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David Newman is a new man preparing to embrace a new direction in life after answering God’s call to ministry.
Not long ago, that may have seemed like an unlikely path for this non-traditional college student and disabled veteran. But God had different plans, set into motion through the evangelistic impact of a Celebrate Recovery 12-step program and volunteers from Coggin Avenue Baptist Church.
Formerly incarcerated for probation violations following alcohol-related convictions, Newman traces the beginnings of his changed life to a brief encounter four years ago with CR volunteer Wayland Peterson. Peterson visited the Brown County jail with a CR group from Coggin, their first opportunity to do so post-COVID.
A friend had previously mentioned CR during a call, Newman recalled. He signed up to receive visits and remembers CR volunteers coming to a window to talk to inmates.
“I was part of the first group they were able to start seeing again,” Newman said. “We spoke one-on-one. They let me talk. They told me to read Ephesians, told me about the program, and prayed with me.” Shortly afterward, he received a CR Bible.
That meeting was the only time Newman encountered Coggin CR volunteers behind bars. He soon resumed his probation on the outside.
“That 56 days I spent in jail … turned out to be a great thing,” he said.
Busy after his release with a supervisor job at a local company, Newman didn’t immediately come to church. But finding himself triggered too often in town, he started attending CR at Coggin, where he met Peterson again. Mark Mayo, a nurse he had earlier met at the Veterans Affairs hospital, was running the sound system.
“God placed them in my life for this very reason: to be prepared for the task of becoming something new, something of God.”
Newman kept coming, developing relationships with CR volunteers. One took him fishing. He became close with Coggin’s CR pastor, Bill Allen.
“We walked through questions I had about Christ and theology and discipleship,” Newman said. “Bill let me lead the men’s CR discipleship group.”
Newman soon sensed a higher calling: “I had served my country. I wanted to serve my God.”
With Allen’s encouragement and the involvement of others, Newman was admitted to the local Baptist university. When his GI Bill benefits ended, another VA program assisted. Newman, 43, is now completing a major in Christian education and minoring in cross-cultural ministry with the goal of serving on a church staff in a military town to reach service members with the gospel.
“CR and Bill Allen and the guys … God placed them in my life for this very reason: to be prepared for the task of becoming something new, something of God,” Newman said.
By the Numbers
Booming faith behind bars
Newman’s story typifies many in the Celebrate Recovery ministry at Coggin since its beginning in 2007.
“Church member Perk Carrier and I would visit the ‘windows’ of the jail,” Allen recalled of the early days of the jail ministry that grew from CR. They had to identify inmates to be brought to the windows for a visit. Often, family members had requested their incarcerated relatives receive a visit.
“Those visits were designed to encourage faith by presenting the gospel or helping incarcerated believers … walk through repentance and growth,” Allen said.
In 2008, Perk assumed leadership of the jail ministry, a responsibility he continued for years with his wife, Bonnie. The couple created devotionals for inmates. Perk enlisted others, including James Wooldridge, who assumed the leadership after Perk passed away.
“Window visits evolved over the years as the sheriff’s department became comfortable with our reliability and began allowing us to simply show up and ask whether any inmates wanted a visit,” Allen said. “This quickly increased the number of visits and gospel presentations. Later, we were allowed to present a weekly program, offering a Tuesday evening worship/teaching service to any inmates wishing to participate.”
The mission expanded to include female inmates, an outreach led first by Coggin member Jackye Leal and later, by Donna Howey.
“Both ministries grew quickly,” Allen said. As they had in the early days with Perk, inmates were allowed to request Bibles. More than 1,100 CR Bibles have been distributed to those behind bars to date.
Baptisms at the jail followed for those who professed faith in Christ: 63 in 2022, 41 in 2023, 44 in 2024, and more than 50 in 2025.
“A lot of what has happened is the result of Perk Carrier’s years of faithfulness, going and doing at the jail. He saw little of it while he was alive,” Allen said.
Today, women visit Tuesdays and Thursdays while men go Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesday night worship and teaching times, segregated by gender, are going strong. Jail populations are transient, however. Inmates are released on probation or sent to prisons. It’s a temporary stop, but one Coggin CR has seen bearing fruit.
“We tell inmates that their circumstances may not change for now, but they can change through repentance and belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Expansion to prison
Brownwood is also home to a juvenile detention center and an adult prison, the Thomas R. Havins Unit, a pre-release facility to which Coggin CR expanded its outreach two years ago.
“The Havins Unit is designed for inmates to complete a program over several months after acceptance from the prison population, allowing them to work toward probation,” Allen said. “They must complete several programs approved by the prison system.” CR is an optional program inmates can join while working on other required programs.
“Our prison team takes individuals through a four-book CR curriculum … centered on a 12-step recovery model,” Allen said. Gospel conversations ensue, and over the past two years, the Coggin team has seen 85 people repent and be baptized through the prison ministry.
“The challenge with both of these ministries, the jail and prison, is that we only have the opportunity to work with the inmates for short periods of time,” Allen said. “The jail ministry always faces the possibility that a person can be released or sent to prison. We do not get to follow up with them if that happens unless they attend Celebrate Recovery upon their release. In the prison ministry, inmates sometimes move out before completing the entire CR curriculum because they have earned their exit.”
Despite the challenges, jail and prison ministry present unique opportunities for evangelism.
“We tell inmates that their circumstances may not change for now, but they can change through repentance and belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Allen said.
Like David Newman, Allen added, “They can become a new creation.”
