More than 700 inmates and prison staff gathered at the John H. Lilly Correctional Center in Borley, Oklahoma last week for an outreach event led by the Victory Christian Center, one of Tulsa’s largest churches.
The outreach, hosted by Pastor Paul Dougherty and a team of 32 volunteers, included worship services, sermons, baptism, hot meals, the distribution of Bible and Christian books. According to the church, 41 individuals were baptized and more than 400 men have built their religious professions.
“Today was a blessing beyond words,” the church shared on Instagram following the event. “We were welcomed to the Oklahoma men’s prison to share Jesus’ hopes! God moved powerfully through moments of salvation, baptism and life-changing connection. His love truly knows no walls or limits.”
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The team provided 1,000 hot meals, distributed 700 Bibles, distributed 620 new life books and 710 words that transform world booklets, and handed 100 gift bags to prison staff through a partnership with City Sorb Oklahoma.
Daugherty told CBN News that the outreach idea began just three months ago when he felt God had urged him to get to the back of the bar.
“I felt like there was a harvest for people in prisons, and I was able to reach it with God’s love that (just a few) churches in our city are really chasing,” he said. “I really want to get to almost every prisoner we can (Ed) outreach.”
A timely connection with Oklahoma Chief Operating Officer Brian Bobeck opened the door to the prison system by Christian Brian Bobeck, who has begun attending the Victory Christian Center. Daugherty said Bobek encouraged him to plan something to pull prisoners from his mobile.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to do small services for 10 or 20 guys…I want to contact almost every prisoner we can,” Dorgerty said.
On June 23, the team began outreach on dry fields within the facility. Despite uncertainty about how many people will be present, 751 inmates eventually began to listen to the gospel.
“When I saw them stepping out of the pod and walking towards the field… I just started crying,” recalls Duggerty. “This looks like a biblical photograph when Jesus saw the people of the Samaritan village. He said the harvest was abundant, but there were few workers.”
The pastor said he saw a hardened man transformed by Christ’s love. “I saw all these (inmates) walking towards us like zombies… literally, coming out of prison (prisons) came out of depression, despair, disappointment and shame,” he said.
Despite the initial fear of “standing in the middle of 751 prisoners without handcuffs,” Daugherty said he knows that it is where God wants him.
“I’ve just started hugging them and waving them and praying for them, and then I made an altar call,” he said. “Over 400 people have gone up.”
He said many men were jailed for sexual offences, violent crimes, or drug-related charges among the ages of their 20s to the 70s to the 70s.
One of Daugherty’s most memorable encounters was the prisoner who he once said he was saved at the Victory Christian Center in the 1990s when Daugherty’s father, Billy Joe Daugherty, was a pastor.
“He said, ‘I was part of the choir and sang at the worship service (team)….I made a really bad choice…I was locked up in 2000,” Dogerty said. The man said that before his death, Billy Joe Dougherty visited him in prison and told him that he loved him and that God had forgiven him.
Now, decades later, the young girls were standing in the same prison and preaching to him again. “He said, ‘Here… my pastor’s son who saved me, serving in my prison,” Dorgerty recalled. “I’m crying like, ‘Man, God, what a story of grace.’ ”
Daugherty believes outreach is just the beginning. “We’ve already lined up prisons for autumn and winter,” he said. “The prisons began calling for something they wanted to come.”
Looking back on this experience, Daugherty said there is a deep hunger for something real, both inside and outside the prison walls.
“I think people are really awakening to the reality that our world is… so broken,” he said. “It’s shallow and shallow. Jesus is the answer.”
The Victory Christian Center hopes to continue expanding its prison outreach over the next few months.
“Praise God, let’s continue with this,” Duggerty said.
According to DOJ statistics, around 1.8 million men and women in the United States are incarcerated, with around 1.5 million children having incarcerated parents.
However, recent data from the Bible annual report found that only 40% of American Christians who are actively and regularly involved in the Bible agree or strongly agree to cherish the care of incarcerated individuals.
In a recent opinion in the Christian Post, Cody Wild, senior vice president of the Prison Fellowship Corrections Program, encouraged believers to be involved in prison missions, stressing that “we are called to God to love not only innocent people, but sinners as well.”
“We are called to chase Jesus outside our comfort zone and follow him towards those he loves, and the reward for doing so is nothing but the joy of participating in God’s beloved work in our own community,” he writes.
The language here is important. It’s not just a flashback, especially in the Bible’s “remember,” in Hebrews 13. It’s looking at something. The call to “remember” what you’re imprisoned is a call to look, see, and make them realistic to your senses,” he added.
“I remember those in prison,” Hebrew writers ask us to see the sanctity that exists in forgotten people. We are invited to participate in God’s work and share what he is already building.
Leah M. Crett is a reporter for the Christian Post. She can contact leah.klett@christianpost.com
