His Addiction Recovery Was Strengthened By Religious Conversion
His Addiction Recovery Was Strengthened By Religious Conversion
Ellis Lucas is literally on a mission to save souls, sharing his personal faith in Jesus Christ with incarcerated addicts. A recovering addict himself, Ellis now uses the book he wrote to help struggling addicts develop a sense of personal worth and dignity.
The book started as a letter to his estranged son. The words just poured out of him as he sought to share his faith and hope with his adult son. They are still working to heal their relationship, but the book, The Potter and the Clay, has helped many others.
Interview with Ellis Lucas, the President of His Heart United.
The following is the pre-interview with Ellis Lucas. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.
What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?
We deal with the human suffering, loneliness, depression, anger, addiction and abuse that so many of us may endure, and the healing and overcoming we can experience when we put our trust in a God and learn how to use suffering to our advantage to serve as a life preserver for the countless wounded souls sinking in the troubled waters of hopelessness; and empowering us to take back control of our individual destinies. Our deepest internal despair can become the gateway to transformation into a far greater life with purpose and meaning – as God’s gift not only to us but to us to INSPIRE OTHERS to inspire the whole World!
More about His Heart United:
Facebook: facebook.com/AuthorEllisLucas/
Website: www.ellislucas.com
The Work of His Heart United – His Heart United is a parent ministry of His Song Evangelism, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit evangelical outreach organization based in Colorado Springs, CO and Smithville, MO.
Concert Outreach Events
We believe music is the universal language that builds a common bridge between every life and culture. Before all else, we were made to glorify Him. It is with that understanding, that we bring tremendous concert/outreach events to your communities with notables such as, John Schlitt, Bread of Stone, Ninth Hour, Ellis Lucas The WANTED Band, Lori Harris and more. Led by Ellis and Peggi Lucas, His Heart United can bring live Concert Outreach events to your community. Our mission is to bring His heart together…one Body, one Spirit, one Hope…to do so as a movement of ministries and/or organizations made up of wounded healers, bringing the healing of our God, to a world of broken lives.
Prison Outreach
“I was in prison and you came to visit me … I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:36, 40). George Arnold of Broken Chains brings his work with prisoners to His Heart United taking the word and worship beyond the walls…beyond the bars… “...how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” With decades if experience, His Heart United’s team of ministers and authors can be booked for your next ministry event, sharing from scripture, story and song…
Teaching
It is our desire, to provide resources that aid the individual from all walks and level of society in moving toward one body, one spirit and one hope – toward His heart being united through the church and moving to the world.
The Potter and the Clay National Book Donation Fund
“Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body!” (Hebrews 13:1-3)
How many people do you know who can say they’ve enjoyed having their face on a WANTED poster in post offices up and down the Eastern Slope of Colorado while doing time inside numerous county jails, correctional facilities, rehab programs, and prisons in numerous states all at the same time? Well, we only know one: Ellis Lucas. Ellis’ autobiography The Potter and the Clay began to fall on fertile soil when the El Paso County Jail in Colorado Springs requested just under fifty copies (two per every cell block).
Then in early 2017, several cases were sent to Minnesota, where they were set to be delivered to various rehab centers as well as county jails. Next was Pueblo County, which stocked both the new and old jail with numerous copies, and Douglas County in Castle Rock, Colorado, after that. On May 4, 2018, hundreds of copies were delivered to prisons in Tucson, Arizona, to Chaplain Martinez, who couldn’t wait to get them distributed.
The following message is from brother Kyle Frewin, who delivered the books: “I met with Chaplain Martinez yesterday morning. What a great man of God. I bet we spent thirty to forty-five minutes just chatting about the prison and his ministry. He thanks you so much for the books and will email me a tax receipt to forward to you. He said it is amazing, when they distribute a new book, how fast they go. As was previously mentioned, they have approx. 2,000 inmates at any given time, but see approx. 40,000 per year. Roughly 26,000 of those he gets to minister to. He is part of the Pima County Prison; however, he has connections to the state and federal prison in Tucson and the Marana (just north of Tucson) Prison. He plans to provide each of those facilities with a box of books. He also said that there is some “event” (sorry, I cannot specifically remember any other details) going on in September and is thinking that, if possible, that would be a good time to have you be a guest speaker. He has another author friend from the Phoenix area who has a similar story to yours that he is going to send one of your books to. He thought maybe the two of you could speak at different prisons together. That person wrote Rescued Not Arrested. Chaplain Martinez will give me/you details later. I have provided his contact info below. He wished I lived closer to the facility as he thought, as a former math teacher, I could teach math basics to the inmates. Wow, that sure would be a “different” experience for me. I spent the rest of the day with Chelsea and told her “Hi” from you and Peggi as well as filled her in on what that meeting at the KC airport has led to. Who knows what’s next? Have a great rest of your week and holiday weekend.” – Kyle Frewin
On June 23, 2018, Bearing Armor, a Kansas-based motorcycle ministry, called to say they, too, were out of books, that every prison they visited in Missouri and Kansas requested a minimum of a case of The Potter and the Clay, so eighty more copies were shipped directly to Bearing Armor in Shawnee, Kansas, just to complete their prison tour before they headed to Sturgis, South Dakota, with more to be handed out there, and more will be needed for prisons once they are back in Kansas and prepare for the next prison tour.
The Potter and the Clay is not just impacting individual lives; it is transforming entire families. And it is in big demand all across America. Ellis and Peggi Lucas have decided to donate all the books needed for rehab programs, county jails, prisons, etc., and have set up a tax-deductible donate page created specifically for this purpose, and are asking for your help to get these books distributed. For every donation of $30 or more, Ellis will send a free signed copy of the newly designed The Potter and the Clay to whomever you’d like to have it signed to. Thank you for helping us fulfill a calling and bring hope and healing to thousands of people who read this book every day. And remember: “No One Is Ever Without Hope!”
