s unimaginable that you did on an app and you ask those kind of questions. He’s like, dude, you have no idea this is where they’re going. 

And so you’re experiencing the same thing and they’re willing to ask questions about sex, about life, about abortion, about all of these things and that’s where you’re able to then influence that young person with a moral answer to that question, rather than these vultures that want that kid for business to get five abortions in those few short years, just like you’re talking about.

Theresa:

And the transgender drugs, let’s be really real, Planned Parenthood pushes those transgender drugs because that’s a new market for them and they can go there. So if they tell kids, you should try this, a lot of these kids don’t realize the damage that does. They think it’s like trying a new soda flavor. That’s the way it’s marketed. It’s really sad. Like, if I don’t like Sprite, I’m going to go back to Coke, whatever.

But if you start taking hormones that are affecting the reproductive growth of your body, during puberty, one of the most important time you may never reach sexual maturity. It also can impact your mental abilities, a lot of other things. And when those kids get involved in this type of stuff, their graduation rates in the schools drops, their student participation drops, as well as the overall grace and the ability of those kids to go to college and to live above the poverty level. So that’s the other part that’s really sad. It actually impacts those kids whole future just by going into this Roo chat system.

Rick:

This feels like to me, Theresa, basically the next generation of what we would have thought of 30, 40 years ago we would have invested in young life or campus crusade or these other ways to reach young people at that point where they’re experiencing these things, and we would donate and we would build up these ministries that were on the ground, in-person ministries. This is really the next generation, next level of that. That’s essentially what you’re doing. You’re building an outlet, a lifeline for these kids in the arena where they operate and in the place where they’re willing to communicate. Am I reading that right?

Theresa:

Exactly, and making it safe for the mentors and the mentees. I mean, we live in a pretty dark world and making our app, I mean, it’s taken us 15 months to build this, to where I can tell you that if your kid goes on this app. You know, as a parent, I’m I have five kids and I’m seven months pregnant with number six. So I’m very invested in this fight.

Rick:

Congrats.

Theresa:

Thank you. And I’m like I want to be able to look you in the eye and say nothing’s going to happen to your kid. If there’s a pornographic image, we catch it, it goes to the cops as part of the agreement. If there is explicit conversation, it’s caught: it’s exploiting a minor. And that is all housed in our app, so that you can be sure, and you can be sure you’re protected on the other end. So say, I asked you to be a mentor, like we’ve asked a lot of people and I’m asking all your listeners donate 15 minutes of your time once a week, you can be anywhere. 

We are currently just onboarding mentors and the training for those mentors which is about 25 videos that has to be completed with questions that will come out in the next month and a half to two months. This will give you the ability to be that voice. I’ve told people, I’m like, sidewalk counseling was the way we save lives in the past, the best tool we had. And I said, I see this as the cyber sidewalk. This is the next generation of doing it.

Rick:

Cyber sidewalk, that’s it. That’s the picture I needed that that really puts it in an understandable way for us not so technologically savvy folks. I mean, really that helps, it’s the cyber sidewalk, I mean, that’s exactly. And let me ask you about the mentors before I let you go. So the people you’re talking about that would go through these videos, I mean, this essentially is a ministry outlet for them. What age range are you looking for people that would serve as mentors?

Theresa:

Anyone over 18 in the training teaches you everything.

Rick:

I love it. I love it.

Theresa:

If you can use an iPad, I mean, I joke, our chairman of the board is at 80-years-old, and I bought her an iPad and I said, look, could you get to be our test subject? If you can do it, anybody can do it. And she said to me, she goes, okay. So and I joke, I’m like you do not know who was going to touch that kid’s heart. 

You do not know who’s going to be the voice of reason in their life. And we have a great pairing algorithm we’ve written. And the pairing algorithm is it can be the silliest questions, like do you like dogs or cats, pizza or bread? But then it goes into deeper questions, where are you from a divorce situation? So that we can really pair you well so that you have the best opportunity.

Because if you’re just walking up to a kid, you don’t really know if you’re going to bond or not, you don’t know what the likelihood is. So we take a lot of that out and we also know that generationally, it doesn’t matter what generation you are. It just matters that you have a heart.

Rick:

It’s matchmaking for mentors. I love it. I love it. Theresa, this is fantastic. I absolutely love it. We would love to have you come to Patriot Academy and speak to the young people there too. I think you’d get some great mentors out of there, over 18 group and maybe some mentees in the younger group as well. 

Man, this is new wineskins Folks, it’s exactly like I said at the beginning, this is where we need to be headed. We’ve got to get ahead of the left on this stuff, they’re stealing our kids hearts and minds and we’ve got to understand how to do warfare in this way.

Theresa:

Oh, exactly. The Left is spending billions in big tech, billions and billions. Through 2020, I just thought it was like they’re controlling the kids through social media and through these Roo chat systems and everything else and I was like, why are the Conservatives not dumping money into tech to win our future back? And then I was like, well, I’m guess I’m just as guilty as everybody else, I should be doing the same thing. So here we are.

Rick:

I love it. Get convicted yourself, said hey, if I’m going to complain about this, I have to go do it now. Oh, it’s great. Okay. Let’s give the website again, mymentorprogram.org. We’ll have a link today at wallbuilderslive.com to make it easy mymentorprogram.org. Anywhere in the US, this is the beauty of the technology, right, you can be anywhere in the world, I guess?

