Participants: Aaron Chancy (Host), Rick Howard
Series Code: TNJ
Program Code: TNJ000070A
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00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues.
00:03 Parents are cautioned that some material 00:05 may be too candid for younger children. 00:08 Welcome to the New Journey, 00:10 where you meet real life people with real life testimonies 00:13 and real life working ministries for Jesus. 00:15 I'm your host Aaron Chancy. 00:17 Come join us on The New Journey. 00:49 Welcome to The New Journey. 00:50 We have an exciting program 00:51 that I think you'll find very interesting. 00:54 I want to welcome Mr. Howard to the program. 00:56 Welcome. All right. Thank you. 00:58 Mr. Howard, you were involved in prison ministries 01:01 for a number of years. 01:03 How long were you involved in prison ministries? 01:04 And what motivated you to get involved? 01:06 Okay. I want to share one correction on that. 01:10 I'm still involved in prison ministry. 01:12 Praise the Lord. Okay. 01:13 I have been involved in prison ministries 01:15 for over 30 years. 01:17 I was trying to figure it out but over 30 years. 01:21 But I guess the thing that drew me 01:25 to prison ministry was that people were there. 01:29 Okay. Okay. 01:31 It seemed like a lot of people were in prison, 01:35 had been in prison and someone has to speak to them. 01:39 Okay. Okay. 01:40 Now what is your background for yourself? 01:42 Aside from prison ministries, 01:44 what is your background that eventually led you to that? 01:47 Well, I would have to say that 01:51 it was kind of a different thing for me. 01:53 Because eventually yes, 01:56 I got involved with prison ministry 01:58 and as you know health ministry. 02:01 But what drew me to that was a friend of mine 02:06 had joined prison ministry and invited me 02:09 to become involved but I was already. 02:11 I joined the Seventh-day Adventist church in 1975. 02:15 I was a young college student 02:17 so I decided I was already into Bible study. 02:22 But you yourself, you hadn't been incarcerated 02:24 before with no criminal history... 02:25 Never I've been incarcerated. 02:27 And that's what I find interesting is 02:28 because you weren't actually living that kind of lifestyle. 02:32 But you had a desire or God gave you that desire 02:35 to work in that aspect. 02:37 And that's what I want you to touch on? 02:39 Well, let's little disclosure, I grew up in the hood 02:43 so I was a breath on by those same people. 02:47 You know, I knew people who were into a lot of things 02:51 and only by the grace of God 02:52 and the strong hand of my mother 02:54 that I did not actually get involved. 02:57 But it was a familiar lifestyle to me. 02:59 Okay. Okay. Definitely. Definitely. 03:00 Now do you think 03:02 or why do you think it's important for people 03:03 to get involved with prison ministries? 03:05 Well, I think that 03:07 if people would really look at it prison is a microcosm. 03:12 It's almost the exact same thing 03:15 that you see on the outside, it goes on there. 03:18 There's drugs. There's, you know, deviant behavior. 03:25 That's true. 03:26 There's all sorts of things, there's corruption, 03:29 there's good people. 03:30 So it's really the same. 03:32 So I think if we looked at it is, 03:35 why are we involved in the world. 03:36 Okay. Okay. 03:38 We're involved in the prison for the same reason 03:40 to reach people that God wants to reach. 03:43 Now for a person especially 03:45 that has not been incarcerated before. 03:48 But they see the need, 03:49 you know, they see the need to go inside of prisons 03:52 to minister to individuals. 03:54 But they have that fear within them. 03:55 They have that fear of actually going behind those gates, 03:59 behind those walls and actually talking to people. 04:02 How can an individual get over that fear 04:05 to actually get into the prison system? 04:08 Well, I think really it's about meeting people 04:12 and not about thinking about the clank of the doors, right. 04:16 I like the way it you put that. 04:18 Right, you know, because it's like telling people 04:22 go out and witness. 04:23 A lot of people are afraid of going out 04:26 and meeting people in general. 04:29 So when you put them in a box to meet people, 04:31 it's just heights to fear, right? 04:34 But really the excitement for me 04:38 was really about meeting those people 04:41 and as I knew some people in different circumstance, 04:46 I think the first time I went to prison was locally. 