Redemtion Stories: Stop Child Trafficking Now

sctnow.org

My pastor while at UNC (the last two years) was a guy named Ron Lewis.  I went to Ukraine with a group from this church and learned an awful lot about what it meant to be a Christ Follower in a world that was marred by sin.  Ron would tell you, as would I, the world is still marred by sin.  But at the same time, God is doing redemptive things to make Jesus’ statement in the Lord’s prayer true… “Make it on earth as it is in heaven.”  I think we (the church, christians, christ followers) have been so focused on the kingdom in heaven, that we have missed God’s redemptive action to bring the realities of the Kingdom to earth.  Groups like Charity: Water founded by Scott Harrison is an amazing story of redemption.  I’ll write about Charity: Water (twitter) later, but you should follow him on twitter @scottharrison or charity water @charitywater.  Look them up on twittersearch with the hashtag #charitywater.  They are the ones that did the “twestival“.  Interestingly enough, I found out that Scott goes to the church Ron helped found in NYC.

Angie and I recently moved, and as some of you know, it has been a tough nine months.  I can honestly say that of all the people I have met and spent time with, Ron has been the most responsive to me, and trust me…he is a busy guy.  He wants to come pray for us when we get the lab results back from Angie’s tests.

In one of his emails he mentioned the website about the organization his wife, Lynette Lewis, founded called STOP CHILD TRAFFICKING NOW. They are dedicated to stopping the horrific crimes committed against many around the work that are taken and made to work in the most horrible conditions.  Many of their families never hear from them again.  No matter whether you are Presbyterian, Church of God, Baptist, etc – this is something all can get behind.  Take a look at the site.  See how God moves you heart.  Know he loves you and know he loves those kids.  He may just use you to make a difference.

Send out some smoke.  (Twitter or Facebook or a handwritten note even!)

New Smoke: A “Little” Update

As most of you know, my family moved to the Durham/Chapel Hill area to start a new church.  The economy was declining, and as an executive recruiter I sensed it was time to explore what we felt was the call to move to the RTP area of NC to start a new church or be connected to a church that was missional in focus.  It was an adventure and continues to be.  We ended up loosing funding for the plant (After Angie had already resigned and taken a position at a hospital in Durham), moving (after getting out of a lease on a place in downtown Durham), having Angie has the worst experience of her life at her new job.  (She was always the liked one, and found herself in a situation with a group that called themselves the “mean nurses” and an organization that didn’t train or manage properly)  I spent the first six months networking…starting over really…to find that it was more difficult to connect with a sponsoring church or group for a plant than placing an EVP in a company.  Since then, Angie has transfered to UNC and it has been a world of difference.  At the same time Angie has started showing symptoms of something.  She lost 15 pounds in around 3 weeks, her hands are tremoring, she has some blurred vision and is extremely tired.  She had a ton of blood work done (still waiting on the rest) and they did detect an irregular heartbeat.  Her pulse rate was around 120.

I have always been the eternal optimist.  Yet I see myself being paralysed all of these “roadblocks” that keep popping up.  It has never been an issue before.  My left and right brain (that argue constantly) question, “Is this opposition becuase we are heading in the right direction, or did we just hear God wrong.  God is showing me how selfing I can be in not seeing what was happening to my wife.

My passion is still being missional – helping others find and follow Christ and seeing people empowered to see God’s kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.  The question is this?  A friend once said to me that the calling of God is without revoke – so do I move forward in this despite the roadblocks and not knowing what is going on with Angie?  Do I just find a job to bring in income and postpone the church plant?  Or do I do a bit of both?  Life has a way of being so different in differnt seasons.  When I started Midtown Church in Atlanta, things just fell into place.

I’m learning just to be honest.  God used the weak to demonstrate his power in the Bible.  I find comfort in that.  However, when you feel weak, you may “be” strong, you just don’t feel strong.

Please pray for God’s clarity.  I’ll keep every one updated.  My blog is “redemptivetobacco”.  Since I feel like one of those worms that eats on a tobacco leaf, I have faith that he can redeem me and this situation too.

May we all see God’s redemption around us every day.  You can follow me on twitter or facebook…

Facebook – www.profile.to/mikelittle

Twitter – http://twitter.com/mike_little

Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy

Sometimes to be redemptive, you just have to laugh.  I always loved these “Deep Thoughts” on SNL.  Here are a few of my favorites:

“If you’re robbing a bank and you’re pants fall down, I think it’s okay to laugh and to let the hostages laugh too, because, come on, life is funny.

“If you’re in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it’ll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.”

“Probably the saddest thing you’ll ever see is a mosquito sucking on a mummy. Forget it, little friend.”

“The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman.“

Sorry, I needed a redemptive smoke that made me chuckle. 

looking for redemption – my thoughts on the protest at the UNC Goode speech.

i typically don’t do politics on my blog.  this was an exception.  it was one where i had great concern that free speech for more conservative viewpoints were being squelched.  i took my camera to see for myself.  the guy you see in the video got to shout a prepared speech through a bullhorn at the “pit” – the place where free speech always happens at UNC.  the speaker, congressman goode, gave a speech without any yelling or name calling and was attempted to be shut down.  two fire alarms, 6 arrests and a lot of shouting at the beginning of the speech makes it pretty hard to exercise your free speech.  what i saw was a radical suppression of free speech and that concerned me.  michelle malkin picked up my video via twitter (http://twitter.com/mike_little), but i wanted to make sure people knew i was hoping to find something much different.

i was sent a tweet from a twitter buddy of mine at UNC about a protest gone wild at UNC last week. the pictures and video i saw amazed me. there was spin on both sides, so i wanted to see for myself this week. i loaded up my flip video camera (great gadget) and my iphone to get a first hand look at this protest.

***the protest was on the issue of immigration. the speakers were former congressmen that supported various ways of stopping illegal immigration. the protesters were a large and diverse group of people that were in favor of keeping the boarders open and granting amnesty to all that were here.

quite frankly, i didn’t care about the issue in this instance. what i cared about was whether or not free speech was being suppressed in the name of free speech.

i saw video of the speaker from last week being wrapped in a giant banner, people yelling so no one could hear, damage to property, etc. the police had to pull out pepper spray to get the protesters under control so it wouldn’t escalate.

i know how things can be “spun”, so i went with an open mind.

first, i couldn’t find the place. i thought it was at garner hall and it was in fact at the student union. the student union is right beside “the pit”, which is a sunken area where anyone can speak. what i found (at first) was what appeared to be real dialogue. there were some, lets say, interesting characters to say the least, but it appeared to be productive. different viewpoints were being communicated. most that i heard were about the protest from the week prior and how it shouldn’t have happened that way. then, a guy got up and gave what can only be described as a hate filled rant he read off his blackberry. he shouted through a bullhorn words like

bigot, racist, white supremacist, etc. He said, “we (those who felt as he did) must to anything in our power to shut down this kind of speech.” he also said that the university should apologize for allowing someone to come on to their campus who spews such hate.

what? oh, and he wanted amnesty (interesting use of the word) for any student involved in the violence last week. see video here

i can assure you that the only hate spewed was from those who disagreed with the speaker. i was given a chance to speak and seemed to get good response from both sides. i tried to make clear that freedom of speech is freedom TO speak. freedom of speech is the freedom to BE heard. the freedom to protest and exercise their first amendment rights were not being afforded to others. as a matter of fact, they were used to intimidate and suppress another viewpoint. and this was a viewpoint that people died to secure and protect.  (see this video of a latino marine who was supportive of the speech.)

i told them i found out about this through twitter (dad, do you get it yet?) i let them know i was an alum. and i also let them know that they needed to catch a clue on how to have civil discourse. all they did last week was give ammunition to the very people that they were protesting.

oh, and i made clear that i’d say the same thing if a group of people were preventing them from speaking (which with this guy i really wanted to do). after i spoke i headed in for the rest of the speech. lots of cops, guards, etc. there was good interaction (other than the french filibuster) and the speaker (goode) was gracious in everything he said. he didn’t yell. he didn’t scream. he didn’t try to wrap the protesters in big banners. it was a peace communication of ideas. that is what a university is supposed to be about, right? the best of the night was a latino marine who was a legal immigrant that supported the need to have a form of legal immigration. there was no jeering him.

then i came outside and started putting the puzzle together. i didn’t connect the fire trucks and the two fire alarms that were thrown until after the event. i should have clued in from the two fire trucks parked in the building next to the union.  (from in the auditorium, it sounded like police cars were coming.) it was through a tweet that i found out there were six students arrested for attempts to disrupt the speech. i missed the first 15 minutes of action by engaging those outside, so i missed a lot of the shouts and jeers.

unc wised up and had a lot of police there or it would have gotten out of hand again. thank God for twitter…a lot of this information wouldn’t get out otherwise.

