Just a quick note, one of the reasons I don’t like giving these reports is that I might forget to mention someone, and everyone involved is very important to the ministry… If I left you out, please forgive me.
Prison Report for January 2023Jim Carmichael
On May 16th 2022 Kevin Peters went on the “inside” with me by special permission of the Warden to make video’s of interviews of some of the prisoners, and a round-table discussion by the same group of men.
On the following evening on the 17th we recorded the evening service. It is still “on-line” if you haven’t viewed it yet.
We also had an appreciate dinner that went exceedingly well.
Jim P still works as a volunteer preaching two times a month at DCCC and waiting to go back into the Tulsa County Jail when allowed. As we all know this has been very limited due to the Covid-19 lock-down in both the prison and jail systems. The county jail remains on lock-down due to the constant flow of people in and out, however the prisons were reopened to volunteers around August.
Ray Vaughn is working as an assistant Chaplain for the Tulsa County Jail.
We have two men the Park COC is supporting in their Christian Education, and we now have them preaching on the two Tuesday evenings on the medium side with us (Jim P and I) overseeing. This is to give them practical experience in preparing and delivering sermons.
When we (Jody and I) took over the prison ministry in January of 2021 we had about 175 men and women in our database taking our courses. We now have close to 1,200.
We have app 70% of the current population at Eddie Warriors Correctional Center taking our courses. And, Jody and I now deliver 50 courses a week to EWCC in person which saves the ministry app $200 a week in postage, plus another 70 inmates at DCCC taking our courses with all the work and grading performed in-house.
At DCCC currently we are teaching two classes, one on Monday morning covering Revelation, and the other Monday afternoon is 24 hours (weeks in this case) through the bible.
We now have 30 wonderful, hard-working volunteers (up from 15 last year) who come to the church building on Weds and Thurs every week in order to help us grade lessons.
In the year 2022 these volunteers graded app 55,000 lessons.
We occasionally have a need for our home graders, and they include Dave Huey, Ray, and Suzanne Vaughn, Waymon and Diane Honeycutt, Fran Thomas, Jim Pinkston, Elaine Russell, Mike and Theresa Hawkins, Caroline Kusler, Linda Brown, Mike and Bunny Williams, Wayne and Pam Pope.
At Dick Conner’s Correctional Center in Hominy OK, we have started a very aggressive evangelistic program, reaching out to every man incarcerated encouraging them to take our courses… with men in each pod who have committed their lives to Christ to be our inside contact, and inside evangelists.
In my last report I mentioned one man, Andrew Williams is handling all our courses for us there, distributing them, receiving, and grading them, and letting us know who needs to receive a certificate.
Andrew is still working in this capacity with the help of Justin Moss.
Andrew is one of 6 chapel orderlies, of whom most have received their bachelor’s degrees, and with the help of the benevolence ministry and at the direction of Clark Lineback, we are sponsoring a few of these men to achieve advanced degrees in ministry.
All are training to be inside evangelists, with an eye on the future. When they return to their homes, they will be “street evangelists” to their neighbors, friends, and family, with some becoming preachers in local churches.
The Angel Tree Project is doing very well
Last year I stated a need to receive your input on another idea I had in starting a family outreach program,
Thank you for responding and I am happy to report the Family Engagement Project has now reached out to app 35 families in the Tulsa area, a couple in OKC, and a couple in both Kansas and Illinois.
Jody and I are not allowed by DOC rules to reach out to any family or friend so we always need volunteers for these positions.
And the following people are what we hope is just the beginning, and they include Janet Swopes, and Pam Sharit from the Okmulgee COC who are calling on the ladies, and Ken Wiley and Ray Vaughn are calling on the men, with Tim Lynn working as our needs assessment volunteer.
Another new ministry instigated by the Chaplain at Dick Conners, which we might extend to other facilities is the Cell to Cell ministry.
They literally go to each cell in certain Pods and speak directly to the men, giving advice, praying with them and inviting them to come to our services and taking our classes either in person or correspondence.
Jim Pinkston and Mike Hawkins are now working in this ministry, and I went with Mike Hawkins on the 3rd, and it was a great blessing.
In this coming year we are starting up a new ministry within the prison ministry… the Children’s Engagement Project.
We will be reaching out to the congregation for volunteers to go into youth detention centers, and orphanages ….
This all works hand in glove with Prison reform… the best time to reform an inmate is before they become one.
We still need help in the following areas…
- People who would be willing to go on the “inside” with me to preach or teach classes.
- Our long-term goal is to have men and women in every prison in Northeast Oklahoma teaching New Life Behavior, and Apologetic classes.
- People who will help with our family outreach program.
- People who could help create new courses of study for inmates.
- If any of you have course already prepared, we would love to add them to the list of courses we are offering.
- Or, if you are willing to develop courses of study, that would also be great
- Normally the courses consist of 12 – 13 lessons, and we have one that includes 24, and some that include only 5 lessons…. All is good.
- People who can and are willing to help finance all the above.
- We already have a number of contributors and as the ministry grows, as you know so will the financial needs grow.
And, finally, a special thanks to Tim Maynard, who has been a great source of inspiration, information, and guidance to me as we move forward in the prison ministry.
And a special acknowledgement of those not mentioned earlier in the report whose support of the prison ministry is awesome.
Don Millican
Phil Smith
Ken Williams
Gary Medley
Dave Huey, (our new Deacon)
Tim Lynn
Additional Information
Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
Matthew 18:12 “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?
This is the purpose of the Park Prison Ministry…. To restore sight to the blind… you must have had sight for it to be restored…
Many of these men (and Women) have been raised in the church.
I recently had 8 men sitting with me in the prison and I asked how many had been raised with a Christian foundation, (raised in the church) … the answer was all of them, and two of them were preachers kids.
These are the men who once had sight, were blinded by the evil of the world, and now incarcerated are having their sight restored… they are the “1” who Christ left the “99” for, so I thank each one of you for your kind hearts, and willingness to send us to the “1” who was lost….
As you know my focus is teaching Christian Apologetics in the prison system, (and to anyone who will listen to me.)
The Pew Research Center studied the effects of higher education on church raised children a few years ago and found that 50% of children raised in the Church, lost their faith while in college at the hands of a lost professor.
One of the major reasons people go astray is because they do not know how to defend their belief… not to others… nor to themselves…
Therefore, I have a passion for Apologetic training… so everyone can know why we can trust the reliability of Scripture to be the truth, and our guiding light for the narrow path.
So, this is the reason for my passion to teach prisoners why they can believe, and my desire that we reach out to the children, teaching them early on how they can know all the “Bible Stories” are actually Historical Accounts recorded in the Bible, to arm them against false teachers, helping them stay on the path, and not end up in Dick Conner’s, or some other prison before they learn the truth.
Therefore I consider people like Danielle Schrock, Michelle, Kenna, and Brooklyn who work so hard with the children as an extremely important part of the prison ministry, for they are the people who have the best opportunity to accomplish this.
In a sense they are part of the prison ministry, not only because of their work with Angel Tree, and Prison Fellowship, but they are arming our children with the facts they need to give them that galvanized faith through knowledge they will need in their future to keep them on that narrow path that leads to life.
