In November of this year, Theotherapy Seminars launched its very first facilitator training class behind prison walls! Part of Theotherapy’s vision has been to see inmates trained to facilitate and teach each other while incarcerated, so they can not only provide a safe “theotherapeutic” environment for fellow inmates, but also be prepared to serve as facilitators once released from prison.

The first inmate PGMT class has nine inmates and meets for lecture and small group ministry one day per week. The idea was birthed through collaborative efforts with Chaplain Dennis Smith of CCA Metro who has offered the opportunity for Theotherapy to be a part of an entirely faith based housing unit called “Life Principles”.

Within the Life Principles faith unit,inmates have the opportunity to participate in Bill Gothard’s “Basic Life Principles” curriculum, the Theotherapy basic personal growth course and other programs dealing with finances, career planning and college level theology courses. The PGMT is offered to those who have already graduated from the basic Theotherapy program.

These inmates are taking obstacles and turning them into opportunities. They are serious about their healing and their desire to take the healing they have received to help others. One inmate in the class has his commercial pilot’s license and hopes to one day utilize his flight training experience in conjunction with his desire to be a counselor to fly into remote areas as a missionary pilot. He wants to offer counseling and therapy to those who do not have such services readily available. Talk about vision!

Another exciting part of the new Theotherapy initiative at CCA Metro involves a more “beefed up” program involving two intense days per week for the basic course as opposed to the traditional one day per week. This new program will involve approximately sixty new inmates and will be taught in part by David Hill, senior Theotherapy intern at CCA Metro.

David exhibits strong leadership and teaching skills and will co-lead the program with Mark West, Director of Prison Programs for Theotherapy. The other men in the PGMT program will help to facilitate the new inmates enrolling in the basic program in the same unit.

One of the areas in which we continually need help is in having enough facilitators to adequately staff the small groups. Offering the facilitator course to the inmates themselves will help to alleviate some of the problem and also reinforce the idea of using their incarceration as a time to better themselves and to help others.

These guys are serious about who God is calling them to be. They refuse to let their disappointments and current lack of physical freedom hold them back. These are the guys to watch! MW