The Man on the Inside
Steve Odom’s Prison Ministry
Words by Terrell Manasco | Images by Al Blanton
He knows well the bone-chilling echo of an iron door clanging shut. He’s stared into the rancor-filled eyes of an inmate who jabbed a finger in his face, threatening his life. He’s known inmates who have been incarcerated so long they never learned to drive a car. Some have died in prison. Others sit on Death Row, waiting in stony silence for their last day on this earth.
Prison is one of the last places you hope God calls you to minister. But for the last 39 years, it’s the place Steve Odom has invested his life.
Born February 10, 1956, Steve grew up near Jasper Memorial Park. As a young lad, he became enamored with a girl named Ginger, who lived three blocks away. “I fell in love with her when I was 12 years old,” Steve says in his raspy voice. “I couldn't shake it.”
His feelings for Ginger remained strong throughout his senior year at Walker High School. When Steve graduated in 1974, he headed for Troy University—but he didn’t stay. “I got my classes lined up, got my room… but I was in love with a little blonde-headed girl. I came home and never went back,” he laughs.
A year later, Steve persuaded Ginger to marry him. They celebrated 44 years of marriage last August. “I would have married her right out of high school, but she made me wait a year, which was probably wisdom on her part,” Steve jokes.
In the early eighties, Steve was a youth pastor at Hunter's Chapel Holy Church of Christ. At a church function, he was approached by another minister who had seen a newspaper ad for someone to do jail ministry. “I did ministry at the old Walker County Jail, on the top floor,” Steve recalls. “I preached and taught on the 4th floor for a little over a year.”
After a year in prison ministry, Steve took time off to work in local churches. In 1993, he took his motor home on the road, preaching in Ohio, New Mexico, and Alabama, before two back surgeries sidelined him for a year. “I came off the road in ‘95 and worked for almost three years,” he says. “Then I started back in full-time ministry.”
In those 39 years of ministry, Steve has met inmates who are accused of various crimes. He says he never asks them why they’re in prison but will listen if they want to tell him. He believes the majority of inmates are there because of an error in judgment. “What most people don't understand is, most of those men are not bad people,” he says. “They just made bad choices in life. A lot of inmates were raised in church. They got away from home and got to doing things they shouldn't do.”
In 2000, Steve and Ginger went into business and opened a Christian bookstore in Jasper, Berean Christian Resource Center located in Parkland Shopping Center. The Odoms later opened a second location in Sumiton, which operated for five years. Although the Jasper store closed in 2012, customers still fondly remember the charming, bespectacled fellow behind the counter wearing a Santa Claus-like beard and biker jacket. “I loved it! The people, the ministry aspect,” Steve says. “We all worked as a family. If one of us was off doing ministry, the rest of us took the load.”
In 2008, Steve went back on the road when he heard of an opening in prison ministry. He now ministers at the local city and county jails, two prisons in Hamilton, and Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. His biggest challenge in the last several years, he says, is the lack of officers. “The last time I was there, I think they were working on 48 per cent capacity of officers, which is dangerous,” he says.
Although he understands why ministers are discouraged from visiting such prisons, Steve says he’s not afraid. “I've never feared going in,” he says. “I don't mean that egotistically at all. God just took that fear out of my heart. I don't fear anything, man or demon, and I don't worry about anything. But I had to train myself, and it took several years.”
That’s not to suggest there has never been cause for concern. Steve recalls one incident in a federal prison that tested his courage. “An inmate ‘acted up’ and the enemy tried to bring fear on me,” he says. “I thought, ‘I can't have this.’ The next time I go in, he's deathly quiet. When I asked [the officers] about him, they said, ‘Mississippi just reinstated the death penalty— and he's next.’”
Many inmates are now institutionalized from years of incarceration. They have little or no desire to go home because prison life is all they’ve ever known. “I had a guy tell me he didn't even know how to work a cell phone,” Steve says, with a hint of astonishment. “He's been under for 21 years. One guy who was 59 said he'd never driven a car. He's probably been locked up most of his life. I think they get to a point where they're just existing, rather than living.”
Others still cling to hope that one day they will breathe free air. “One kid is 39,” Steve says, in a softer tone. “He's been in prison over half his life and he's wanting to go home. You can just hear that longing in their voice.”
Sadly, some are seemingly resigned to their fate. Steve recalls one Death Row inmate who wouldn’t accept a copy of the New Testament. “He said, 'Steve, I'm guilty. I know I'm going to die here. I know I'm going to Hell, and I'm good with it,’” he says.
Steve Odom has heard the mournful cry of loneliness. He’s stared into the hollow eyes of men weeping in bitter anguish over past sins, who now admit they have no hope without Jesus.
Prison is probably the last place in which Steve hoped God would call him to minister. This calling is not glamorous. Sometimes it’s dirty. Depressing. Heartbreaking. And sometimes it’s dangerous.
But Steve realizes that perhaps in no instance does heaven rejoice more than when the prisoner is set free. 78