The Arkansas Purpose Project

CORLISS WILLIAMSON, Razorback basketball player on the 1994 championship team, professional basketball player on the Pistons 2004 championship team, and current basketball coach at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, says: "Winning is important, but knowing God's purpose in my life is MOST important. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren helped me to keep focusing on God's purpose in my life. I am certain it can help others as it helped me."

The Arkansas Purpose Project exists to make a copy of Rick Warren's best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life" available to each of more than 20,000 inmates in prisons and jails in Arkansas.

The Project has three principal components:

  1. Obtain voluntary funds to purchase special edition copies of the book prepared for use in correctional facilities. Saddleback Church, owners of the copyright for Warren's book, have made this edition available at $1.50 per copy, plus shipping. The Project's goal is $35,000 for the books and the shipping.
  2. Recruit and prepare approximately 400 volunteers to particitpate in the distribution of the books in 2009. These volunteers will go into more than 20 facilities located in Arkansas to personally give the book to individual inmates.
  3. Encourage and support existing volunteers already participating in prison ministries to provide follow-up duidance and help to inmates.

The Project involves the Arkansas Department of Corrections, Arkansas Department of Community Corrections, City of Faith Prison Ministries, Prison Fellowship, the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, individuals, congregations, and faith-based organizations across Arkansas.

HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE:

  1. Make a contribution. For example, a gift of $15 will buy 10 books. A gift of $75 will buy 50 books. A gift of $150 will buy 100 books. Make your check payable to CBF of Arkansas and write on the memo line "Arkansas Purpose Project." Mail your contribution to CBF of AR, 1504 Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, Little Rock, AR 72202.
  2. Help with the distribution. Send your name to Robert Sproles with information about where you live or if you have a preference on which unit you would like to distribute books in.
  3. Be involved in a follow-up prison ministry through Prison Fellowship, a local church or other faith based organization that has a prison ministry here in Arkansas.

Check our home page for updates on our ongoing support of the Arkansas Purpose Project. If you have any questions, please contact Joe Timmons or Ray Higgins.