Stories of fait1

 

Tulsa County Jail.  

Jim Pinkston and Francisco Davila teach three days each week and Zeth Parkhurst one, They teach in the men’s pods. Several ladies go to the women’s pods every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the last eight years, to teach. Zeth is teaching with Jim each Wednesday and teaching the hearing impaired. We have baptized 296 of our students this year (men, women, Hispanic). Finally we are going to be allowed to add a few helpers. The Jail has not allowed a training class for a long time. We have 3 that are preparing for the training by getting there applications in.

 

Back to the ladies: 

We have ladies teaching New Life Behavior lessons in all three ladies pods at Tulsa County Jail each week. They rotate lessons every thirteen weeks. Carol Siling, Elaine Russell, and Theresa Hawkins teach. Jan Upton helps when she can. Elaine is the coordinator for the women. Many ladies are being changed by the Gospel because of these ladies.

 

Dick Connors Correctional Center.  

 

Jim Pinkston preaches at Dick Connors three evenings each month. He has taught there since 1990.  Jim Carmichael teaches every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and preaches when Pinkston cannot, and every fourth Sunday Evening on the minimum side with a total of 15+ visits a month.  Jim Carmichael teaches a total of 5 – 7 apologetics courses, and is developing a new course designed to teach evangelizing utilizing permissive and apologetics in the prison system. Jim is now an assistant volunteer Chaplain at Dick Connors.

Jim Carmichael also prepares the correspondence courses for grading, and mailing. We have several volunteers that come every other Tuesday evening to the church building to help us grade papers. 

Worship services, Elaine Russell, Jim’s wife Jean, Jim & Jody Carmichael, Jake Schweikhard and Patrick Murphy help and Booker leads singing when he can. We go to the Minimum Security unit on the first and forth Sunday nights for services and to the Medium Security (behind the walls) on the first and third Tuesday nights for services. Seven of our students have been baptized this year that we know of.

 

Correspondence. 

40 packages of 6 to 7 lessons mailed too many prisons in Oklahoma. With a total of close to 400 students. Every two weeks = 260 lessons x 2 = 520 per month or 6,240 per year. As of March 29, 2019 we have 169 active students. Many of these are people we studied with at Tulsa and Creek County Jail and have gone on to prison or were transferred from one prison to another. This is one way we keep up with our students as they are moved from prison to prison. Elaine Russell & Carol Siling send lessons to ladies who were former students at Tulsa County Jail who have gone to a prison or gone home. On the second and fourth Tuesdays evenings we have a group that meets to grade and get these lessons ready to mail. This is one place we can use some help. We meet at 6 PM in the office area of the new church building.

 

 

John H. Lilly Correctional Center.  The Park  CR group is helping a man go there and carry on the Celebrate Recovery program every Saturday.

 

Re-entry program. (Hope City) houses up to eight men right now. Mark Clayton is the onsite manager.  In the last several years over thirty men have been helped and are closer to Jesus because of the Hope City ministry. Two of these men have their own businesses today and employ several ex-offenders.

 

Advisory Board.  The board is made up of eight men and one woman:  James Ivy (deacon over ministry), Ken Williams, Gary Medley, Mark Clayton, Randy Milam, Kevin Neiman and Elaine Russell.  Jim is the recruiter for the applicants.  The board decides who is approved to enter the reentry program.  They go by a set of guidelines approved by the Elders. The board also oversees the operation of the program.

 

Rogers County Jail.  

Mike Hawkins started a great jail ministry a few years ago and has been very successful teaching there. God just keeps growing this ministry along with the others.

 

Future Plans. 

To continue with the programs that are now successful and just see where God leads us in 2019. Jim Carmichael joined Jim Pinkston about the first of 2018. He will be learning how the whole ministry works and be prepared to take over when Jim cannot continue.

 

This ministry originated with Marvin Phillips at Garnett Church of Christ in 1989.  Elaine Russell brought it to Park Plaza in 2007 where Mitch Wilburn, Terry Finch and James Ivey began working with the ministry in 2007-2008, then Jim Pinkston came on board in 2010 part time for 2 years then full time after that. Jim took the leadership position in 2012. Jim started doing Prison Jail ministry in 1984 by working with Ralph Hunter and Bud Tibbles.

 

 

 

 

 

Baptisms from this work

2010                            94

2011                            109

2012                            139

2013                            259

2014                            406

2015                            382

2016                          398

2017                          348

2018                          474

2019                          296

Total                          3097 Since 2010 That we know of. Six of these were at DCCC.

