Texas Impact's Weekly Witness

This week, Scott was joined by Rev. Phil Dieke, Texas Impact's Board President. Phil and the Texas Impact Leadership Council have done a deep dive this year into the idea of "prophetic imagination" and how it relates to the work of Texas Impact and our members as we prepare for the upcoming election cycle and the legislative session to follow.

They also discuss the importance of making a plan to vote and the Texas Impact legislative priorities: https://texasimpact.org/legislative-priorities-2027/

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

This week, the Weekly Witness team joined Texas faith leaders on the steps of the Texas Capitol for a press conference highlighting diverse faith voices calling on Texans to fulfill their faith values by voting in the upcoming midterm elections. They encouraged Texans of faith to make a plan to vote, organize their friends, and show up on day one of early voting, October 19.

This week on Weekly Witness, Scott provides a short introduction to the full audio of the press conference featuring eleven Texas faith leaders.

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Bishop Sue Briner, who serves as the bishop of the Southwestern Texas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Judicatory leaders are faced with decisions about when and if to respond to a wide range of policy concerns, so Scott and Bishop Briner discussed how faith leaders can discern when to speak out. Bishop Briner has chosen to spend considerable effort in working to protect democracy, so she shares her perspectives and challenges listeners to get involved with election protection efforts.

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

If you have questions about election protection or see something that doesn't seem right, check out https://866ourvote.org/state/texas/ or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Darlene Alfred who has served in about every position a United Methodist layperson could serve from the local church to the conference and even global levels. In many of those roles, she was a "first" but always works to open doors for the next. She has served on the United Women in Faith Board and is a long-time Texas Impact Leadership Council member and joined the podcast this week to talk about Texas Impact's new legislative priorities.

Darlene talked about public education—it's especially important to her given that she has served on a school board and her kids both work in public schools. She also talked about the importance of voting.

See the full set of legislative priorities at: https://texasimpact.org/legislative-priorities-2027/

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Abel who serves as the director of connectional ministries for the Rio Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Among his portfolio, Abel works on mission, justice, and disaster response ministries.

Abel also serves on Texas Impact's Leadership Council, who just released Texas Impact's biennial legislative priorities for the next biennium. Abel talks about the legislative priorities, specifically reflecting on public education, immigration and climate priorities.

See the full set of legislative priorities at: https://texasimpact.org/legislative-priorities-2027/

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Minister Chris Johnson who serves as the director of missions at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston and co-host of Impact Houston Live on KTSU Houston, 90.9 The Choice radio station.

Chris is well-positioned to listen to the voices of Houston residents, both on his radio program and in his church work. Scott and Chris talk about what he is hearing and discuss what he calls the "greatest humanitarian crisis" in modern American history. Check out the episode to hear more.

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott was joined by Leadership Council member Dianne Hardy-Garcia, Director of Community Engagement and Advocacy at St. David's Episcopal Church in Austin. Prior to joining the staff at St. David's, Dianne served as a social worker and legislative staffer at the Texas Capitol. She reflected on her journey and made a compelling argument for Texas to fully fund SNAP. Learn more or sign the statement Dianne promoted at: https://www.calltofeedthehungry.org/

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Blake Ziegler, Field Organizer for Texas and National Campaigns at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Blake joined the Texas Impact team for the Ready. Set. Go! event in San Antonio to talk about Christian Nationalism and its impact in Texas and joined the Weekly Witness podcast to continue that conversation.

Blake discussed the work of RAC-Texas, their priorities and how Texans of faith can work together to ensure that our public spaces are welcoming for all Texans.

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Rev. Rosedanny Ortiz, a newly commissioned United Methodist Pastor serving as the lead pastor of Christ's Foundry UMC in Dallas. Originally from Puerto Rico, Rosedanny is now a leader who the Texas Tribune describes as one of the Latina clergy reshaping the UMC.

Rev. Ortiz talks about the importance of people of faith sharing the story of their community and reflects on her work serving a church with a large immigrant population. Later in the program, they discuss the work we all have to do to engage in advocacy and encourage faithful civic participation.

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.

This week, Scott is joined by Texas Impact's Executive Director Bee Moorhead and Legislative Counsel Beaman Floyd. The Texas Impact staff recently lead Ready. Set. Go! events in Denton and Dallas and will soon travel to San Antonio and Houston to meet with Texans of faith, including many of our Weekly Witness listeners to talk about faithful advocacy in this moment.

The midterm elections are coming soon with a legislative session following about two months later. Bee and Beaman joined the podcast to talk about where we are in the legislative cycle and how Texans can make their voices heard.

We hope you enjoy this episode and invite a friend to listen along. If you share it in your social media, make sure to tag us!

To learn more or get involved, check out Texas Impact's Action Center at texasimpact.org.

Weekly Witness is hosted by Scott Atnip and engineered and produced by David Vassallo. Our executive producer is Bee Moorhead. Theme music by Kimberly Zielnicki, Hayden Havard and Andres Garcia-Bonilla. The opinions expressed on Weekly Witness are those of Texas Impact and our guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of our sponsors. Weekly Witness is a product of Texas Impact. Visit us online at texasimpact.org.