Putting God at the Head of the Table

Bob Vander Plaats says communities flourish when God guides public policy.

Lucas Vander Plaats wasn't supposed to live two days, let alone 28 years.

Born with a rare brain disorder, Lucas lived with profound disabilities that required round-the-clock care until his death in November 2021. Yet while his life was shorter than most, his father says every one of those years was filled with meaning.

"He never talked, never walked, had a major seizure disorder, but he could light up a room with a smile," Bob Vander Plaats told Restoration News. "And he delivered the most powerful sermon to our family and to others without ever saying a word."

Lucas didn't just transform the Vander Plaats family. He served as living proof that every life has a God-given purpose.

"God has a way to use the weak to teach the strong," Bob Vander Plaats said.

Lucas' life also reinforced that, when God is given His rightful place, His blessings are sure to follow. For Bob Vander Plaats, that lesson has shaped not only his personal life but also his public mission.

As president and CEO of The FAMiLY Leader, Vander Plaats is leading the charge to put God back at the center of American culture, public policy, and life through its unique approach to church-state partnerships.

The Head of the Table

Initially founded as the Iowa Family Policy Center in 1996, The FAMiLY Leader started with a simple goal to advance God-honoring public policy. In the 30 years since, the ministry has expanded into a multistate movement to empower the Church to be a driving force in government.

"We're not a conservative organization, but we are a Christian ministry," Vander Plaats said. "And God has blessed it in favor to have an outsized impact in elections, in policy, and now we're experiencing a [government] partnership. And we believe the reason that's happened is because it's biblical, not political."

Lucas Vander Plaats (center) gathers with his family. (Courtesy of The FAMiLY Leader)

The goal is to strengthen families and advance God's kingdom on Earth by inspiring Christians to take an active role in shaping their communities. The group's partnership model centers on connecting the shepherds of the Church, or pastors, with those the ministry calls "the shepherds of government"—public officials.

"It goes back to the biblical times of Joseph and Pharaoh, Nathan and David, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, where the Church was speaking into the lives of the kings, the shepherds of government," Vander Plaats explained. "Where Paul would say, 'Let's fill Jerusalem with the Lord's teaching,' we would say, 'Let's fill the [state] capitals with the Church.'"

While the United States recognizes no official religion, Vander Plaats noted that the Christian faith was integral to the nation's founding, from the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence to the country's unique system of government.

"You go back to our founding, and it's not just about letting God have a seat at the table," Vander Plaats said. "It's putting God at the head of the table."

He contended that the paths to socialism, Marxism, and communism always start with removing God from government. "If government is God, God is no longer God. And when government becomes God . . . that's where you get oppression."

Still, some critics would rather banish God from the table altogether, citing Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation between Church and State" as justification. But Vander Plaats noted that Jefferson's words—sourced from his Jan. 1, 1802, letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut—were meant to reassure Christians that the federal government would not interfere in the Church, not the other way around.

"It was never about having the Church not have influence on the state," Vander Plaats said. "Because the state is God's institution as government. So, we want to see the shepherds of the church having a relationship with the shepherds of government."

To accomplish that, The FAMiLY Leader built its model on four i's: inspire the church, impact elections, influence policy, and ignite partnership. And as with the ministry's name, those i's are all lowercase.

"If there's a big i in family, the family is going to suffer," Vander Plaats explained. "So, we carry that through" to the other aspects of the ministry's mission.

Fostering Reform

The FAMiLY Leader has enjoyed notable success in propelling faithful Christians into elected offices—and national leaders are taking note. In Iowa's July primaries, all five of the ministry's endorsed candidates won their respective races. That same month, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made the trip out to Des Moines to headline the organization's annual FAMiLY Leadership Summit.

But elections, while important, are only the means to a greater end: policy change. And one policy area where The FAMiLY Leader's work has proven transformative is foster care.

"We are getting blue states, purple states, and red states looking at Iowa because we have taken our foster care rates and reduced them by over half," Vander Plaats said.

State and federal data show that the number of children in foster care in Iowa has been trending downward since 2018. Notably, 2018 was also the year Congress passed the Family First Prevention Services Act, which opened up certain federal funds for prevention services.