04:49 I've done state and local prisons 04:54 and halfway houses and other things like that. 04:58 So when I first met people, it was just a rush. 05:01 Because I didn't realize that they would be giving me 05:06 as much as I'm giving them. 05:08 So I think the person 05:10 who is thinking about getting involved 05:12 in prison ministry should understand that 05:15 that you will get as much from going 05:19 and ministering to them as you will give them. 05:22 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. 05:23 Now you said you've done some state and some local. 05:27 Where have you done? 05:28 Where have you been at in the prisons? 05:31 What states? What towns, things like that? 05:34 Most of it I think was in Ohio. 05:37 I did some in Indiana a few times 05:40 just kind of as a guest but most of it was in Ohio. 05:44 We did Chillicothe Correctional, 05:47 Ross Correctional, Warren County, 05:51 a lot of jails and halfway houses, 05:55 there are a number of halfway houses. 05:57 And I've done some other things that with juveniles as well. 06:03 So it's been a broad mix of things. 06:06 Now from the 30 plus years of prison ministry 06:08 going into juvenile centers, jails, prisons, halfway houses, 06:12 what have you seen 06:13 as being some of the biggest needs of the inmates? 06:16 Well, I think as we were chatting before, 06:21 you know, I think the prisoners live the same lives. 06:27 They have health concerns. 06:29 They have family concerns and issues. 06:32 Money they worry about. 06:34 Some of them worry about money or what's happening back home. 06:37 So again they don't have any different needs than we do. 06:42 Really they are the same people. 06:44 I think the difference is, if you think about yourself 06:49 and I'm sure you can relate to this. 06:52 When you're in prison 06:54 the difference is the powerlessness 06:57 that most people feel because you can't. 07:00 If my mom was sick and I knew she was sick, 07:04 I could say, "Oh, I got to run over 07:06 and go see my mom." 07:07 If you're incarcerated, 07:08 you just can't get up and pick a phone. 07:10 But if incarcerated, it's just on your mind 07:11 all the time, 07:13 you have to think about it 07:14 and you can do nothing about it. 07:15 So I think that what we do 07:17 as an extension of Christ ministry 07:19 to these people is help them 07:22 have a sense of continuity of confidence 07:26 and then help them learn 07:29 what they can do for themselves and what God can do for them. 07:32 Now what's specifically do you do 07:35 when you go inside of the prisons? 07:36 And I ask that because times when I was in prison years ago, 07:41 we had different ministries, different religions 07:44 who would come in, they would do programming. 07:46 We also had different people 07:47 like substance abuse counselors that would come in. 07:50 There were different education things 07:52 to get your GED. 07:54 There were something called Project Rio 07:55 at one of the prisons I was at 07:57 which would help reintegrate individuals back 07:59 into the society. 08:00 But specifically what are the things 08:02 that you do or have done over the years, 08:05 30 plus years in prison ministries 08:07 done in the prisons? 08:08 Well, I would say when we first went in, 08:12 we would go especially on the state prisons. 08:16 One of the state prisons we went to, 08:19 actually we were fortunate, 08:21 the prisoners had a actual Seventh-day Adventist church 08:25 in the prison. 08:26 They still have it. 08:28 And so they had deacons, they had elders... 08:31 Now, who were the deacons and elders? 08:32 The inmates? The inmates. 08:34 I'm talking about the inmates. I've never heard that before. 08:36 Okay. So it's still going on, it's a very unusual situation. 08:41 We were involved in helping them 08:43 get rights to do baptisms and food... 08:49 I'm just curious who was the pastor? 08:51 Well, okay. 08:53 There was at that time, at the time 08:55 we did that there was a guy 08:58 that I think 3ABN has done a story, 09:01 his name is Rick Wise. 09:04 And, but he was the pastor 09:07 because he could be that but in a sense he was. 09:11 He was a really... 09:13 He and another guy Rudy Walker, 09:15 they were the driving force in that particular ministry. 09:20 But they had a church. 