EDITOR’S NOTE: This article includes additional reporting by Pathway staff.
JEFFERSON CITY – When college classes began at Jefferson City Correctional Center in 2020, Rodrick Sweet had faith he was doing what God had called him to do, but at times he didn’t know if students would ever have a chance make it across the finish line.
Between COVID-19, a financial crisis at Hannibal-LaGrange University (HLGU), and the very real challenges of pioneering a totally new program, the outcome wasn’t certain.
“There were times I thought, ‘We’re not going to make it,’” he said.
Now, nearly five years later, Sweet, who leads the Freedom on the Inside program for HLGU at the maximum security prison, is celebrating the May 15th commencement ceremonies for 11 students who are completing bachelor of science degrees in biblical studies.
Watch the full graduation ceremony here:
‘It’s a milestone for us’
“It’s a milestone for us and for [the students],” he said. “It’s been a long time coming. We’re anticipating God showing up.”
During the commencement ceremony, Freedom on the Inside graduate Jeff McConnell addressed his fellow graduates and guests. Referring to Paul’s epistle to Philemon, he said that—through Freedom on the Inside—God has brought him and his classmates from a place of “uselessness” in their sins to “usefulness” in Christ Jesus. In a note written in the commencement program, he expressed gratitude that God would show him such grace:
“I was born November 4, 1970,” he wrote. “For forty-seven years I was a walking dead man. I thought I knew God, but I only knew about Him. I was reborn May 22, 2018, in the Jackson County jail. Jesus found me in jail. That’s where sinners are, so where else would He be? I have been alive in Christ for the last seven years. Though my body is incarcerated, my spirit is free, and I know a greater joy than I ever believed possible.
“Becoming a Field Ministry through Hannibal-LaGrange’s training has given me a means of service to others, which regularly staggers my mind,” he added. “Who am I that God would grant me the privilege of serving Him this way? What love is this that my God finds a use for one such as me in His kingdom?”
After McConnell spoke, graduate Scott Peoples shared a song he wrote, called “Hard Lessons and Amazing Grace.”
According to the commencement program, graduates included Eddie Boyd, Austin Campbell, Larry Carter, Shannon Hensley, Quentin Jones, Jeff McConnell, Patrick Noel, Scott Peoples, Chris Piersee, William Willburn and Micah Wynes—each of whom need prayer as they now minister to and share Christ’s love with other men in the prison. (Watch the videos below to hear from some of these graduates, along with other students in the program.)
Freedom on the Inside is a joint effort between HLGU and the Missouri Department of Corrections (MODOC). Each year, up to 20 students from prisons around Missouri are selected for this program, and the MODOC agrees to transfer students to the Jefferson City Correctional Center (JCCC), where they will remain until graduation. The MODOC provides space for classrooms, a library and offices, and it works to facilitate students’ schedules in order for them to be in class and have time to study each day. Freedom on the Inside covers the full costs through donations and grants.
While education or vocational programs exist to give inmates a leg up when they’re released, Freedom on the Inside focuses on changing lives of men in the program, who will in turn spread the gospel of Jesus within the prison system as missionaries. Freedom on the Inside is “academically rigorous,” to use Sweet’s description, and a vision “to equip students to think biblically, think deeply, to act justly and to live as Christ’s representatives in the prison system and the world.”
Sweet teaches several courses, his favorite being “all things Bible and theology,” which make up the bulk of the degree along with standards like English and history.
“It’s fantastic to see the hunger from the guys,” he said. “And we’re anticipating more applications once graduation happens.”
What graduation looks like in a prison is a question Sweet can’t yet answer, but it may not be too different from that happening on HLGU’s main campus. For example, this fall marked Freedom on the Inside’s first convocation, with family invited to join students in the ceremony where faculty marched in their full academic regalia.
Sweet said he’s seen growth not only in the students’ academic achievement and the program’s enrollment, but also in the partnership between the university and the MODOC. For example, students have been allowed access to different housing areas in order to minister to men in protective custody or JCCC’s version of hospice care.
“They’ve realized this is a real program and a real degree with serious academics,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful thing to watch our guys go out and start ministering and mentoring men who all they know is violence, and now their lives are change because of the gospel. The protective custody guys have their own worship service that our students lead, and we’re getting ready to start the worship service with [hospice care] that they’ve requested.
Sweet asks Missouri Baptist church members to pray for the students and the other inmates they minister to. On graduation day, Freedom on the Inside students echoed Sweet’s request, urging Missouri Baptists to pray as they share the light of Christ in a dark environment.
‘Pray God would advance the Kingdom’
“The enemy is busy,” Sweet said. “Pray for the protection of the program, director, professors and students. And pray God would advance the Kingdom through the work of these men.”
Sweet also asked for prayer for wider opportunities for the program.
“I’m hoping that God will open the door to lower level facilities so they can go to minimum security prisons and do the same thing they’ve done in a maximum security prison,” he said.
Watch this video to learn more about Freedom on the Inside and to hear from students in the program, including some of the graduates: