{"id":6603,"date":"2018-01-09T07:52:33","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T12:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/?p=6603"},"modified":"2018-01-03T12:29:04","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T17:29:04","slug":"january-14-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/january-14-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"January 14, 2018–From Small Beginnings Come Great Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis Sepper, Burnsville, MN
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Warm-up Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you name one famous person (or more) who came from your hometown?<\/p>\n

From Small Beginnings Come Great Things<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can anything good come out of Swartekill, New York?\u00a0 That was the birthplace of Isabella Baumfree who became known as Sojourner Truth.\u00a0 Sojourner Truth was sold into slavery at the age of nine for $100, which included a flock of sheep.\u00a0 Later she escaped with her infant daughter and went on to be a prominent abolitionist and an advocate for women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

Can anything good come out of Hodgenville, Kentucky?\u00a0 On February 12, 1809 Abraham Lincoln was born there.\u00a0 Abraham\u2019s father was a determined pioneer who worked the land.\u00a0 The family was forced to move several times eventually ending up in Illinois.\u00a0 Lincoln was elected to the state government of Illinois and then as the 16th<\/sup> President of the United States.\u00a0 President Lincoln is best known for the Emancipation Proclamation which freed the slaves in the north and for his Gettysburg Address where he declared that the United States was \u201cdedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can anything good come out of Tuskegee, Alabama?\u00a0 Rosa Parks was born there in 1913.\u00a0 One day, weary from work, Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus.\u00a0 Rosa Parks was arrested and her act of defiance sparked the Montgomery bus boycott.\u00a0 Participating in that boycott was a preacher by the name of Martin Luther King Jr whose day we celebrate this weekend and Monday, January 15th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

So often our perceptions and geographical prejudices can make us believe that nothing good can come out of certain towns, regions of our country or the world.\u00a0 However, there are hundreds upon hundreds of examples of people being called by God to change society and the world.\u00a0 The vast majority of them come from places we\u2019ve never heard of or believe to be a place which could not produce a world changing personality.<\/p>\n

Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n