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Good neighbors
make life in Logan County better for all of us. LDN wants
to celebrate the organizations and individuals who are
especially caring and helpful. Please send your
suggestions for groups and people we should cover, and
provide a brief description of what they do that makes
them Good Neighbors. |
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True Reform From the inside out
[MARCH
4,
2000] Don
Hoover, Pastor of the Lincoln Bible Church has taken these words of Jesus
literally with his Logan County Jail Bible studies and a new ministry called The
Christ Centered Recovery Program. Both
ministries focus on inmates at the Logan County Jail during and after their
incarceration. |
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Some time in 1996, Pastor Hoover received a phone call from a total stranger in Dallas, Texas. The stranger was a mother whose daughter was in the Logan County Jail. She was reaching out for someone who would reach out to her daughter. Pastor Hoover went to visit the young woman in jail and won a convert to the Christian faith. What he found at that point was a large void in a small county jail where one out stretched hand was grasped by many looking for hope. That first prisoner he visited then referred him to another, who referred him to another, who referred him to another, and so it began to grow.
[Pastor Don Hoover]
One inmate finally suggested that they establish regular, ongoing group Bible studies. With the encouragement and help of a church member and the approval of then County Sheriff, Bob Patterson, the weekly Bible studies began in February of 1997. At
first it was only provided for the men in the jail, then in December
of 1999, Bible studies began for the women as well.
A letter of gratitude that Pastor Hoover received from one
former female inmate read, “You have touched my life by sharing
God’s Word with me as well as others. Thank
you for spreading the Word of God and giving your time to others.” “I
guess the only reason I really got involved is because these people
are in there (the county jail) with no hope for their own lives.
The only hope I know I can give them is Jesus Christ,”
Pastor Hoover says. “That’s
the only way to ‘take a bite out of crime’!” Feeling that true reform is a matter of the heart and spirit, Pastor Hoover had the goal of helping these prisoners beyond just meeting with them in the jail cell. He wanted to change their course and felt that one sure way was to get them into Bible teaching churches after they were released. He then found that most of the inmates had serious worries about how they would be accepted in the local churches, thus the beginning of the Christ Centered Recovery Program, a discipleship program to help with that transition. Meeting once a week, on Tuesday nights at the Lincoln Bible Church, the group of former inmates deals with everything from life after incarceration, to drug and alcohol addictions, to personal Christian disciplines of everyday life.
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The
Christ Centered Recovery Program was the idea of Pastor
Hoover and Bill Sparks of Hartsburg.
Their mission is “To help one recover from their
addiction and/or to get restarted in life after being
incarcerated. The
standards of the Bible will be integrated to enhance their
recovery. This is a Christ Centered program and will be
using the Bible as the teaching point in learning to live
as one recovers from whatever addiction they are
struggling with.” The
program offers seven steps toward recovery and a fresh
start in life for former inmates and addicts. Jake
Snyder, a former Logan County Jail inmate says, “Pastor
Don Hoover has convinced me that if I put my mind to it, I
can make something out of my life.
He cares about people no matter what they’ve done
in the past.” Why
does he do it? “I
guess it’s a burden that God has given me for these
people that no one seems to be reaching out to.”
Says Pastor Hoover, “True reform comes from Jesus
Christ. Programs
don’t reform people, they may help them, but only Jesus
Christ can bring change in an individual.” Pastor Hoover married his wife Debra in 1980 when he was working with “Youth for Christ Ministries” in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They served under that same ministry in France from 1981 through 1985 and then went back to Michigan where Pastor Hoover attended William Tindale Bible College in Detroit and received a Bachelor of Religious Education Degree in 1987. He served one year as an Assistant Pastor at Argyle Bible Church in Colchester, Illinois before coming to Lincoln in September of 1988 to start the Lincoln Bible Church through the Rural Home Missionary Association. The church has been in actual operation since 1989.
[Pastor Hoover reading a 'thank you' from a former inmate to whom he ministered.]
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