Lee Stanley - Faith in the Land of Make-Believe: What God Can Do...Even In Hollywood

WHAT GOD CAN DO EVEN IN
HOLLYWOOD

LEE STANLEY

Award-winning Filmmaker and Producer of Gridiron Gang

Foreword by

DWAYNE JOHNSON

To Linda,
forever my love

From the day I met Lee Stanley, I knew he was a unique and special man. I was so overwhelmingly moved by his documentary Gridiron Gang that I immediately agreed to make the film. I was eager to meet the man responsible for actually changing the lives of these young men. When we shook hands for the first time, he looked me straight in the eye and thanked me wholeheartedly for doing the movie. It was then that I could see Lee was comprised of pure truth, compassion, and conviction. Those are indicative adjectives when I describe Lee Stanley and certainly truthful words to describe this book, Faith in the Land of Make-Believe.

As for many of us, Lees journey through life has been full of countless struggles and setbacks. Yet it was always Lees unwavering conviction and compassion that allowed him to realize that those same countless struggles were, in fact, countless blessings. Over twenty years ago, Lee dedicated his life to helping at-risk youth. Incarcerated youth. He devoted his life to empowering them with self-esteem and, more important, self-respect. Lees efforts to change these kids lives have been tireless. The impact he has had on literally thousands of kids is priceless. I feel fortunate to know Lee and his amazing family. I am eternally grateful to him, and more than anything, I am proud to call him my friend. It is an honor to write the foreword for this book. Lee, as you know, there is no success without struggle. Congratulations. You are a true blessing.

Your friend,
Dwayne Johnson

Heart. This book is all about heart. Its about more than heart as in guts or gut feelings, but it includes them. Its about passion, determination, and a refusal to give up when there was every reason to do so but even more, its also

about having a heart for people, especially those society tends

to give up on.

about having a heart for your marriage, especially when its stressed by the pressures that break up a lot of them.

about having a heart for your kids, especially when everything you hoped for them seems to backfire.

And its also about having a heart for God, especially about God in his reality which means you encounter his nonreligious-ness. (Contrary to what many suppose, the Real God doesnt even need to be religious.)

Anyway, Lee Stanley asked me to jot a quick note to you introducing his book. He said, Pastor Jack, Im asking you to do this, hoping you think Im reflecting those values its about. Since youre reading this, I obviously do.

I was in week-to-week touch with Lee and his dear wife, Linda, for the middle years of the story here. This centerpiece to it climaxes with the release of a movie with the fulfillment of a dream. Youll like the way it reveals the real world of fulfilled dreams and they dont come easy. More important, the greatest dreams are never self-centered. They may be yours, but they are focused on helping others on making a difference. Thats why the best dreams include God because they could never be told without Gods being invited in. (And when he is I mean really, and with no pretense he accepts the invitation.)

Youll love finding out how God does that in this bluntly honest, totally up-front account of how God meets real people in the middle of real problems. Youll find yourself moved too, because, frankly, its emotional to read the great things that happen when tough love begins to transform tough kids.

And by the way, if anyone familiar with me wonders why I would endorse a book that uses some language I dont, here are two reasons. First, this story cant be told credibly without taking us into its setting. Lee had to tell it real, and he has. Second, since the Bible tells us, God displayed his love for us when all of us were distant and opposed to him and Christ died for us (my paraphrase of Romans 5:8), I conclude that a frank telling of a real story about the before and after of some tough guys doesnt offend God when the before is told as it is.

So read and meet Lee Stanley, a real man with a really great heart. Its a story that is as wild as the kids involved, as exciting as life can get, and as wonderful as God really is.

Dr. Jack W. Hayford,

president, Four Square International;

founding pastor, The Church On The Way,

Van Nuys, California

I am Lees only brother. When Lee asked me to read his autobiography, I expected a somewhat dry, predictable tome. I was wrong per usual (inside joke). Lees story is so pure and human in its telling that you find yourself right beside Lee at each turn, crying, cheering, wanting to jump into the fight to help him win.

I was there for some of it; for some of it I was not. I had no idea how serious and powerful his story is and how his story would impact me emotionally and, in parts, actually physically. Lee has a way of describing events that makes them so real that you can actually see them develop in an almost surreal manner.

Jump into Lees life and you will see for yourself

Oh, Lee asked me to make suggestions to improve it. For some reason, he has been deluded into thinking I am a writer on the same level as is he. He is wrong, but to try to maintain the illusion, I diligently went about the task. I found two spelling errors.

I should be so blessed as to have his talent.

Love, and God bless.

Unca Ricky

C AMP D AVID G ONZALES

L OS A NGELES C OUNTRY P ROBATION D EPARTMENT

Id driven past this small wooden sign in Malibu Canyon dozens of times on the way down to our sailboat in Marina del Rey. I thought it was an honor farm, a minimum-security detention facility, tucked beneath the rocky peaks of the Santa Monica Mountains in Malibu and surrounded by sprawling horse ranches and multimillion-dollar estates.

I turned my four-wheel-drive truck down the short, tree-lined lane and realized the massive compound before me was no honor farm, but a maximum-security juvenile prison. Behind the two-story wall, an eighty-foot metal pole supported a small cluster of powerful floodlights.

I turned into the empty, unkempt visitor parking lot and looked around for some signs of life. A screeching red-tailed hawk circled in the distance. I rolled up my window, climbed out of my truck, and locked all the doors. Invisible surveillance cameras tracked my every move as I walked self-consciously along the narrow concrete path to the prison entrance. A small sign below a dime-sized electronic button told me to ring bell. I looked up to see the red-tailed hawk, now circling directly overhead, when a loud buzzer startled me, releasing an invisible steel bolt. I pushed against the double-plated bulletproof glass door and entered the prison.

The year was 1981.

Im here to see Chaplain Fox, I told the male guard behind the counter.

Chaplain Fox had found my film companys name in the Yellow Pages earlier that morning and asked if I would splice a film that the camp projector had damaged the night before. Why not? I was between projects, as filmmakers like to say. Besides, I was curious to see what Camp David Gonzales was really all about.