How do you place God in your heart when you never believed he was there from the start?
Ellis Lucas saw no hope of salvation or meaning in life or the world around him. Isolation, uncontrollable anger and violence, abandonment, and feeling unwanted describes a lost and broken young Ellis, inebriated by drinking from deceptive cisterns and poisoned waters of this passing age! His life had spiraled into years of addiction, a violent car wreck, almost losing his life in a house fire, mounting debts, jail, a broken marriage, and finally a choice: life or death? As he was ready to surrender, only then did he begin to see the signs around him—even in the cat he swore he’d kill—that there was purpose and promise.
Like clay, we are crafted by the hands that hold us, cherish us, and mold us, but we also make our decisions in a world full of vices we find hard to escape from.
The Potter and the Clay is an extraordinary and poignant testimony of a father to his son, but it is also the remarkable story of one man’s crafted deliverance into the hands of God and how providence can turn ashes and the wreckage of a life into a work of heavenly art. “I came to understand there is no human life beyond God’s infinite desire and passion to love and to know, and no situation, pain, sin, or failure beyond His desire to forgive, heal, and restore.” — Ellis Lucas
“The life of someone like Ellis Lucas normally doesn’t get written in books; instead, it’s often ‘written’ on the garbage heaps and junk piles of blighted urban areas—the saddest parts of our cities which record the tales of those who’ve totally given up to alcoholism, defeat, drug addiction, and a lot more. But not Ellis. Today, his life has become a gift to Life itself.” — Mike Schwager, WorldLink Media
For-profit/Nonprofit: 501(c)3 Nonprofit
Revenue model: Donations/fundraisers
Scale: We are all volunteers, 7 member board while up to 50 volunteers for live events
Ellis Lucas
Ellis Lucas’s bio:
Twitter: @EllisDLucas
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/ellis-lucas-0b84b465/
Ellis Lucas
The New Potter and the Clay
How do you place God in your heart when you never believed he was there from the start?
“Nobody is ever without hope.” — Ellis Lucas
While he never envisioned becoming an author, Ellis Lucas is a natural born storyteller nonetheless. And in an age where it feels like everyone, even the most inconsequential of public figures and celebrities, feels compelled to chronicle their life’s journey in memoir form, Ellis Lucas’s The Potter and the Clay isn’t yet another ho-hum account of a few of humanity’s shared experiences. The Life of someone like Ellis Lucas normally doesn’t get written in books—instead, it’s “written” on the garbage heaps and junk piles of blighted urban areas—the saddest parts of our cities which record the tales of those who’ve totally given up to alcoholism, defeat, drug addiction, and a lot more, but not Ellis Lucas.
Ellis’ story is raw, yet compelling; it reaches down to the gutter of human despair and rises to the height of divine providence. It’s a gritty, real-life story of pain, abuse, and utter transformation. A riveting and transparent nail-biting page-turner biography chronicled in the pages of this impactful book that captures remarkable story of genuine faith and the will to survive, a life filled with love, a veritable mountain of loss, and eventually, sweet redemption. The Potter and the Clay also offers a powerful takeaway, namely that no matter how far someone feels from salvation, hope, change and, yes, even total renewal is never out of reach.
“Through everything, broken relationships, addiction, spending weekends in jail, I began to understand how there is no human life beyond God’s infinite desire and real passion to love and to know,” Ellis shares. “There’s also no situation, pain, sin or failure beyond His desire to forgive, heal and restore if we are willing to humble ourselves in true Biblical repentance and meet God on His own terms.”
While growing up in a small, seemingly idyllic Midwest farming community, Ellis says he encountered authentic Christianity at a young age. His mother, the late Mary Jeanette Lucas, was in his words “an amazing woman” who was “radically” in love with Jesus Christ and made that perfectly clear in everything she did.”
Living in a household guided by the words of Joshua 24:15, Ellis, the youngest of four children and his parents’ only son while growing up, saw a true example of someone who put others before herself and was truly transformed and renewed through her relationship with Jesus.
However, and Notwithstanding, in what’s a key moment in every believer’s life, the faith of his family eventually needed to become Ellis’ own. And it wasn’t until after his beloved mother passed away that Ellis became “a true transformed believer in, and follower of, Jesus Christ.”
“Without a doubt, my mother’s consistent devotion left an eternal impression upon my heart that ultimately prevailed, leading me straight into the safe and loving arms of Jesus at age thirty-five,” Ellis says. “I’m forever grateful to her for it! It was the memory of that persistent Christ-centered faith and genuine love lived out in her daily life that remained deeply embedded in my subconscious long after she was gone that somehow managed to transcend life and death, seasons of joy and pain, countless trials and difficult circumstances, including years of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, divorce, isolation and emptiness followed by, complete hopelessness. It all culminated in what would have been lengthy imprisonment from two very serious felony drug charges that were both dismissed four months later for lack of evidence when not as much as a single fingerprint of mine turned up in the house”
“My life had been so completely destroyed and convinced that Jesus Christ simply didn’t love me, I’d come to believe there was absolutely no hope of ever changing, and no hope of Heaven, all I had to look forward to for a future was whatever awaited me beyond the grave—most likely judgment,” Ellis shares. “But while locked up in the Clay County Missouri Jail, at the end of life as I knew it, Jesus Christ stretched out His mighty hand of grace and revealed Himself along with an astonishing revelation, He did along and still does love me and had an amazing plan for my life if I would open my heart and receive Him that day. I did, and what has happened since is a message I want the whole world to hear.”
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