Truth Unleashed

Jesus said He came to set prisoners free. Apparently, so have Pastor Tom and Carla Flaskerud of Light & Life FMC (Bend, OR. Their 23-year evangelistic ministry, Freedom Team (www.thefreedomteam.org), has conducted hundreds of Power Explosion Events in dozens of state prisons throughout the Northwest and in several other countries, garnering more than 1,000 positive responses to their invitations to receive Christ.

“Everywhere we go, the Lord blesses with crowds thirsting to hear, see and feel the gospel message,” says Tom. “They come to see our dynamic actions, the explosion of His power, hear His Word inspired with music, and feel the impossible become possible with the Lord.”

The Freedom Team reportedly has the highest turnout of any volunteer event booked into the prison system, a fact that Flaskerud attributes to God’s opening doors.

The Freedom Team arrives in its huge red-white-and-blue semi, parking it (with permission) right in the center of the prison yard. Team members then set up piles of bricks, each 2.25 inches thick. (Tom currently holds the world record for power breaking: halving a stack of 71 bricks — two stories high — with a forearm.) Each Power Explosion Event includes tearing up phone books and license plates by hand, blowing up water bottles and squeezing soda cans until they explode, breaking bats and steel bars, and of course, the power breaking itself. “We share Jesus from the get-go,” says Flaskerud, “and give them every opportunity to respond.”

Prior to every Power Explosion, prison chaplains and local church volunteers are trained to provide counseling during the event and ongoing follow-up after the Freedom Team heads out. As a result, lives are changed on the spot and transformed gradually over time as the gospel works its way into the hearts and lives of the incarcerated.

This year the team will also travel to Encinada, Mexico, (at the request of nine Free Methodist pastors there) for an eight-day crusade, and return to a camp for underprivileged children.

As Flaskerud so aptly sums it up, “The Freedom Team captures the power of the Holy Spirit, the explosion of human feeling and the freedom of God’s truth.”