To put this in perspective, is 1597 more than we had at the new Park location the first Sunday we met there.

The main help we need is your prayers and support and we could use some help on second and fourth Tuesday evenings grading. We start at 6 PM at the office area in the new church building.  We furnish everything you need to help with this.

We now have a website for our prison ministry

 

Impossible without your support.

“Jesus did it again!!!”

Thank you Jesus

 

Bryon Sullivent wrote a book entitled Life, Another Four Letter Word. He started by describing it as My True Story of Abuse, Addiction, Prison and Freedom. Our Prison Ministry has offered it free to any inmate. I believe we have at least two or more copies in every prison in Oklahoma and many other places. This has touched many lives and given many men and women hope again.  We have received many letters telling how this book has helped them have hope in Jesus. What a blessing to be a part of this. We have given away 600 books and have 200 more on order.

 

SOME EXHERTS FROM LETTERS WE RECEIVED FROM INMATES WE BAPTIZED A FEW YEARS AGO AT TULSA COUNTY JAIL AND DICK CONORS PRISON  

 

• Jim I hope this letter reaches you at a time of health and happiness. I want to thank you and express my gratitude for your ministry. You provide hope for people in a time and place of perceived hopelessness. Your weekly classes gave me the strength, support, and encouragement that I needed to survive a year and one half in the Tulsa County Jail. Brent
• Brent was in our classes at David L Moss Correctional Center for one and one half years. He received a fairly long sentence. But is using his time in prison to teach others about Jesus and the new way to live. A fine Christian man now that he has accepted the way of the Lord.
• Just a few lines to say hello and that all is well, and to answer your letter. Was so good to hear from you I was a little surprised, but overtaken by joy. It is good to be thought of. This place is ok but very different from what I thought it would be. They sure have a lot of rules here and are very serious about one keeping them. I have no problem following the rules. They also have a couple of good Church Services that I have been to. I also plan to attend the one tomorrow. I am also attending a couple of bible studies. I have to keep my ears open because they are full gospel Church. But they are still good Christians seeking the truth. No Church of Christ. But the baptized are here but most of all the Lord is here. So tell everybody I will be ok. I don’t know how long I will be here, everyone says not long. So I am just carrying on as the Lord says to do. Tell Elaine, Booker and Patrick and the rest all is good. God bless all and remember Philippians 4:13. Love Bruce.

 

• Bruce was a student of ours at DCCC for over 25 years. I had the privilege of baptizing him over 20 years ago. He was transferred to a minimum security prison to prepare for going home. God has changed him to a really fine Christian Man. He led our singing at the services when Booker could not be with us. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS MERCY AND COMPASSION.

           

There are more but these let us know that Gods word is so powerful. Also learning how it affected others helps those who otherwise have no hope.   

 

JESUS DID IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

 

Testimony of Loren j. Gier

John 12:24             Lamentations 3:14-43

I Believe in God the Father, and Jesus Christ His Son. He is my Savior and the Savior of the world. I believe He was conceived by Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. He died on the cross for my sins, He is alive and risen from the dead by Holy Spirit’s power. I believe Holy Spirit lives in me. The same power in which I live and call on His name for salvation, counsel, leading and healing is the same power that raised

Jesus from the dead and can live in you. Amen.

When he reached down and saved me, I had been powerless over everything. I was powerless over worry, anger, and lust to say the least. I was powerless and in bondage to fixing and controlling every problem in my life and those around me. I failed miserably . . . every time. This is the insanity before my recovery. I was doing the same things (and many other things) over and over while expecting things to get better.

The gift and hope of life for finding fulfillment was pounded out of me. Addiction and abuse of my sins slowly broke me. The yoke of my own methods turned against me. I became angry-er, crazy-er, and obsessed with controlling the environment I couldn’t escape from. I was in my own prison, a prisoner to an outlaw lifestyle which believed in taking over everything and trusting no one as the only hope attainable. This hope was not for fulfillment because that was impossible to me, but my hope was a fake, with its eyes fixed on tiny rewards and momentary gratifications. Read John 12:24

I’ve been addicted to people, places and things also commonly known as Love, Power, and Drugs. The fear of failure however became a nemesis of change and the desire to know God was a desire I hadn’t recognized until I had exhausted all other options first.

In ignorance I called out to God, hoping He would fix my problems. I didn’t know that He was actually listening and waiting for me to see that my problem was that I was lost and not only lost, but ignorant to the reason why.