09:21 So we came in and enabled them. 09:23 But later we had to actually we would do the sermon, 09:29 we would do to help them do Sabbath school, 09:33 but then we had to take over that 09:34 because of some changes in the state law. 09:36 So at first we would do bring a program to local jails, 09:43 we always and we still do that. 09:45 We kind of bring set programs, songs, 09:49 testimonies that they do. 09:51 We do, you know, message and such as that. 09:55 But in that particular instance we, we're enabling them, 10:00 we're helping them. 10:01 We do Sabbath school and such. 10:03 But then for me it grew over the years 10:06 that I would bring in, I would do Bible studies, 10:11 not the set necessarily Bible studies 10:14 but things that I would make up, 10:17 that would speak to their needs. 10:19 And eventually I began to do health program 10:23 which was wildly successful. 10:25 And we're going to talk more about at the end of it. 10:27 And then we did... 10:32 I did Daniel and Revelation series 10:36 and other series that would draw people 10:40 because we were trying to build numbers. 10:42 This was mostly at Ross Correctional, 10:44 I did this. 10:45 Now, a person wants to go inside the prison, 10:47 they want to do basically what you did 10:49 with the Bible studies, 10:50 Daniel Revelation seminars, set up a church service, 10:53 whatever it may be. 10:54 But what is the process of an individual 10:57 even trying to be able to get in to a jail, 11:00 or prison, or juvenile center. 11:01 'Cause you can't just walk in there 11:03 and just say you know what, 11:04 I want to do something for the inmates. 11:05 So what is that process 11:07 that an individual has to go through to be able to 11:10 even get into the prison to do some ministry work? 11:13 Okay. The first thing is internal work. 11:16 Okay, okay. 11:17 You want to make sure 11:19 you're going in for the right reasons. 11:22 I've seen the opposite happened. 11:24 So, but, you want to go in not thinking, 11:29 I'm going to help these poor unfortunate people. 11:32 Wow. Yeah. Okay, okay. 11:34 You want to go in saying, here's a child of God, 11:38 I want to minister to them. 11:39 So basically you have to change your outlook for them. 11:41 You have to change your outlook 11:42 or your work will never be affective 11:45 because they can smell that almost, you know. 11:48 They'll smell that and say, "Ah, this guy, 11:50 something is wrong with him." 11:51 Yeah. He's a phony. Right. So that's the first thing. 11:54 But then once you've dealt with that, 11:56 then you have to investigate 11:59 "what the rules are" for the particular facilities. 12:04 Some have very stringent rules. 12:08 I mean, to the point where some places I've gone 12:13 you'd almost be strips. 12:16 You know when you go in there 12:17 where other places you would just walk in, 12:20 you know, you could have, you know, it seems like 12:23 you could have carried a machine gun at first. 12:25 But then they slowly tighten up too. 12:29 So you got to check out that 12:30 and I would get with the local prison ministry... 12:36 things in the local areas 12:38 because they will know specifically, 12:41 but I think that number one 12:44 you want to have something to say or something to offer. 12:48 Don't just go in as a blank canvas 12:50 'cause they'll be looking at you 12:52 and you'll be looking at them 12:54 and then you'll say, oh, let's read this. 12:56 Well, they don't need you to read that. 12:58 They need you to offer them something that they don't have. 13:02 So you know, if you don't have that clear in your mind, 13:06 what it is that you want to bring to them 13:10 then take a little more time. 13:12 Definitely. Definitely. 13:13 Talk about some of the instances, 13:14 some of the people that you have come across 13:17 in the 30 plus years of prison ministry. 13:19 Talk about the different instances 13:21 that you've had, the encounters that you've had 13:23 with these different people, the different inmates 13:25 that you've dealt with over the years. 13:28 Boy, there's a lot of those. 13:30 But I tell you one I'll give you some extremes. 13:34 One extreme was I was at a local jail. 13:37 Okay. Okay. 13:39 And I was presenting 13:40 and I do it in a little more unusual way 13:43 because I don't want to just say, 13:46 "Okay, here's the text and here's what we do." 13:49 I usually challenge the people, 13:51 you know, I talk about get them to sense their weakness 13:56 and their failures and guilt and things like that. 14:00 And then I say, "Well, God has done away with that, 14:02 now, what you're going to do with that. 14:03 What do you..." 14:05 You know, so to get them to move beyond 14:07 what they've done wrong, 14:09 to what God is now going 14:11 to make the potential for them to do. 14:14 And I was doing this in this occasion. 