Greg Ogden Goes to Prison
Do you believe that our Lord orchestrates the affairs of His Kingdom? If so, you will be even more convinced after reading this story of His divine appointment.
Let me create the context for the gracious work of our Sovereign God. Around 2010-2011, I donated a box of 24 Discipleship Essentials books to the Jefferson City Correctional Center (JCCC) at the chaplain’s request.
This year, on Saturday, October 12, 2024, Dave Schanuel, Straud Brewer, LP Cook, pastor of Union Hill Baptist Church, and I made a visit to the JCCC in Jefferson City, Missouri, located in the Midwest of the USA. It was the fulfillment of a dream.
You see, 10 years ago I had received a letter postmarked March 17, 2014 from an inmate in that facility, chronicling what the Lord had been doing since 2010 to make disciples of Jesus and the role that Discipleship Essentials played in it.
Dear Mr. Ogden,
This letter feels long overdue. My name is…and I am writing on behalf of the discipleship group from Jefferson City Correctional Center in Jefferson City, MO. You may remember that you donated some of your Discipleship Essentials books several years ago.
I wanted to write to encourage you. God has used your words to make great impact here among the brothers in chains. A quick rundown of who we are and how this group got started.
We are Level 5 Maximum Security Prison. Many of us have life sentences and will never leave these fences. It is a great temptation to believe that God has given up on us. The lies the enemy whispers in our ears come in the form of doubt, guilt, shame and a lot of uselessness.
“God could never use someone like you.”
“You are disqualified.”
“God could never love someone like you.”
Thankfully we believe the Bible is true and the gospel is for us. God is amazing precisely because He saves wretches like us.
Out of the ashes of our sins and addictions, God has brought forth the community of broken men, desperate for a Savior. Also believing the Great Commission is for us, we knew that we carried a responsibility to make disciples--Christ-centered, reproducing disciples.
So several years ago, several of us came up with a strategy for reaching the men around us for Christ. Each of us would find 2 men who were saved, hungry, and untaught, and we would take a year of our lives and pour into them.
This is where you came in. Your curriculum provided us with books for a foundation to get started. This month we have started our 4th generation of discipleship.
Every man went through the program, and then was challenged to find 2 more faithful men to pass the baton of discipleship. To see multiplication in action has been such a blessing. We are growing!
Then my favorite line...
God is becoming famous here. We feel like we have an Acts 2 church here.
He then concludes humorously and wistfully,
“We just wanted to thank you. We would be thrilled if you could come. Of course, we can’t pay you (unless you have started accepting gratuities of Ramen Noodle soups and cigarettes) but we would be so honored to have you come speak to our group and encourage the brothers.”
In His Grip,
On behalf of the JCCC Discipleship Group
Then I responded...
On March 25, 2014, a week later, I commended them on the multiplying disciplemaking plan they were living out. I told them my story of how I got involved in prison ministry.
At the time when I sent the books, I was in Chicago, Illinois, but had subsequently moved to Monterey, California. I concluded,
I suppose if I were still in Chicago that it would be a much simpler journey to get to Jefferson City, MO but CA is a ways away. But you never know what the Lord might do to bring us together. I can’t imagine anything that would me more pleasurable than to be with you and hear firsthand what the Lord is doing in your midst. We will have to see what the Lord might do.
Oh, did we see!
God engineers circumstances
How did the Lord orchestrate the events to allow us to go into the prison on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, over 10 years after I had responded to their letter?
First, Dave Schanuel, our GDI US National Director scheduled our Global Discipleship Initiative (GDI) Midwest Disciplemaking Conference at the Union Hill Baptist Church in Holts Summit, MO. Who knew that this church was just a 10-minute drive to the prison at JCCC?
One day this year LP Cook, the pastor at Union Hill and GDI regional leader, received a call from the administrator of a college degree program held at the JCCC. He was inquiring to see if LP might know anyone who could teach college chemistry.
“Just so happened” that LP had an undergrad and graduate degree in chemistry--perfect training for a pastor ;). By the time of our gathering LP had been teaching for 4 months. Perfect timing! LP was our ticket into the prison. Having access through his clearance, he was able to get us in.
LP requested permission for a release of a core of those involved in the Christian community so that we could meet them in the chapel. LP, though, was a little down because he was not able to get the author of the letter and the original core of the disciplemaking movement to meet with us.
But when we arrived we discovered that some of the inmates asked the correctional officer on duty, Ms. Frank, if she could get clearance for this core group to be a part of the gathering. She did just that. I thanked her afterwards since some prison guards can be very uncooperative from my experience in other prisons in other states.
We meet again, now in person!
When I saw the name tag of the man who wrote the letter, my heart leapt! This meant that the 6 original men who founded the discipling strategy were present. They are still actively, passionately, the heart and soul of the Christian community.
About 30 men gathered that day in horseshoe fashion around 6-foot-long tables with the three of us sitting side by side in the center wearing our blue GDI shirts. The room was electric. They felt privileged that the author of the material they have been using was there with them.
The question was asked,
“How many of you have gone through Discipleship Essentials?”
Only one person did not raise his hand. We wondered,
“How did you keep up with the demand for books?”
They told us that they paid for more books themselves. The men sacrificially tithed from their meager incomes. When I say meager, pay ranges from 15-30 cents an hour if you have a job.
The largest “call-out” gathering in JCCC is for the study of Discipleship Essentials. They are a church in prison.
Numerous men pointed to another inmate or two and said,
“He stayed with me; spent time with me; took walks with me.”
That is natural, "come-alongside" disciplemaking. Relationships matter.
Just recently, approximately 45 inmates where baptized into Christ and this Christian community as a result of the witness flowing out of these transformed men.
Coming around full circle
I asked the man who wrote the letter to me back in March, 2014 to read it to the group. He could barely get through it. At more than one moment he choked back his tears, and had to take a long pause to regain his composure. In a lighter moment, he stopped to admire what he had written,
“Hey, that was pretty good.”
His letter concluded with an invitation for me to come. I responded by saying,
“You never know what the Lord might do.”
Frankly, did I ever expect that this moment would materialize? Not really. But there we were, savoring these moments in the midst of a redeemed community.
Never to be let out of prison walls
These men have done dastardly deeds to harm many other people. Because of the nature of his crime, the writer of the letter most likely will never see life outside the prison walls.
Another man who came in at age 20 and has been there 20 years, was resigned to never seeing life beyond razor wire. Yet when you see the evident joy and vibrancy that only Christ can give, we are challenged to what extent God will go to redeem people--who at one point in time--seemed to be monsters.
Do we believe that God’s grace extends to even these?
There was life in that room that could only have ONE source. I used to tell the men at Soledad Prison in California where I went regularly for over six years,
“I come to prison because this is where that I see Jesus, because I see Jesus in you.”
God closed a loop for me on October 12, 2024, but He opened the door for many more to come alongside these incarcerated men who are being joyfully faithful today.
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