During a service at Carpenters Home Church Pastor Karl Strader preached that everyone should become involved in soul winning. Find a street corner, a hospital, or a jail house and share the Gospel. I accepted the challenge and In March 1988 I began going to the Polk County Jail in Bartow, FL for Jail Ministry services. I was very apprehensive as the guards shut the big iron gates or doors behind me and allowed me to roam the hallways and talk to the inmates. I had not been inside a jail and was not trained in ministry although a jail minister from CHC did accompany me on the first few visits. Most every visit resulted on several prisoners joining in prayer the sinner’s prayer. It was a joyful experience knowing I was “winning souls to the kingdom of God.”

 A newly constructed jail was soon opened in Bartow, and it had a meeting room large enough for about 50 people to assemble. There were no musical instruments, however I got the idea of taping some of the CHC choir singing and allowing the prisoner to accompany the tape singing. I submitted the proposal to Jim Campbell and David Thomas, the CHC worship leader and choir directors. They promised to provide the tape however this did not materialize. After I was not successful in my plea for music on tape by CHC I visited a local bookstore and purchased a cassette tape of hymns. I selected some of the hymns and recorded only the chorus; I then printed the words of the songs and handed them out to the inmates for our worship services. It amazed me how many of the prisoners attending these jail services knew the chorus and would join in accompanying the taped music. I would always invite them to pray, and then to lift their hand for prayer and then join me as I led them in praying the sinner’s prayer. I would then invite them to sign a slip of paper acknowledging their conversion for my record. My main objective was to get them to pray, make their confession openly before the other prisoners that were present, plus the written confession. It was not unusual for some professing Christian to be in jail for a domestic problem. The needs are so great in the prisons. I always carried copies of the New Testament and a limited number of copies of the Holy Bible and other Christian magazines to leave with them for reading in their cells. 

 Once I was invited to the Village Church of God Men’s breakfast. I share my testimony and attempt to recruit other laymen into jail ministry. Thank God, one brother named Joe Aplin accepted my invitation.

I maintained a written record of those who prayed the sinner’s prayer which was over 1500 before I turned it over to Joe Aplin a few years later. Several different times Joe and his wife Fay Aplin received Bibles for the jail ministry from the publishing house provided by funds me and my wife contributed.  Joe continued this ministry until his death about 2014.  (A ministry for about 25 years)

Report for the first month of the jail ministry at Bartow, FL.       Inmates Signed As New Converts