14:17 And this man came up to me 14:19 crying at the end of the service 14:22 and I'm thinking, "Wow what's going on?" 14:24 So I talk to him for a minute. He was 50 years old. 14:30 And he said, "This is the first church service 14:34 I've ever been in my life." 14:37 He said, "I've never experienced this." 14:41 He said, "And I wasn't going to come today 14:43 but I heard your voice through the door. 14:46 And I decided to come out." 14:48 And he said, "This is the first time 14:50 I've ever been in church." 14:52 And he said, "I'm crying 14:54 because I've missed this all my life." 14:57 Wow. Okay. 14:59 So, wow! What do you say? 15:02 Somebody tells you that's like. 15:05 Okay. 15:07 Praise God. 15:08 I mean, but on the other extremes 15:10 I've done programming. 15:13 And I really and we'll talk about this I think. 15:16 But some of the health programs was interesting 15:20 because we tend to have stereotypes of 15:23 who we have in the prisons. 15:26 But... 15:27 Now what do you mean by that stereotypes of those 15:28 we have in prisons? 15:30 Well, it's just like out here, we kind of pigeonhole 15:33 but we say this person 15:35 is not going to be interested in this... 15:36 Yeah, we do this. 15:37 This person is not going to be interested in that. 15:39 Or only these people will want what I have to offer. 15:46 I remember I was doing a heath series 15:48 called Divine Medicine. 15:49 Okay. Okay. 15:51 And it was drawing people. 15:55 Normally when I first began at this prison Ross Correctional, 15:59 we were getting may be five people 16:01 to come out or something. 16:03 Then I worked out through the Bible study 16:05 and different things we were getting 25, 35. 16:09 When I did the health series 16:11 we were getting 85 to 100 people. 16:14 And people were like, "Whoa." Okay. 16:18 But who these people were is more interesting. 16:23 We were getting Muslims by the droves. 16:27 I remember I was giving a Bible text 16:29 from the New Testament about clean and unclean foods. 16:33 And I bet you many Adventists couldn't tell you 16:36 New Testament text about clean and unclean foods. 16:39 And I gave this text 16:40 and the guy start waving his hand he say, "Hey..." 16:43 a Muslim man "What is that Bible text again." 16:48 They were so into it 16:49 we actually had several other Muslim 16:52 become Seventh-day Adventist. 16:53 Wow. That's amazing. Right. 16:54 But we had Jehovah's Witnesses come. 16:59 In fact, their services were at the same time 17:03 as ours were 17:05 and a lot of them just left and came to ours. 17:09 You know, in fact the teacher for one of those, 17:12 he actually became vegetarian 17:14 through our helping for the Jehovah's Witnesses. 17:16 Now what do you think was the difference between 17:19 before you implemented the health 17:21 and then you implemented to help, 17:23 because at first you only have five to ten people coming. 17:25 Now you have 80 plus people who are coming. 17:27 What was that difference that you saw? 17:29 Well, I think that before I came in 17:31 there was a team of people 17:33 and we were all working together 17:35 and we talked about and I said, 17:37 "We've got to meet life issues." 17:40 So we can't just go in and say, 17:43 "Here's this is Bible text, this what it means." 17:47 You can't do that. 17:48 You've got to meet these needs as real people. 17:51 And, man, health was a phenomenally important 17:57 to the prisoners. 17:58 I mean, and I'll just give you one other example. 18:02 A guy, he knew what I was doing as a naturopath, 18:07 and so he had questions and he said, he came to me, 18:11 he said, "I've been having this backache 18:13 and my doctor says he can't figure out what's wrong 18:18 and he's been just giving me some aspirin, it's not helping. 18:22 What do I need to do?" 18:23 So the Lord put it in my mind, I said, 18:26 "Your backache is it about right here?" 18:30 He said, "Yeah, that's exactly where it is." 18:33 I said, "It's your kidneys." 18:35 I said now normally I would use some herbs and thing. 18:39 I said, "I'll tell you what I want you to do though. 18:42 I want you to start drinking a lot of water." 