From the BAPTIST STANDARD
February 10, 1999
Prison Bible ministry began
when one couple saw the need
___
| By George
Henson ___Staff Writer ___Joyce Hargis had no idea where her obedience to God's direction would lead, but today her God-inspired vision touches inmates in 40 states. ___Exodus Prison Ministry of Lubbock began as Hargis and her husband, Weldon, began visiting the jails of Lubbock in 1980 and noticed a need for Bible studies. ___They began supplying Bible studies to a few of the inmates, and soon friends of those prisoners began to write and request Bible studies for themselves. ___The ministry continued to grow until Hargis had to invite friends over a couple of days a week to help grade the exams that went along with the Bible studies and to assist in sending out more Bible studies to a group of prisoners hungry for God's word. ___The ministry had grown to such proportions by 1990 that doing it from the Hargis' home was no longer possible. So their church, Highland Baptist Church in Lubbock, provided office space. ___Today the ministry serves 1,500 students (Hargis doesn't call them inmates or prisoners) on roll and another 200 on a waiting list. ___The ministry, which has no paid staff, also includes volunteers who are not Baptist. "We call ourselves a non-denominational ministry because we do have a few volunteers who are not Baptist, but also because we would close doors to some prisoners we are seeking to reach if we called ourselves a Baptist ministry," Hargis explained. ___About 90 percent of the volunteers and almost all of the church support do come from Baptist churches, however. ___The ministry has 33 books and exams that it sends to prisoners to help them not only to become Christians, but to grow in their faith. ___The first book sent to students is on how to become a Christian, then guidelines for living the Christian life, followed by studies from the books of John and Mark and how to discover God's will for your life. ___"We emphasize in our letter of introduction that there is no substitute for reading and studying the Bible, that these are only tools," Hargis said. ___The ministry has expanded also to include support groups for family members and ex-offenders. ___The reach of the ministry is impossible to measure, but one gauge might be that two ex-offenders affiliated with the program now are bivocational pastors--one in Arkansas and the other in Texas. ___One of those men, Phil Huggins, has written a book about how God changed his life. Huggins, pastor of New Haven Baptist Church in Ash Flat, Ark., said that while his background may be different from other pastors, the power to change lives remains the same. ___"I have a different testimony, but really it's really just the same gospel. My pit may have been dug a little deeper, but I was saved by the same saving grace," Huggins said. ___Huggins has shared his testimony with many groups, including some incarcerated in juvenile facilities, but refuses to take any credit for the response. ___"God chooses different people for different reasons," Huggins said. "Sometimes he chooses people of great intellect and sometimes he chooses the foolish things of the world, but it's still the same gospel." |
