When Floyd Rodgers was a teenager he looked up to drug dealers. And he looked down on pastors.
In his neighborhood on the east side of Detroit, drug dealers “were the guys who seemed like they had it made,” Rodgers said. “It seemed like they had all the women and all the money, and it looked like everything was smooth with them.”
So because he wanted their life, he started selling drugs. One day, when he moved back to his childhood home — Fayette, Alabama — he started selling there too.
“And I looked down on preachers and pastors, because I actually sold drugs to preachers and pastors,” Rodgers said. “So I didn’t respect them, and I didn’t respect the church.”
He never would have guessed a pastor’s words would change his life one day when he was facing a life sentence.
‘Jailhouse religion’
In the years leading up to that moment, Rodgers had accumulated a whole bag of charges — including once when he was caught with a large amount of cocaine and marijuana, one of the largest drug busts in Fayette County. He sold drugs in jail. He got out on parole once and got caught selling again.
Over and over, Rodgers was set free, for unexplainable reasons. Once the drugs went missing from the evidence room so the charges were dropped. Another time the paperwork got lost.
And over and over, he found himself reading the Bible, even though he didn’t respect church people or pastors.
“Because my mom had raised us up in church, every time I would get in trouble I’d go straight to the Bible,” Rodgers said. “They call that jailhouse religion.”
But it wasn’t until that particular pastor spoke to him in jail that his religion turned into a relationship with Jesus. Rodgers had just found out he was facing the possibility of a federal life sentence, and he also found out his brother had been killed.
“But I remember that week, there was a minister who was once a cocaine addict. He had been clean for more than 20 years and he was coming inside the jail and preaching,” Rodgers said. “And I remember him looking at me and saying, ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you’re going through, but God told me to tell you don’t worry about your situation. All He wants you to do is get into His Word.’”
So Rodgers did.
“So this time I said, ‘God I’m not playing. I’ve been running from You. I know there’s nothing You can’t change. There’s nothing impossible for You. Show me what You want me to do,’” Rodgers said.
He started reading the Bible like never before.
Finding his purpose
“I’m staying up all night reading it, all morning reading it,” Rodgers recalled. “I’m beginning to fast more, I’m beginning to pray more. Before I know it, I’m leading a Bible study, and guys started coming to the Bible study. I’m sharing the gospel, and people were getting saved.
“And I’m like, ‘Wow, maybe this is what I’m supposed to be doing!’ So in the midst of the pain, I found my purpose.”
Not too long afterward, some men who were forming a church inside the prison asked Rodgers to be the pastor.
“So during this nine-or-ten-month period while I’m waiting to get sentenced, I see all kinds of guys in there giving their lives to the Lord,” he said. “I was overjoyed.”
And another big surprise was on the horizon.
When it came time for sentencing, Rodgers found out his brother had been using his ID before he was killed. Rodgers’ federal charge was for drugs coming in from the West, from where his brother had been traveling using his ID on the same day Rodgers was coming in from Boston.
“So you’ve got a Floyd Rodgers coming from out West, you’ve got a Floyd Rodgers coming from Boston, Massachusetts, at the airport on the same day at the same time,” he said.
That made it difficult to prove Rodgers was guilty.
Not only that, because of his turnaround in prison, local leaders and pastors stepped up to write letters and speak on Rodgers’ behalf.
Long story short, he ended up with a much shorter sentence. And when he got out of prison in late 2014, he felt God calling him to go back in.
“I had said, ‘God, if you will deliver me out of this prison, I’ll never go back there again, and He said, No, that’s exactly where I want you to go,’” Rodgers recalled.
‘God is still using me’
Now he ministers inside the Fayette County Jail, but he’s hoping to get back inside the state and federal prisons one day.
Rodgers is continually thankful for how God has worked in amazing ways in his life — for one, he’s alive. Back when he was dealing drugs, someone tried to rob him and he’d gotten shot in the back, narrowly avoiding paralysis. He had a gun pointed at his head several times.
“I’m supposed to be paralyzed. I’m supposed to be dead,” Rodgers said. “I’m supposed to be in prison for the rest of my life. But God has got me out here right now doing His work, and that’s what I enjoy doing, running around telling my story.”
In addition to sharing the gospel at the jail, Rodgers serves as associate pastor of Peaceful Rest Missionary Baptist Church, Fayette. He preaches revivals around the area and often shares what God has done in his life.
“I don’t consider myself worthy to be in anybody’s pulpit, worthy to carry the gospel to anybody,” Rodgers said. “Yet out of all the mess I’ve been in, God is still using me.”
Another way he said God has shown him grace — he ended up marrying his attorney, a childhood friend from Fayette. They’re now raising two sons.
John Killian, director of missions for Fayette Baptist Association, said Rodgers “really is a picture of ‘behold, all things become new’” when someone meets Jesus.
He recently graduated with a certificate in biblical ministry from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary extension at Fayette Association, and now is working on his certificate in biblical teaching.
“He just has such a good spirit about him,” Killian said. “He’s such a humble, unassuming guy, and he’s become a dear friend. He’s got quite a story. He’s a picture of God’s transforming power and grace.”
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