Thank you for visiting. On these pages you will find lessons and sermons, from myself (Jim Carmichael), and Jim Pinkston.
Our website is dedicated to the promotion of the Ok Prison Ministry, (as a part of The Park Church of Christ Prison Ministry in Tulsa OK) and for that matter all prison ministries anywhere in the world.
Our hope as finances allow to take this gospel / New Life Behavior/ and Christian Defense training into all prisons in America.
We are also promoting Prison Reform in America for America is currently housing close to 25% of all the prisoners in the world…. and that is not acceptable.
This site includes Sermons and Lessons from Many Sources, including various denominations, and independent churches. We do not change the message to fit our beliefs but leave them intact for your inspection and you can make comments on them agreeing or disagreeing with the message.
Prisoners also contribute to this site with lessons, Sermons, and Poetry.
Our focus is on Three things in our ministry:
- Apologetics: Offering overwhelming evidence the Bible is inspired by God, and teaching the correct understanding of Scripture with the commitment of following the truth no matter where it might lead
- Teaching New Life Behavior, how to walk the Christian Life according to Scripture.
- Teaching how to evangelize using apologetics (both forms) with a “permissive” approach.
Folks, we are losing our youth! And our Nation!
Why? People are turning from the church for a couple of reasons
They are being taught evolution is the reason life exists, as a scientific fact…. And it is not, it can’t be proven, and in fact it can be proven to be mathematically impossible…. Truth is not an obstacle for those who want to lead the world away from Christianity.
People are being taught they are committing intellectual suicide if they believe in God.
Why? Because 90% of Christians cannot defend their faith in a way that makes sense to a non-believer.
We teach our children all the biblical stories such as the flood, and Noah’s Ark, but not giving them the evidence of its truth.
Matthew 28:18-20 tells us to take the word to the world, to teach them the word, to baptize them, and teach them to follow the commands of Christ.
That was much easier in the earlier part of the last century for practically everyone in America knew what you were talking about when you said, “REPENT YOUR SINS AND BE SAVED”.
Today’s culture has no idea what you are talking about, at least in many cases.
When I was young; atheists would merely say, I don’t believe all that stuff, but today they have become very aggressive, they will still tell you they don’t believe all that stuff, but they also say, and I don’t want you talking about it, and, I don’t want you to teach it to my children, and, do not talk about it in public or government buildings, and in the very near future they will forbid us to teach Christianity at all.
So why has it changed and so dramatically? And, according to the Pew Research Center, among people born from 1928 – 1945 the percentage of Claimed Christians is 85% however, those born from 1990 to 1996 that has dropped to 56%. And my generation is about to die off and where do you think that will leave the children being born today?
And why are our evangelist efforts failing?
Just under 50% of the people have no idea what you are talking about when you tell them Jesus will save them… Save them from what? They all think we’re crazy when we start off like that.
1 Corinthians 1: 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
When speaking to the Jews, they found it as a stumbling block to their beliefs, the Jews understood what they were talking about, they had a background in the Old Testament, they knew what sin was, they knew how the world began, they knew Adam and Eve had fallen in the Garden of Eden and sin overtook the world. They knew they were sinners.
However, the Greeks who were into wisdom found it foolishness, why? Because they didn’t have a background in the Old Testament, they knew nothing about sin, fallen man, the garden, and the creation of the world. They had to be educated, given background information, before they could accept the scripture, and understand it was the true wisdom.
In Acts 17:23 this is exactly what Paul did: Acts 17: 22Then Paul stood up before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription: To an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.…
You see they were polytheist, believing in many gods, which is the same thing as atheism.
We have now several generations of men and women who are “Greeks” in America. We as a country put a lot of value on Education and “Wisdom”, and yet so many people have not had bible training as early America did, so when seeking wisdom, they see the bible and Christians as foolish and consider it intellectual suicide to believe in something they think of as foolishness.
So, when they now say they do not want us to speak about it, nor teach it to their children it is not that they are mean, or evil, in fact most are very nice compassionate people, they are concerned with what their children are being taught, and in their minds we are attempting to poison their young minds with legends and fairy tells.
We must take a new approach.
It is not really known how many new converts fall away within the first year, but we do know it is a large number, and here are a few examples of studies.
- Charles E. Hackett, the division of home mission’s national director for the Assemblies of God in the U.S. said, “A soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in some circles because we realize approximately ninety-five out of every hundred will not become integrated into the church. In fact, most of them will not return for a second visit.”
- In his book Today’s Evangelism, Ernest C. Reisinger said of one outreach event, “It lasted eight days, and there were sixty-eight supposed conversions.” A month later, not one of the “converts” could be found.