18:45 But then I set out on the prison yard over there. 18:50 There's some weeds growing. Okay. 18:52 Okay. I noticed that. 18:55 And I've shown this guy 18:57 and this guy where those weeds are. 19:00 And there was dandelions. 19:02 So I said, "You grab those, get some hot water, 19:06 make a tea out of those." 19:10 And he did this 19:11 and when I saw him again about two weeks later 19:15 he said, "I have no more back pain." 19:16 Wow. Praise the Lord. 19:17 "I don't have to take pills anymore. 19:19 My blood pressure is better." Okay? 19:22 Okay. Wow. 19:24 If I hadn't approached him as a normal person I would say, 19:30 "Brother, we're going to pray for you. 19:31 Let me pray for you now." 19:34 Well, sometimes you need to do prayer plus. 19:36 Yes, exactly. Okay, okay. 19:39 Now of all this time of doing prison ministry how often, 19:42 how frequently do you go inside of the jails, 19:44 in the prisons and do the health work, 19:46 or do the preaching, do the church services? 19:48 How frequently do you do this? 19:49 Well, usually local jails we do... 19:54 Our team was twice a week 19:55 and usually I used to go we had a small team. 20:02 I would go well, several times a month locally. 20:07 And then we work to build the team 20:11 and trained other people so. 20:13 And with my travel schedule now I still go maybe once a month 20:18 or something like that. 20:19 With the state prisons I went once a month 20:24 we had Sabbath service, and then after a while 20:27 I begin to do my own Sabbath service 20:30 at a different prison. 20:32 And then while another team went to another prison 20:35 in the same city. 20:36 And then so that continued that way. 20:39 So it used to be I was doing it 20:42 maybe three or four times a month. 20:44 Now I do it maybe once a month or something like that. 20:46 Now you said earlier that you've been 20:48 in the juvenile centers, 20:49 you've been in the halfway houses 20:50 and you've been in the prisons. 20:52 What is the difference with working with the juveniles 20:55 because for myself I've been incarcerated 20:57 in juvenile center, 20:58 I've been in halfway house, I've been in jail, 20:59 I've been in prison, all of them. 21:01 And the juveniles though are a little bit more, 21:03 you know, bouncing around doing things. 21:05 What difference did you see in working with the juveniles 21:08 in doing the same program as you're doing 21:10 versus working with the older guys? 21:12 Well, I'll tell you something interesting 21:14 that I was able to do 21:15 and it's something the Lord open up, 21:18 I had nothing to do with it other than just going 21:20 and doing, right? 21:23 I had a situation where I was able to be paid 21:28 by community and... 21:34 Municipal, local municipal agencies to do life skill work, 21:40 okay, which is really we would go in, 21:44 me and another partner, 21:47 I would design these workshops and we would go in 21:50 and do life skill workshops. 21:52 Okay, where we're challenging them who are you, 21:58 you know, etc, etc. 22:00 But we were doing it in a way 22:01 that captivated their attention. 22:03 Well, pretty soon these kids were talking about things 22:08 that you would never think they would be talking about, 22:11 they were letting go. 22:12 And I challenge them, I said, once one workshop I did 22:16 it was about the spirituality of time. 22:20 Now wait, wait what are you talking about, right? 22:23 Because that's out of the box. 22:26 But I said what time you get up in the morning 22:31 is driven by a series of moral decisions 22:35 that you make. 22:36 I said, do you want to... 22:38 What time you get up? 22:40 And they'd say, "Oh, 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock." 22:46 I said, what time you have to be at school? 22:48 "Ah, 8:15." 22:50 I said, "So how can you possibly be on time?" 22:54 What makes the difference between this person 22:57 who has to be there at 8:15. 22:59 They get up at six and you get up at this 23:02 and I said there's a whole series of decisions. 23:05 And it was amazing because at the end of this thing 23:08 this person says, "I'm going to get up earlier. 23:11 I'm going to prepare my life." 23:14 We have to see these young people 23:17 as not waste products, 23:20 but a fertile field that we can say, 23:25 "If I plant seeds, something will grow. 23:29 But if I don't plant any seeds, 23:31 surely nothing is going to grow except weeds." 23:34 And that's what we've kind of had. 23:36 So in the halfway houses you had people 23:40 who were transitional on their way out 23:43 or on their way up. 23:47 You know, so what I did was 23:51 it was a ministry of empowerment 23:53 and just like it is in the prisons. 23:55 We want to help them see that despite the circumstances 24:00 and I, you know, dealt with people 24:02 who were facing long prison sentences. 24:06 And I remember when I went in and talked to one group 24:11 they were, they had been there five years 24:15 and now it's like been 40 years almost 24:19 that he's been there still strong. 24:22 So we have to encourage people like that, you know. 24:25 In about two minutes I want you to talk about, 24:28 prior to the interview, you told me something 24:29 about a three legged chair. 24:31 Talk to us about that? 24:33 Well, I think, you know, my approach to ministry 24:36 and my approach to health is probably different 24:38 than most people. 24:40 Because most of the time people will go in 24:43 and they'll say, "I'm going to tell you about 24:46 your backache or high blood pressure 24:49 and then, oh, let me tell you about Jesus." 24:51 You know, it is so integrated 24:55 that if I tell you about your health, 24:57 you're going to automatically learn about Jesus. 24:59 So we are made in the image of God. 25:03 Everybody knows that right so to speak. 25:07 But do you know what that means? 25:10 Okay, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three, 25:15 but there's only one God. 25:16 Okay. 25:18 So those three were interchangeable. 25:20 So us being made in the image of God, 25:24 there has to be three dimensions 25:27 in this one being, 25:30 moral, which is you could almost say the operator, 25:34 mental, which is the software, 25:37 physical, which is the hardware. 25:39 Okay, I liked it. 25:40 Which one of those things can you break up 25:43 and not interrupt the operation. 25:46 If your software is not working but the hardware is fine, 25:49 you still not going to do anything. 25:51 Same way with that stool. 25:54 Life is about that balance of those things. 25:57 So if you've got mental, moral, physical 26:02 all of those stool legs need to be stable. 26:06 So if you see one is broken, 26:10 the other two are going to lean as well. 26:12 So I think that's a great way to think about it 26:15 is integration of all these powers 26:19 to heal that whole person. 26:20 So if you go in only working on the moral part, 26:25 you've got a one dimensional work... 26:28 Yeah. There is a deficiency somewhere else. 26:29 There is a deficiency somewhere else. 26:31 So the work that God has given us 26:34 is a three dimensional work, 26:35 and I have a whole series of stuff 26:37 on the three dimensional living I call it. 26:40 So our ministry to three dimensional people 26:44 has to be three dimensional. 26:45 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. 26:47 What I want you to do right now is, 26:49 I want to look into the camera and take about 30, 40 seconds 26:53 and talk to the individual that wants to get involved 26:55 but as we stated they might be scared to get involved, 26:59 or they don't know how to go about getting 27:02 their record expunged, or taken care of 27:05 so that they can get involved in prison ministries 27:07 and go inside of there. 27:09 Talk to that individual to give them 27:11 some words to get up and get into the prison 27:14 and be able to do something? 27:15 The first thing and I would say to anyone that's interested 27:20 in joining prison ministry is will you be obedient 27:25 to the call of Christ? 27:26 He said for us to go so we have to go 27:30 but what does that mean. 27:31 When it comes to prison ministry, 27:33 you don't have to start off jumping into the jails, 27:38 you can support with letter writing, 27:40 you can support with funds, you can send literature. 27:43 If you've got a record already, 27:45 you do have to make some maybe a little time a year, 27:49 year and a half they have you wait, 27:51 but then give yourself the opportunity 27:54 to join with a prison ministry, get with those people 27:57 and get involved. 27:59 That's the final thing, get involved. 28:01 Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 28:02 Well, Mr. Howard, we appreciate you coming on 28:04 and sharing with us this important work. 28:07 Viewers, we want to thank you for tuning in. 28:09 Be sure to tune in next time for another exciting program 28:12 of The New Journey. |
Revised 2017-09-18