Pastor Frank M. Bafford, Sr., is founder and pastor of Tampa For Christ Church. He is a 1992 graduate of RHEMA Bible Training Center, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As of 2018, he has 26 years of pastoral experience, serving as an Assistant and Senior Pastor.
After going through Hell as a plaintiff in a court case, he began to seek the Lord, inquiring why He was allowing him to face such hardship. The Lord showed him that through the court case he would accomplish multiple things in his life. He was developing in him a burden for the incarcerated and wanted him to start ministering to prisoners. Pastor Frank did not readily accept this and complained to the Lord that he was the wrong one for the job, because he had never been incarcerated. After struggling with this, he went to speak with the leader of a local prison ministry that the Lord had put on his heart, “Abe Brown Ministries”.
After completing the volunteer application, Pastor Frank was shortly approved to go share with the prisoners. After visiting the first prison, Avon Park Correctional Facility, he loved it and was hooked on prison ministry. He began to ask the Lord what he would say if the Ministry asked him to share. The Lord began to give him sermon after sermon to preach; he would write the sermons on index cards and store them in his desk.
One Sunday morning, as he woke the Lord spoke to him and said, “Now take those sermons and put them in a book.” Pastor Frank thought the one book was the end of it, but later, the Lord revealed to him that He wanted him to do a series of Christian books for prisoners. Thus, the “You’re Never Going Back Prison Series” was birthed.
The Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. Pastor Frank did not at first want to pastor or do prison ministry, but they have become two of the loves of his life. Like Pastor Frank, you may feel a pull towards prison ministry, but are hesitant. Take a step, as Pastor Frank did, and contact Abe Brown Ministries for a volunteer application.