Theresa:

We’re also in the App Store. We’re in the Apple and Android App Store. So you can look at My Mentor Program and get us at App store as well.

Rick:

Now if I do that, if a person goes into the App Store first, then they want to be a mentor, does it have instructions on how to do that?

Theresa:

Everything is there. It’s really simple.

Rick:

Okay. Alright, Theresa, God bless you. This is exciting. Look forward to telling folks about this. And if you’re listening right now and you’ve got people in your life that have been saying, I want to do something I don’t know what to do; I want to help, I don’t know where to help, wow, what an easy opportunity to get in and be able to save lives. 

That’s what you’re doing. You’re saving lives. You’re saving that young person from being led astray by the Left and potentially saving a baby as a result of that as well. I mean, I can’t think of a better way to be a part of the solution, mymentorprogram.org. Theresa, look forward to having you back again soon.

Theresa:

Thank you so much. You have a wonderful day.

Rick:

Special thanks to Theresa Barbale and the organization, which is the website, as we’ve given out several times today, but I want to give it again, mymentorprogram.org, mymentorprogram.org. And everything’s there. Whether you are looking for answers, if you’re a young person listening today, and you would like to be the one asking the questions, you would like to be mentored in this way and you can do that right there on the app.

Or, if you want to serve and you want to be a mentor, and you want to be available to answer questions to a young person that’s struggling with some of these major issues of the day and the influences in their life or are not steering them to life but instead steering them to some really bad sources out there.

And unfortunately, folks, most of our schools, public schools, for sure, have opened the door to Planned Parenthood and other groups like that that obviously steer to death, not to life. And what we need are more programs like this. So check it out, mymentorprogram.org, and help steer young people to life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the influence in a young person’s life. I was just hosting last week, the American Family Association program that I do a couple times a week, called AFA at the Core and we do that across the nation, you can hear it on all the AFR radio programs. 

But last week we were talking about a mentorship program that they’re doing for young men, teaching them to be men of honor, it’s actually called that, The Men of Honor program with American Family Association and the effort that has been made to invest in young men, and this is 7-17 year olds invest in these young men, so that they learn the life skills they need to be men of honor.

And I think even as I was talking about that program last week, it occurred to me that we too often take this stuff for granted, we think that these things happen by accident. We think that just because you’re born in America you understand freedom, we think that just because you’re born into a Christian family that you’ll become a man of honor or a woman of integrity or whatever other labels you want to describe godly men and women with, we think that stuff’s just going to happen by osmosis almost. And we have got to be more intentional. We’ve got to be more purposeful in making sure that we are passing the torch of freedom to the next generation intact.

And normally, when you hear me talk about that, on this program, I’m talking about the principles of liberty and protecting the Constitution and protecting our freedom here in this country. But it’s also just a life skills. It’s also just a biblical worldview. It’s these things that are so important to a young person’s ability to succeed in life, to be effective, to have work ethic, to be devoted to their spouse, to be sacrificial in their servanthood to their fellow man and to their children and to their family.

I mean, those are things that don’t just happen by accident. Those are principles and character traits that yes, they pick up on it a little bit if they see it in other people’s lives and obviously, that’s important. But we can’t just expect that to happen. You have to purposely instill these things. And that means having people that will pour into their lives.

So, the reason it’s kind of been on my mind, we’ve been planning for our summer programs, the Summer Institute at WallBuilders is going to take place twice this summer, the Patriot Academy leadership congresses that will happen six times this summer all across the country, High Point and Hot Springs, Arkansas where the Barton kids and my kids all had phenomenal experiences in their teen years. There’s just so many different programs like that, that I think are focused on being purposeful and instilling these things in our kids. And that’s great. We want to send our children to these programs.

But then there are those kids that don’t have parents or people in their lives that will send them to these programs and they’re seeking answers. And we have a way here to help them find those answers. I think this is just a great opportunity for each and every one of us to participate,  whether you go to mymentorprogram.org and make a donation so that they can grow their staff–

A New Wineskin For A New Time – With Theresa Barbale

And get into more schools or you sign up as a mentor and volunteer some time or you become a constitution coach with us and you create an environment where you’re doing a biblical citizenship class or Constitution Alive class in your at home or at your church, but you’re creating this environment where young and older alike, can come together and mentor relationships will grow out of that, they’ll be built out of that, there’s just so many options. There’s always something that we can do to create this environment.

And so I don’t want us to ever think here on WallBuilders Live that it’s just about saving the Constitution or saving our liberties and our rights, but it’s also living out the responsibilities of instilling those things in our children and our grandchildren and in other young people in this generation. And that’s why we highlight things like the mymentorprogram.org. That’s why we encourage you to host constitution classes in your community, to create environments where they can learn, to create environments for those teaching opportunities, to create environments where that fellowship and that mentorship can take place.

So as we close out today, I just want to ask you to think about how God can use you. And if you don’t have a specific outlet, even many of those that I’ve just talked about and named, then ask God to give you one, ask God to bring someone into your life or program into your life where you can be of service to others, where you can be a mentor, either to people your age, or people in the next generation, but in some way to be able to give back. Lives, fortunes, sacred honor, let’s all give a little bit more of all three of those things to make sure that we’re preserving and passing that torch of freedom.

Sure appreciate you listen today to WallBuilders Live, be sure to visit our website wallbuilderslive.com. And also consider going to constitutioncoach.com and signing up as a coach today and hosting those classes in your community. Become the catalyst for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles. Thanks again for listening to WallBuilders Live.