Since then, Iowa has refocused its approach with programs that aim to prevent unnecessary removals of children from their homes, whether through support services or kinship care, when the child is placed with another family member or friend. Still, regulatory red tape has often blocked the Church from direct involvement. The good news: those regulations are being cut.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, with whom The FAMiLY Leader enjoys a close relationship, signed Senate File 2096 earlier this year, removing training barriers that had kept otherwise qualified couples from fostering. She also signed Senate File 473, which prohibits discrimination against prospective foster parents based on their religious or moral beliefs concerning sexual orientation or gender identity.

Vander Plaats explained that the state of Iowa contracts with a single agency to manage all foster parent recruitment and training. "But one of the requirements of this foster care agency that was government-sponsored and run was you couldn't implement your faith into this foster care arena," he said. "You basically had to drop your faith at the door."

Going forward, the state will accept faith-based training as relevant experience and will consider a child's specific needs in assessing how much instruction is required. The state is also now prohibited from rejecting or precluding couples due to their traditional views about sexual identity and gender.

Iowa's foster care success has caught the Trump administration's attention. In July, senior officials from the Department of Health and Human Services visited the state to witness the progress for themselves.

The FAMiLY Leader President and CEO Bob Vander Plaats presents Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds with an award at the 2023 FAMiLY Leadership Summit. (Courtesy of The FAMiLY Leader)

More than anything else, the reason for that progress "is because we've engaged the Church," Vander Plaats said.

He held that the Church is uniquely equipped to help families through the kinds of crises that often lead to child welfare interventions. "Families don't just end up in foster care one day," he noted. "There's a lot of indicators that show that this family may be on the brink of collapse of some sort or another."

When those warning signs appear, the Church is perfectly positioned to notice and step in. That's why The FAMiLY Leader launched the Iowa branch of Together For Good, a preventative foster care ministry that aims to connect at-risk families with Christ-centered support. "It's proven to be a very good ministry to meet families when they're showing signs of crisis," Vander Plaats said.

As another example, he pointed to Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, which he said accounts for roughly 70 percent of Story County's foster care needs with its community services. That's the model The FAMiLY Leader has set out to replicate.

The hope, Vander Plaats said, is not only to help children and preserve families, but also to establish the Church as a trusted source in their communities.

"I always tell people: You can fool a fool, and you can con a con, but you cannot kid a kid because kids are looking for authenticity," Vander Plaats said. "So when the Church has become an answer to some of the most pressing needs in a community . . . that now crosses the authenticity threshold to where now they will listen to you" concerning elections and public policy.

Becoming the Answer

Through its Church Ambassador Network and a strategy it calls "the Daniel Impact," The FAMiLY Leader has already expanded its four-i model into some 20 states. Vander Plaats said the goal is to become operational in all 50, plus the District of Columbia.

"The Daniel Impact, the very name, was basically to say, it's not about having a seat at the table; it's not about drinking the king's wine and eating the king's food," Vander Plaats said. "It's about representing God at this table. And so, 'The Daniel Impact' was really meant to put parameters on us, so we don't get too big for our britches, so to speak, or we don't get lured by the seduction of power and influence."

Resisting that pull is critical when you represent Christ in your community. But when you're successful in that, as The FAMiLY Leader and others are finding out, the rewards are great.

"We're seeing more and more people have interest in our model, not just because of the elections . . . but they're starting to see the [value of] partnership—about being the answer to foster care, orphan care, addiction," Vander Plaats said. "Really, what we're seeing is a mindset shift."

For decades, Church leaders avoided the political arena altogether, convinced it was not their place to influence policy. Now, Vander Plaats said, "the Church is seeing government as a mission field. And when they see it as a mission field, they want to send the right people to represent the Church in that mission field: office holders, staff members, employees."

And that change in perspective isn't one-sided, he added. "What we're seeing, in turn, is that government is seeing the Church as a transformative resource."

Vander Plaats knows the value of that resource firsthand. For his family, the Church isn't just a building they visit on Sundays. It's the community that prayed for Lucas from the day he was born, walked beside the family through decades of caregiving, and helped shoulder some of life's greatest burdens.

Through his work, Vander Plaats has also seen the good the engaged Church can accomplish. It can uplift the orphan, build communities, and strengthen families fighting to stay afloat—all while teaching the same lesson Lucas taught without saying a word: that every life bears God's image.

"If you really want unity in the country, we need to go back to God, His principles, and His precepts," Vander Plaats said. "The further we remove from God, the more chaos and division we'll get. The more we align ourselves with Him, the more unity we will get."

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