***i’m not an al franken fan, unless he is on SNL.  i’m of the opinion that if al franken can get elected to the senate then anyone can get elected to the senate. let’s throw in bill murray, adam sandler, tina fey and barbara streisand as well. however, if they received the same treatment i would be just as shocked and outraged.***

freedom of speech is of utmost importance in our society. suppression of it by use of intimidation or violent/disorderly conduct isn’t what our country is about. tienanmen square comes to mind. students protest, the government crushes their view point. now, the pit at unc was no Tienanmen square, but if we as a nation take this road it could very well lead to a nation where ideas are respected just about as much. i’m glad i went. i’m sad about what i saw.

as an alum, i pray that they were duke students instead. (that was a joke to my duke friends) send a letter to chancellor@unc.edu if you feel the same way. oh…and listen to the guy on the video. would you like that form of government? may it never be so.

also… these few are not representatives of MY university, the university of the people.

in the midst of the storm

something has always puzzled me.  the peace of God.  what is it exactly.  i’ve been a christian for a long time and spent a good portion of my life in full time ministry.  peace has not been the norm at times…especially the past 8 months.  we moved to the research triangle park area of north carolina to follow God’s call to start a church.  around a month before we were supposed to leave, the funding fell through.  angie had already resigned her job and was set to start at duke in july.  we had already put a deposit down on a place to live and were good to go.  (i had planted before, so i thought i knew what i was doing)  the first storm that came was angie’s job.  i can’t describe it as anything but a living hell.  it totally rocked her world and turned our family upside down.  now i’m a carolina fan, but my basketball team bias didn’t have anything to do with this.

next, i come to realize that even though there is a huge need for church plants, there was an equal need for me to come out of a church or denomination.  that was all set before.  i spent 5 months networking.  i’m pretty good at networking, so i now officially know 75% of the pastors in raleigh, durham and chapel hill.  this was hard on the kids, so angie took them to a GREAT church in Cary called Hope Community Church to give them some stability.  that meant we were in separte places a ton of the time.  i’ve spread myself a mile wide and an inch deep…unintentionally.

thank god, angie quickly got a job at unc.  the situation is MUCH better, though she has been in orientation for the past 6 weeks.  starting at a new place is always a transition.  she moved from her home town, moved houses and adjusted to two new jobs in the span of six months.  that brings be back to this verse…

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  – Philippians 4:7

i “think” i understand it a little better now, though it hasn’t been my experience.  the peace of God is one that surpasses all understanding.  it wouldn’t surpass all understanding if it wasn’t in the midst of a storm.  paul says this peace WILL guard your hearts and minds in Christ.  he says nothing about feeling the peace.  when you read the context, the disciples were rather distressed that Jesus was sleeping and the boat was in danger of tipping over.

my flesh (i’ve heard it called an earthsuit), the part that is still waiting for redemption, cries out for knowing and EXPERIENCING this peace.  however it is very illusive.  i relate very well to the disciples and it disturbs me that God seems content to “sleep” during this time.

don’t get me wrong, angie and i know we are where we are supposed to be.  were just unsure of what God is up to.  we don’t know what brought about the storm.  we both flee to our old coping patterns during times like this and tend to act in our spiritual lives like we “think” God is acting towards us.  i’d be interested to hear any stories of redemption that have come out of situations like this.  i know they are there.

also, please pray for us.  we are still waiting on our house to sell, and the economy has made the two things that i have a lot of experience in…ministry and executive recruiting…virtually impossible right now.  i guess i’ve always prayed to understand what it means to depend on God.  maybe i’ll learn that you get what you pray for!

i need a smoke, any one have a light?