It would take quite some time to elaborate on all that has happened but following are brief summaries of significant events in the life of the ministry: 

1. Wednesday, July 1, I celebrated my eighth anniversary with Barbara!  It is amazing how she has taught me to love others and I know none of this would be possible without her.  I also realize how much further I have to go! 

2. At LMG, I continue to work toward completing all existing projects so that I can cover my comp plan and now I need to focus on new business.  Please pray that I can really keep my head in the game and focus on sales efforts this month. 

3. Matthew is a 17-year old childhood friend of my son. He has been in a great deal of trouble within the past year, including drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, etc.  His sister flew in to enroll him in a southwest Texas alternative school, which is a boot-camp style program to help him finish his education.  I have tried to help Matthew previously but every time he returns home, it all goes down hill fast.  The program requires a mentor throughout its 17-month program (5 there and 12 at home) and Matthew asked me to be his mentor!  I could not believe it.  I was concerned there was no way the program administrators would be approve my application given my background but the director and I met and he approved me to be Matthew’s mentor! 

4. While I was at the school my son attends discussing its website, I met a lady who had two teenage boys.  They were in trouble and were in a room with two of the school staff (who knew me from teaching chapel) and their mom. I asked if I could listen in and, perhaps, be of assistance.  The kids were saying the vilest things I have ever heard regarding their mom.  To make a long story short, I typed up a behavioral covenant and all agreed to sign it.  Further investigation reveals that the kids are in the middle of a horrible relationship between the ex-s, are in fact pawns in an all-out war, and they have been for several years.  I continue to counsel regularly with the boys and their mom.  Both the boys and the mom have testified that their relationship has never been better.  The mom called me with tears and said, “Jacob told me he loved me and hugged me for the first time in 10 years.”  I have a meeting scheduled with the entire family next week in Lubbock.

5. One of the men in prison with whom I correspond asked us to reach out to his nephew.  It turned out the boy and his mother live across the street from our church, they have visited it previously and the boy plays in our skate park after school every day.  Earlier attempts to meet the mom and her son from me had not worked out but Wednesday he showed up at the church and asked for me by name!  Thursday I met him for the first time, gave him a Reformation Study Bible “from Uncle Andrew” to Mikey, and spoke about God with the boy and his mom for a couple of hours.  I will introduce him to our youth director who I hope will begin to disciple and encourage him in the faith. 

6. With the endorsements from Jay E. Adams and Jeremy Lelek, I was ready to publish my book but Darwin has offered to spend a few weeks helping me improve its theological content and so we are beginning that effort. Our prayer is that God will use this to change many lives. 

7. I mailed the application for non-profit status earlier this month.

8. If you have not seen the flash on the new website, check out www.HopePrisonMinistries.org. 

9. The backend functionality of the website continues to be developed.  I cannot wait to show it to you once it is completed! 

10. I have begun to visit more prisons with the assistance of Rusty Coffee, a former member of PCPC and 10-year veteran of doing reformed prison ministry.  Because of his introduction, I will begin to take over the leadership of a faith-based dorm at Bradshaw State Jail.

The service begins at my church with a Call to Worship; a verse is read and I am invited to focus on that verse and to clear my mind of all other distractions, to prepare my heart for worship.

When I am tempted, I need to view this as a call for me to worship from the very God who made me.  Instead of focusing on the struggle with sin–as if God is not there, I need to answer the call and worship God.

God, enable me to do so.

“The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness…Love has to do with showing a dying soul the life-giving beauty of the glory of God, especially His grace…God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.  The wasted life is the life without this passion.  God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.”  We are “…to live and speak and such a way that the worth of ‘Christ crucified’ is seen and savored by more and more people.  It will be costly for us as it was for him…There is more of God’s glory to be seen and savored through suffering than through self-serving escape.”

I finished the book at around 4 AM.  In the end, I concluded three things: 1) To continue to try to build a company to be rich and prosperous (even if my motive was to give it all away and to support whatever ministry I might want to do later), was to build a castle made of sand and, in effect, waste my life; 2) All these years I’ve been trying to do so I have been trying to make much of me, not as much of Christ; 3) God has called me to preach the gospel and to proclaim liberty to the captives.  So, toward that end, I have notified my partner and we are beginning the process of closing down the business so that I may transition into full-time ministry.  As we do so, your prayers will much appreciated.

He said he’d been thinking a lot about sanctification recently, wondering what the mechanism is that makes people want to turn from sin to serve God.  He asked me what I thought.

I told him that I recently saw Kirk Cameron on television.  When asked why he became a Christian, Kirk said he got to the place in his life where he had everything he wanted but no one to whom he felt thankful.  When he heard the gospel, he realized God was the source of all his success and from that point on he just wanted to live his life in a way that said “Thank you.”

I told Skip I felt like that was what did it for me: gratitude.  As I learn more and more about the depths of depravity in my life, and the grace of God despite it, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for that grace and I just want to live my life in a way that says, “Thank you.”

If you’re interested in becoming a volunteer to minister in the prisons, you may download the application from here: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/pgm&svcs/pgms&svcs-vlntrcoorcom.htm.

I had to jump through more hoops than most because of my conviction but it was worth it.  God is gracious to allow me the opportunity to proclaim His word to the captives.  When I do so, I cannot help but remember my shame.  And, as I heard Kirk Cameron say recently, “I want to live my life in a way that says thank you.”

When I learned that more than 80% of the population are sex offenders, I supplemented my normal testimony with the great exposition of 1 Corinthians 10:13 by Jay E. Adams, found in his groundbreaking work, “Competent to Counsel.”  Many years ago, God used the truths in this book to take a wrecking ball to my own sin.  He wrote that 1) no Christian may call their sin unique for “there is no temptation that is not common to man”, 2) no Christian may say they cannot resist because their ability to do so is not based on their own ability but on the reality that “God is faithful” and 3) that every sin must be put off and the righteous behavior must replace the sinful habit for “with the temptation God will make the way of escape so that you may stand up under it.”  Then, in “More Than Redemption,” Adams showed me there was hope because “the thief came to steal, kill and destory BUT Christ came that I might have life, AND THAT MORE ABUNDANTLY!!!”  So, for the prisoner who’s lost all hope, there is more than hope, there is restoration and redemption of all that’s been lost for Christ’s sake and all that will be made new for His glory!

It is my prayer that the men at the Estes Unit found this hope and redemption in the message I gave!