Addicted, imprisoned, and struggling with life-controlling issues — most men coming to A Better Way Ministries have hit rock bottom, desperate for a new beginning.
“It’s a faith-based program,” founder John Barrow told CBN News. “It’s very strict…up at 4:45, you got classes, devotions, buttons on your shirt have to be buttoned, haircuts.”
Barrow sees the keys to the program’s success being structure, rigor, and — most importantly — the Christian faith. Men participate in Bible studies and church meetings designed to spark genuine heart transformation.
“We try to get them to come to the place to where ‘I’m saved,’ and then go from there to being a true disciple of Jesus Christ,” Barrow said.
A Better Way’s 18-month residential program seeks to carry these men from brokenness to healing. Barrow says it was born out of his own struggles with drugs and alcohol.
“Drugs and alcohol and that lifestyle, and then running outta money to be able to sustain it. … When you can’t get it, then you go get it,” he said. “So then it went into stealing this and stealing that, to keep the party going and to…keep the drugs in my bloodstream.”
Incarcerated at least a dozen times, Barrow found Jesus after a stint in solitary confinement.
“I had literally had 30 days to read the Bible,” he said. “It’s the only book I had and just began to read it…from Genesis [to] Revelation, and again, cried all the way through it…Moses, and David, and Peter, and Paul, and James all [became] my heroes. And, so, when I came out of the hole that time, I was pretty serious about my conversion and my commitment.”
For the next 18 months, he served God behind bars. After his release, Barrow started a business and, in 2005, created A Better Way to help men find freedom and thrive.
“A lot of victories — just staying clean and sober, a wife, children, marriages,” Barrow said of what this positive outcome might look like.
CBN News sat down with some recent A Better Way graduates, including James, whose drug addiction nearly destroyed him.
“It just kind of led…one thing to another and, you know, eventually…there was jail and prison time,” James said.
He had tried other programs with little success. James credits the Christian components here at A Better Way with helping him succeed.
“Getting up at 4:45 in the morning, being in classes, devotions, drawing me back closer to the Lord,” he said. “And getting that foundation and that relationship back with Him is what’s really got me through this.”
While James considers working as a missionary someday, others, like Kevin, expressed gratitude for their heart change.
“I’m just glad I made it to a point in my life where someone can be proud of me,” Kevin said.
His accomplishment follows battles with drugs and a lifestyle that left him lonely and isolated.
“Nobody wanted to be around me,” Kevin said.
Now he feels like a totally different person, crediting faith and A Better Way for guiding him.
“This place is awesome,” he said. “It’s a lot of structure. From folding your boxers … to making sure your clothes are in order, to being respectful, to talk when you’re spoken to — just all sorts of things. I mean, it just changes your life for the better.”
Stories like this have caught the attention of people like Hollywood casting director Mark Fincannon, who now serves on the A Better Way board of directors.
“John Barrow, who’s the founder of this ministry, becoming friends with him, is what has changed my life,” Fincannon said. “And I realize that it’s his commitment. …his commitment… to reading the scripture that says, ‘I’ll make you fishers of men.’ He’s been doing that ever since.”
Barrow hopes to build on this legacy as he encourages men to pursue change no matter how far they’ve fallen.
“I just want to continue to pass that baton and carry that torch,” Barrow said. “I would like it to be said of me that I continue to carry that torch and run that race to help men who are struggling with life-controlling issues.”
A Better Way has seen 3,000 men enter its program over the past two decades, with plans to continue transforming lives well into the future.
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