My attitude toward others was Pre-Justice, or as we like to call it, prejudice. I judged and sentenced people before knowing the true source of their disease, the same disease of sin I had.

Even though I had prejudice’s they were not of color or culture. Somehow, I escaped that devil only to develop a prejudice for diseases which society had labeled as incurable, like leprosy. Diseases caused by sin, like child molestation, child abusers, rapists and predators on the poor, the weak and innocent or helpless. I used my position and influence I had gained in the ranks of an organization to make ripples in the pools of society. This was the only sense of justice and respect I could End.

I had hoped that civilians that were prejudice of people like me would not treat bikers like a disease. I was the torturer, I was the predator to the predators. I sought to create a form justice, another chain link at the top of the food chain, and that this would finally prove to society that they needed outcasts like me. That was my sense of destiny and purpose.

I met rock bottom after rock bottom with one chisel tool after another in my self-inflicting arsenal of denial and growing resentment, I dug so deep one time that I fell asleep in Oklahoma and woke up in China. I could hear the curious chatter of giggling Asians pointing at the smelly American in a trash can due to heroin usage. How did I end up in Little China in KC Missouri?

Two more years of addiction finally ended as I awoke to look up a bluff, I had fallen 30 ft. from, without a scratch. There was no explanation for it. It would still be a few years before my life changed.

So, what or when is rock bottom? How do you know when you’re sick and died of being sick and tired?

I tried many different self-help groups and interventions only to realize I could quit any time I wanted, as long as I could motivate myself. From reasons for not disappointing or hurting my family to being motivated for having things by actually working for them the right way. None of it worked,

I eventually came to myself in a pit and this time it came with a previously hidden knowledge, that            I had dug it myself.

As I sank slowly, becoming one with the mud, the illusions of blame shifting left me like a last breath and I cried out for mercy. I could clearly see my sin for what it was and the sobbing grew more intense as I realized I couldn’t deliver myself. I couldn’t surgically remove the sin that held the guilt and shame which I had tried to beat and torture out of others. Read Lamentations 3:14-43

The first time I experienced recovery was in a church recovery group like CR. I found a place to be human, weak and hypocritical, but with hope. This hope I could see and hear from those in the group and were evident by their attitude toward me. Even when I failed there was no the element of Hope they loved me with. I kept growing a stronger desire to change. I had more faith in trusting God, that He would make the changes in me as I surrendered. For the first time I seen a need in me for others in order to grow and be the man I desired to be.

Through that first experience I’d realized that I was powerless to do life on my own, and that I would definitely face being hurt again, but there was a peaceful hope and confidence that I didn’t have to do it alone. I felt God’s Love and found purpose in my pain and suffering. The same way I had been forgiven I could now extend to others. Although I struggled for the next few years, it was in a forward way. I discovered ups and downs and the God who was there the way He said He would be. He is faithful,

He was there, and is here right now. Wherever you’ve been, where you are and where ever you go, He is always there and the sooner you and I realize it, the sooner we’ll remember it the next time we find ourselves at our wits end. Even Now, His eyes are on you and His ears open at the sound of Jesus’ name on your lips. Let’s call on His name together

Prayer & Song:

JESUS,

Lord, we give our life into Your Fire. Refine in us your presence, make us new. Then we will praise You, Yes we will worship You. Open our eyes and fill us with the light of Your Word.

Restore our soul, our hope in You. Give us strength to believe Your every Word…

Then we will praise You, Yes, we will worship You. Open our eyes and fill us with the light of Your Word.

Play Song/ Songs

by Marie Penrose (Author)

A Lighthearted Look At A Serious Subject

 

Curious about what heaven will be like?

Sometimes we can get so focused on the perceived negatives concerning death when there are actually so many positives ahead of us in heaven. This book was written to clear up common misunderstandings about heaven, to ease the fear of death, and to comfort those who are grieving the loss of a loved one by highlighting what they are currently experiencing in heaven. Included are “pluses and perks” of living in the eternal heavenly home. Also included are personal testimonies of people that have had experiences with “the unseen world” as well as some opinions and inspiring quotes about heaven. Although only God knows the intricate details about the heavenly home most of us are looking forward to, this book is a mixture of future facts, heavenly hopes, and a couple of handfuls of humor mixed in with the intentions of making something that is usually sobering and sad into something not to be dreaded but joyfully anticipated.

