John* and I sat across a desk from each other in the gymnasium office at Joseph Harp Corrections Center in Lexington, Oklahoma. “I’m leaving early next year for a minimum facility,” John shared with me, “and I want to help others follow Jesus there like you did here with me.”
In 2017, John joined my “Every Man a Warrior” discipleship class, where he began following Jesus more closely, practicing spiritual disciplines like having a daily quiet time and memorizing Scripture. Over the next five years, John came back at the start of each new discipleship class to help lead other inmates in following Christ. We agreed to stay in touch and hoped that John would end up in a prison facility within an hour’s drive where I could come over and help him.
Then, it happened. One afternoon, I walked into Joseph Harp and found out John had been shipped to his new facility—not an hour away, but a two-and-a-half-hour drive from me! That pretty much took me out of being physically present to help John raise up disciples for Jesus in his new environment.
After a few months, I wrote a letter to John and asked how he was doing. Much to my delight, he wrote back that he was walking with God, still memorizing Scripture on his own, and trying to get an “Every Man a Warrior” class going there. The facility chaplain was very busy, and John was having a hard time even talking to her. A few months later, John woke up one night and sensed the Lord telling him to work for Him by making disciples. He even gave John the idea of asking a specific prison staff member to help him. John went and talked to that person, and she immediately wrote a memo to get the class started. I was thrilled for John and thankful for his perseverance in making disciples in a new place.
A month later, I received another letter from John that blew me out of the water! A God Pod—a unit of 40 men living together in a faith-based environment—was being started in John’s facility, and the chaplain had asked if he would teach “Every Man a Warrior” in it. Trusting the Lord, John organized the class into small groups with group leaders and started discipling these men for Christ.
John is not only an example to other inmates in following Christ, but he is also gaining favor with the prison staff. The chaplain recently told John why she had selected him to begin “Every Man a Warrior” in the God Pod: “It is because of your persistence in getting the class started, your commitment to it, and your follow-through to do what you say you will do.”
John discovered the difficulty of disciplemaking in a new setting, but he also discovered a God who promises to be with us as we obey Him in fulfilling the Great Commission—the same God who is with us wherever we go to help us raise up disciplemakers for Jesus.
We see this commissioning and promise together in Jesus’ final words to His disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations . . . And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 18:20 NIV).
*Name changed for privacy.
