Danny Lynchard's Kevo

New jail's chapel dedicated

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=000525_Ne_a14newja

By TIM HOOVER / Tulsa World Staff Writer
5/26/2000

They came together Thursday -- pastors, priests and prisoners -- to celebrate spirituality in place where many desperate prayers are said: the Tulsa Jail.

The occasion was the dedication of the new jail's chapel, a room that also sometimes serves as a video arraignment center for traffic court.

The new jail opened in August under the direction of Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America, which furnished the room with a large wooden cross, brass altar pieces, tables, Bibles and other religious materials. The old jail system did not have a designated chapel, although chaplains from Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry ministered to inmates.

Anita Fine, who is the new jail's chaplain, said prisoners have different needs than members of an ordinary congregation.

"When they're here, they've usually hit bottom," said Fine, who also pastors the River of Life Christian Church in Drumright. "You deal with spiritual despair because they know the Lord but have fallen away from him."

Fine also must deal with many denominations and faiths, including non-Christians.

The chapel offers multidenominational Christian services twice a day; a Catholic Mass each Thursday; and service to Muslims each Friday.

If I personally cannot minister to an inmate, I bring someone in to minister to them," Fine said.

She plans to bring an imam to conduct Muslim prayer services soon, and she's even willing to cover up the cross in the chapel for non-Christian services.

She's already run out of copies of the Koran.

The chaplain says her job is to assist inmates in fulfilling their spiritual needs, not to mission.

"I'm not here to change their religious preference," she said.

Thursday's dedication brought many local faiths together. Those in attendance included: Bishop Carlton Pearson, senior pastor of Higher Dimensions Church; Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty of Victory Christian Center; Father Bryan Brooks, director of prison ministries for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa; Chaplain Danny Lynchard of the Tulsa Police Department; and Chaplain Antonio Porter of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Tim Hoover, World staff writer, can be reached at 581-8447 or via e-mail at tim.hoover@tulsaworld.com .