To Order the Book Click HERE

Dying to Christ Daily

Thank you for having me

1. It is always a pleasure to be here with you
2. Praise God I am able to stand here before you, and share God’s perfect and precious word.
3. We have spent quite a bit of time looking at the “head issues” the traps that Satan has set for us,
4. We will take a slightly different direction today,
5. but when you think about it,
   1. all sermons, even though we may not mention it, have to do with the narrow path, the traps, and the guidelines for passing through successfully.

Sermon

1. Love the Lord Your God with all the heart….
   1. How often I have I said that we are to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength….
   2. I think every time I come here, I mention this,
   3. In fact, I mention the narrow path every time I come here.
      1. Because we must know what we must do, and what we must avoid… we are not on this path attempting to reach the end successfully, no no no… we are on this path to win the race, to receive the reward… anything less is not acceptable.
      2. Loving God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, is the beginning of our walk,

• it is the central theme of our walk,

1. and, it is the climax of our walk
2. In simpler terms…. It is the cornerstone; it is the foundation of our entire life centered around God.

So that is point one…. Building on the correct foundation

 

2. Do all in the name of Jesus Christ
   1. The great Apologist, Greg L. Bahnsen in his book, “Always Ready” states that two distinct mind sets exist,
      1. either as a Christian, or
      2. as part of the world…

• there is no neutral ground

1. God will not allow us comfortable tolerances when it comes to the path to heaven.
2. There are initially only two choices, not many, just two.
3. If we choose the wide path,
   1. there are no more choices to make, just keep happily skipping along until the end, and those happy days will turn to eternal grief, and tears.
4. However, when we chose the narrow path
   1. And there are sub-choices.

So, This Makes Point Two…. When We Choose the Narrow Path, We Are Choosing Christ, and there is work to be done…..

 

3. Walking small in this world but huge in heaven….
   1. There are many sub choices as we travel the narrow path.
      1. Learning about the traps, and avoiding them
      2. Learning the word of God and how to live by it
      3. Learning what work we are called to do

1. And, then learning how to do that work in a way that glorifies God,
   1. if it is cutting the grass around the building, learn how to do that to the best of your ability, make that yard glorify God in it’s very appearance.
2. One of the sub-choices we make after deciding to follow Christ is to follow Him quietly, not tooting our own horn, but to Glorify Him in all things.
3. Christ tells us that he who loses his life for His sake will find it.
4. Matthew 10:37 – 39 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
5. The last part here is essentially saying whoever loves self, more than Christ, is not worthy of Him.

 Christ came to this world humbly

1. We should also walk humbly, not drawing attention to ourselves, but letting our works illuminate Christ.
2. Think of Yourself Less
3. Not to think of yourselves more, but to think of yourself less, makes great sense in the Christian walk…. doesn’t it….
4. But this is possibly the greatest trick Satan has up his sleeve… as I have often said, we can’t outsmart him.
5. To have a Christ mindset as described by Dr. Bahnsen is to have a mindset empty of self.
6. Maybe some of this will make more sense if we talk about what real humility is.
7. As C.S. Lewis said, true humility is “not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.”
8. I want to make sure we get that…. It is not thinking of your self in any fashion…. Good or bad…
9. it is not thinking of yourselves at all, but thinking of Christ…
10. just as I have mention in previous lessons, guilt, grudges, un-forgiveness, judging others, are all stumbling blocks in our minds and hearts that doesn’t leave room for Christ.
11. Good thoughts or bad, takes up time that could be spent on keeping our minds on things above.
12. Is this not the greatest reason for letting go of that guilt?
13. It’s merely a prideful thing that keeps our mind on ourselves, and that extends to all the traps of Satan…. keeping our minds on self, whether it is the guilt, grudges, un-forgiveness, judging others, or painful memories.
14. Satan wants to cause us to have difficult times, at least those on this narrow path, for it will keep our minds on self rather than God, God allows this for it is way of filtering… the conflicts will strengthen the true traveler on the path, and will stop the non-committed traveler in his tracks… spending his time on self-pity, or hate, or whatever.
15. Allow me to repeat that….
16. We can spend a lot of time thinking less of ourselves, but we only end up thinking a lot about ourselves being less.
17. The problem of pride does not boil down to whether we think high thoughts or low thoughts about ourselves but that we think lots of thoughts about ourselves.
18. Humility is fundamentally a form of self-forgetfulness as opposed to pride’s self-fixation. Humility can set you free because when you think about yourself less you are free to think about Christ more.
19. The truth will set you free.
20. Humility puts us on the path of grace; pride puts us on the path of opposition. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).
21. Now we have run smack into another of Satan’s deceptions… now we know when we start thinking about Christ and void our mind of any thoughts of self for good or bad… then we have learned the deep secret of overcoming the world, of overcoming Satan.