- In 1991, organizers of a Salt Lake City concert encouraged follow-up. They said, “Less then 5 percent of those who respond to an altar call during a public crusade . . . are living a Christian life one year later.” In other words, more than 95 percent proved to be false converts.
- A pastor in Boulder, Colorado, sent a team to Russia in 1991 and obtained 2,500 decisions. The next year, the team found only thirty continuing in their faith. That’s a retention rate of 1.2 percent.
- In November 1970, several churches combined for a convention in Fort Worth, Texas, and secured 30,000 decisions. Six months later, the follow-up committee could only find thirty continuing in their faith.
- A mass crusade reported 18,000 decisions—yet, according to Church Growth magazine, 94 percent failed to become incorporated into a local church.
- In Sacramento, California, a combined crusade yielded more than 2,000 commitments. One church followed up on fifty-two of those decisions and couldn’t find one true convert.
- A leading U.S. denomination reported that during 1995 they secured 384,057 decisions but retained only 22,983 in fellowship. They couldn’t account for 361,074 supposed conversions. That’s a 94 percent fall-away rate.
- In the March/April 1993 issue of American Horizon, the national director of home missions of a major U.S. denomination disclosed that in 1991, 11,500 churches had obtained 294,784 decisions for Christ. Unfortunately, they could find only 14,337 in fellowship. That means that despite the usual intense follow-up, they couldn’t account for approximately 280,000 of their “converts.”
I also tried to find the main reason for this large number of people making the decision then falling away…. Couldn’t find that answer… apparently no one knows, so we are suggesting it is because the new convert does not have the tools to preserver.
I think we are probably great at teaching scripture, but how great are we at teaching how to live it? Or, defend it?
In the prison system, we not only teach the scripture, but we teach the incarcerated men and women how to live by them, how to change their lives to live according to God’s word through our New Life Behavior classes offered both inside, and by correspondence.
And we teach them how to defend their faith (apologetics) so when confronted they can explain logically why they believe, and it gives them that third dimension of faith, so during those times of doubt we all face, they can fall back on the intellectual knowledge that the bible is the word of God, beyond any doubt.
CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR
Once in this nation, and the world, a Christian could be spotted by their behavior, their mode of dress, and their language.
Today, this is not so true, we have very much started to blend, we behave the same as the world, we go to the same places as the world, we even have the same divorce rate as the world, and we dress the same as the world, for instance once in Texarkana a young lady came to worship wearing a T-shirt with a statement on it that was so embarrassing it shouldn’t have even been worn anywhere in public, and really, not even in private, especially for a proclaimed Christian.
I have even observed men wearing a hat into the sanctuary, and this observation will be understood by older members, but not so much by younger members.
I was once told by a Christian that after choir practice they would all meet at a specific bar for a few beers… ???
This list could go on forever, but I just keep remembering a line from the comedy titled “My Cousin Vinny” in which the actress tells the main character… oh yeah, you blend.
We are supposed to be a separate, and peculiar people, but we have lost our way. People no longer know how to live as a Christian.
We need to train our youth, and our young adults how to live like a Christian.
People can handle the truth, the world wants something different in their lives, that’s why they seek God. They do not come through our doors wanting to find the something on the inside as they see on the outside, except we sing better songs, and tell a good story.
They need and desire truth… we need quit fearing living and teaching the truth.
Let’s once again become a separate and peculiar people walking in the world, but NOT being part of the world.
DEFENDING THE FAITH
On April 4, 2016 I began teaching Christian Apologetic s in the prison system, beginning with the medium side at Dick Conner’s Correctional Center in Hominy OK.
A few of the men are already asking me to teach a class on the minimum side as well, which I will as soon as I am allowed.
My hope is the value of this knowledge is recognized quickly, and the course will be spread throughout the prison system, not only in Oklahoma, but the entire country.
I hope that individual congregations will also see the value and start teaching their youth these courses. Just think of the impact if a child could logically and truthfully defend the faith through undeniable historical facts.
If this could happen in the school yard, the day will come it will not be necessary in the prison yard.
New Life Behavior
Jim Pinkston
New Life Behavior
Dick Conner’s Correctional Center
Tulsa County Jail
918-627-3201
jpinkston@parkplaza.org
Defending the Faith
Jim Carmichael
Teaching Christian Apologetics
Dick Conner’s Correctional Center
918-960-1815
jim.prisonapologetics@gmail.com
We have many interesting facts about evolution vs. creation here, along with apologetic courses on line, just email me for the password, there is absolutely no charge.
We have many interesting facts about evolution vs. creation here, along with apologetic courses on line, just email me for the password, there is absolutely no charge.