October 22, 2024
ACWORTH, Ga. – With the fervent hope that the pandemic is on a serious decline in the United States, many churches are beginning to experience some semblance of pre COVID-19 blessings and baptisms. Wonderful reports of churches experiencing revitalization and souls being saved have been reported in The Christian Index and other publications. Some of the conversions provide remarkable stories of God’s amazing grace.
Few people could have experienced a transformation as life-changing as Lanny Logan. He was born three days after Christmas in 1954. As a teenager he was a student a Sprayberry High School in Marietta. His athletic ability gave him success in football, wrestling and boxing. As a young teenager he was a silver gloves boxer and climbed the ladder of success as a golden gloves boxer by winning the championship in the Atlanta-Marietta area.
After high school Logan joined the U. S. Marine Corps and served as a part of this elite fighting force from 1971-1974.
However, his uncle, who was an integral part of the Dixie Mafia, had begun to influence Lanny’s life. The Dixie Mafia, sometimes called the Cornbread Cosa Nostra, was a loose confederation of crooks, thugs, and con artists that wreaked havoc across the south. According to Logan the Dixie Mafia was involved in drugs, prostitution, gambling, and murder. He admitted that he was only 15 years old when he was involved in his first armed robbery.
As Logan’s involvement with the criminal elements of the Dixie Mafia increased, his crimes and legal liability increased. At age 29 he was arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He recently stated, “I did not commit the murder I was sentenced to life imprisonment for, but I know I committed enough crimes to warrant a death sentence.”
At the time of his sentencing, he was married and had two sons. He explained, “My wife came to the prison to visit with me, but I finally told her that I was nothing but a burden to her and my sons; and I told her to quit coming to see me and rebuild her life, because my life sentence would never enable me to contribute anything of significance to her well-being.”
Logan continued, “As dangerous and violent as prisons are, I knew I belonged there. In prison you must sleep with one eye open, because fellow prisoners know how to inflict unbelievable pain on other inmates with their devious plots and devilish schemes.”
“I was moved around to several prisons,” Logan recalled, “but the Reidsville Prison was the worst. We had to work on the chain gang. We were sent to the fields with acres of land to labor like slaves preparing the soil for planting crops, keeping out the weeds during the growing season, and then harvesting the corn, potatoes, beans – all kinds of vegetables for the prison. The work was hard, and the hours were long.”
Logan’s mother was a godly woman who visited her son in prison every two weeks. On one occasion the imprisoned son said, “Mother, don’t pray for me. It is no use because I am as good as dead.” His request was unheeded. She continued to pray for her son’s salvation.
As the years went by Logan began to earn the trust of the prison authorities and he was permitted to serve in the prison’s medical center and won favor with some of the medical staff. After twelve years he was permitted to leave the prison under guarded supervision to speak in schools.
His message to the students was profound, but simple. “Stay in school. Get a good education. Have nothing to do with drugs. I gave up everything for a life of crime. I had to give up my dreams, my hope, my future. You can’t really kill me, because in many ways I am already dead. You don’t want to do anything that will result in you going to prison. It is a place of hopelessness and despair.”
While in prison, Logan began to have trouble with his left knee, resulting in a dozen surgeries, three knee replacements and ultimately an amputation. He contended that sometimes prisons get physicians that no one else wants and many of them are ineffective in caring for the inmates. The cost of his medical services were becoming so expensive that the prison authorities decided to release him from prison as a parolee after 25 years of incarceration.
Upon being released Logan began going to Hillcrest Baptist Church in Acworth, where his mother was a member. Paul Vance, who was the pastor of the church, greeted him, saying, “I have been expecting you.”
Logan explained, “There is no way I could have gotten out of prison if it were not for my mother’s prayers. I am convinced that God answers prayers.”
He added, “When I started going to church the Holy Spirit started working on me. Through the preaching of Paul Vance and the friendship of a layman, Don Coltrane, and my mother’s prayers, God threw me a lifeline. I invited Christ to be my personal Savior. I came to realize that no matter what you have done God can save you and give you a new life. Romans 5:20 says, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’”
Logan’s favorite book of the Bible is Romans and he loves to read about the Apostle Paul and his epistles. He explained, “Paul was a bad character. He referred to himself as the chief of sinners (I Timothy 1:15), but God saved him. No one is outside of the realm of God’s love and forgiveness.”
Today, Lanny Logan is a faithful member of East Cobb Baptist Church and, as only a loving God would have it, is responsible for the church’s security. He said, “I am like a sheep dog, protecting the flock of God from any wolves that may have plans to destroy or devour.”