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

 

Matthew 22:37-40 … 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Point Three: We can’t keep from thinking about ourselves, good or bad, but we can keep from talking about ourselves, showcasing ourselves, putting ourselves on a pedestal…..

 

Often, we do not recognize the path we are on is actually a great opportunity to honor God, to honor the Savior, allow me to share a story to illustrate the message.

I’m going to wrap up this lesson with a story of a young mothers journey, learning there is no small work in the Lord, and some much greater than you would imagine, yet it perfectly describes the goal we should have in our journey.

I would like to mention we have a faithful Christian brother and sister in Wichita Kansas, Bob and Gail Webb, and Gail shared this story on Facebook recently and I felt like it was a perfect illustration for today’s lesson.

 

The invisible mother ?

By: Nicole Johnson

It all began to make sense, she writes, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be

taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’

Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping

the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see

me at all. I’m invisible.

The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more!

Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this??

Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock

to ask,

‘What time is it?’

I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is

the Disney Channel?’

I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

Some days I’m a crystal ball; ‘Where’s my other sock?, Where’s my phone?,

What’s for dinner?’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes

that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared

into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.

She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a

friend from England. She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she

was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there,

looking around at the others all put together so well.

It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself.

I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .

I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription:

‘With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover

what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could

pattern my work:

 

1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record

of their names.

2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never

see finished.

3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the

eyes of God saw everything.

 

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the

cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird

on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man,

‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that

will be covered by the roof. No one will ever see it’

And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost

as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you. I see the sacrifices you

make every day, even when no one around you does.

No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve

baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last-minute errand is too small for me to

notice and smile over.

You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of

the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work

on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went

so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime

because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s

bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the

morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3

hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a

monument to myself.

I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there

is anything more to say to his friend, he’d say, ‘You’re gonna love it

there…’

Mothers are building great cathedrals.

We, she writes,  cannot be seen if we’re

doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel,

not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the

world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

?

 

Point Four: We honor God by understanding the work we do, no one sees except God, the work no matter how small or great is equal if it is done to the Glory of God and that is building Great Cathedrals to God.

 

Everyone in this room has been an invisible mother, or father, doing for others, without hope or desire for recognition.

And that is our hope, that is our desire to be able to serve God… not hoping for recognition, or rewards, but that through our work, not seen by the world, nor understood by the world if they do see… but understood by God, seen by God, and when we cross over that chilly Jordan, we will not be concerned how large our funeral is, how many people are screaming and crying over our casket, or how small the newspaper notice will be, we will only be concerned that there are headlines in heaven… another saint has come home.

And I understand when E.V. Hill. Prayed to God asking for something and admitting it was non-biblical, and that he would be forgiven for that indiscretion, that his mother would be allowed to see the success she has had here on earth through her love and quiet devotion to raising a Godly son…

And I think of my grandmother, who raised me, and my sister,  but also her siblings when their mother died, and her own 6 children, and then older cousins of mine, and other people’s children, and finally Linda and I. An old woman, way too short for her weight, who couldn’t drive, unable to work, and didn’t leave her home very often… it was just too difficult…. Yet somehow out of all this mess of children she raised, I can count at least 4 preachers, and there are probably several more that I don’t know, and literally an unknown number of people who know those scriptures inside and out.

This was a woman, among literally millions like her, and fathers as well, who lived very small lives, yet, very high-quality beautiful lives in their own little world honoring God in the way He provided them, building great monuments to the name and glory of God.

Let us pray that we will do His work, that we will pick up our own cross, that we will lose our life here for His sake… and even though we cannot cleanse our mind of self entirely, but that we can do that work quietly, hoping another sinner will be brought to salvation.

That all we do will point to His Glory, and like John we will decrease as He increases…

Let’s do a short recap…. The cornerstone, or foundation of our walk with Christ is loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength.

Let me close with this: In the end, we will think about ourselves, but we can decrease that sin as times goes on, as we replace thoughts of self with thoughts of things above… and just keep on keeping on as the saying goes, quietly, steadily, and committed.

The lesson is yours, and if any are any in need of prayer please come forward as we sing the closing hymn.