Jim Newsom: A Ministry to Prisons and Schools

Jim Newsom is founder and executive director of Rivers Of Living Water Ministries (ROLWM). Jim's life includes being expelled from high school, drug abuse, and criminal activity ranging from purse-snatching to armed robbery.  Having been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, Jim was ultimately charged and convicted of second-degree murder.

On July 26, 1972, Jim surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. The next morning, he turned himself into the local authorities, confessed to his crime and pled guilty to his charge. While in prison, he was instrumental in starting a prison church that is still in existence today.  Having served eight years of a 30-year sentence, Jim was released in 1980. Since then, he has served as a youth minister and associate pastor in several churches.

In September 1983, a group of businessmen in Orlando, Florida asked Jim Newsom to relocate to their area to start a ministry that would minister to the least, the last and the lost. Since 1984, ROLWM has had a hand in establishing  five churches, five prison ministries, and has helped train 14 men for full-time ministry. This ministry has had an impact in 70 schools, 55 prisons, and more than 100 churches. In August, 2018, Jim and his wife Diane relocated to Jeffersonville, Indiana to be close to their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.

Jim joins John again today to talk about his years after release from prison that has included prison ministry, a youth program warning against the dangers of drugs and church planting. The latter impacted John's life when Jim invited him to pastor a church Jim had founded in Orlando, Florida.