{"id":476800,"date":"2026-10-26T03:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/476800\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T03:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:54:19","slug":"texas-pastors-take-congregations-to-the-polls-on-blackout-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/476800\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas pastors take congregations to the polls on \u2018Blackout Sunday\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sunday services looked different at more than 2,000 Texas churches where pastors loaded congregants into church vans and drove them <a data-ylk=\"slk:to the polls.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/elections\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">to the polls.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The effort, called Blackout Sunday, is meant to get church members excited about voting, said Rev. Richie Butler, senior pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It&#8217;s a non\u2011partisan initiative to mobilize congregations to vote during the only weekend of in\u2011person early voting. The effort involves arranging transportation and encouraging voters to research candidates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Launched by the African American Pastors Coalition of North Texas, it&#8217;s part of the &#8216;Impact Texas 2026&#8217; effort that calls on 1,000 historically black churches to get 100% of people to the polls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We want everyone to be engaged in this thing called democracy,&#8221; Butler said. &#8220;The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday. Everybody knows what that is. They shop till they drop, So, we want people to get out, motivated, excited and enthused about going to the polls.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The idea came after mid-decade redistricting last year, when Butler said he realized the church was the best way to reach voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The Bible also reminds us that faith without works is dead,&#8221; Butler said. &#8220;So, we want God to move, and sometimes God is looking at us, like, get off the couch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Rather than making the trip to the polls feel like a chore, Butler said, he wanted Sunday to feel more like an experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;That just might make a difference,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The push does not end with Blackout Sunday. Butler is challenging 1,000 pastors across Texas to commit to one hour of phone banking, which means calling people to encourage them to vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Luke Community UMC&#8217;s Political-Social Action Ministry, known as P-SAM, supports the church&#8217;s justice-driven pillar through civic engagement and democratic participation. The ministry focuses on the electoral process, voter registration and education, and voters&#8217; rights. It organizes voter registration drives, candidate forums, block walks, phone banks and educational workshops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday services looked different at more than 2,000 Texas churches where pastors loaded congregants into church vans and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-476800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}