One offender said, “Gateway comes in and makes things feel human. Everywhere else I’m a number. They [Gateway] don’t treat me any different. They treat me like a human.”
On November 28, 2018, the Coffield campus was officially launched with over 300 in attendance, and was announced to the rest of the campuses in late January 2019. The Coffield campus of Gateway Church is now totally led by offenders with volunteer oversight. The campus has a live production and altar ministry with ushers and a worship team. They even have their own printed bulletins with images of their fellow residents and Coffield-specific announcements and prayer requests.
“When we teach them, we’re not doing it for them to serve at Gateway Church. If they come out and are looking for a church home, of course they’re welcome,” Wilson says. “But I’m just trying to train up leaders for any church.”
Recently, a woman named Tia visited Gateway Church and told one of the pastors, “My husband is incarcerated, and I went to visitation and all he could do was talk about Gateway Church and what an impact it had on him. He told me when I left visitation to go straight to a Gateway Church tonight, and here I am.”
Wilson and the prison ministry volunteers began to get to know Tia as she kept visiting. One night, she shared her testimony in a prison ministry interest meeting, and afterward they invited her out with them to dinner.
A month later, Wilson was visiting Coffield, and a large man came up to him and gave him a big hug. It was Tia’s husband, Jason.
“Pastor Stephen, I’ve got to thank you for what you’ve done for my wife,” he said. When Wilson downplayed it, he responded, “You don’t get it. You took her out to eat after the service. My wife came to visitation and cried on my shoulder and said, ‘Jason, now I have a vision for what you and I can do when you get out.’”
“That just blew me away. It’s the little things that we take for granted,” Wilson says. “He came to Christ in prison and his wife wasn’t a Christian. He’s able to lead his wife to Christ, and when he gets out his whole family will be following Christ because of what’s happened to him.”
MINISTERING BEHIND BARS
Woodmen, Gateway and many other churches have found success incorporating campuses inside prisons. But even if your church isn’t equipped to sustain a prison campus, you can have a powerful impact on the lives of prisoners in other ways.
1. Visiting Prisoners
It’s telling that Jesus made a point to draw attention to prisoners at the beginning (Luke 4:18–19) and end (Matt. 25:35–36) of his ministry. Many of the chief actors in the Bible served time in prison. A survey of the Old and New Testaments reveals a catalog of prisoners God has seen fit to use in powerful ways. Perhaps this is because prisoners are so easily forgotten or written off as hopeless causes.
“All too often, when we encounter the formerly incarcerated, we do not see them as brothers and sisters who reflect God’s image. We usually view them with suspicion and interact cautiously with them,” Dominique Dubois Gilliard writes in Rethinking Incarceration. “Furthermore, when we do go into prisons and detention centers, we frequently do not believe that people behind bars are capable of returning as citizens who can make our neighborhoods better places.”
The most powerful gift a church volunteer can give to a prisoner is the gift of presence—affirming their worth as image bearers of God.
“When a volunteer walks into prison, the thing the prisoners are most grateful for is them just being there. They’re overwhelmed just because they were there,” Close says. “You don’t need to have been through what they’ve been though. Giving them your time on earth—no one else gives them that. We bestow value and worth by our very presence.”
Wilson says another powerful way your church can reach prisoners is by reaching their families. Children of incarcerated parents are five times more likely than their peers to commit crimes. Removing a parent creates a tear in the fabric of that prisoner’s family. Your church can make a huge impact by doing something as simple as sponsoring families or buying Christmas gifts, taking the kids to a baseball game or providing babysitting for a parent’s day out.
Wilson says if you do those kinds of things “you just changed that family’s whole future.”
2. Bridging the Gap Between Prison and Society
At the time of this writing in the U.S. there are around 2 million prisoners, equivalent to the population of Houston. Close to 90% of those prisoners will one day rejoin society. Whether or not they succeed in reintegrating is largely due to the resources they’re given access to in prison.
“While God’s story sometimes includes punishment, isolation and harsh consequences, God’s justice moves toward restoration, reintegration and redemption,” Gilliard writes. “God’s justice is inherently connected to healing the harmed, restoring what has been lost and reconciling those who are estranged from God and community.”
Programs, education and mentors are key ways your church can reach out to prisoners. Recently, Stephen Wilson and volunteers took the curriculum from Gateway’s annual XO marriage conference and held an event for prisoners and their spouses at Coffield with a sub sandwich station that offered fresh fruits and veggies prisoners don’t usually have.
“It blows them away that we can love on them and give back and serve them,” Wilson says. “A lot of them have spent their lives looking inwardly instead of outwardly.”
Prisoners are often in need of large-print paperback Bibles (easier for those who struggle to read) and other training materials to which they don’t always have access, along with basic toiletries and personal care items. After you’ve checked with the prison warden to see what kind of items are needed and allowed in your local prison, your church could do a prison care package drive.
Wilson also recommends thinking about the programming your church does best, then going to talk to your sheriff or the head of your city’s corrections department to ask what the needs are and how your church can best help. Each state has their own regulations for how churches can get involved, and each prison has its own security guidelines that may limit what churches are allowed to do, so they are your best inroads to prison ministry.
“Today’s offender is tomorrow’s neighbor,” Wilson says. “While we have a ‘captive audience,’ why not train them and disciple them and help them become the men (and women) God’s called them to be?”
3. Partnering With the Church Inside
Seeing prison as a mission field is a recurring theme in prison ministry. The key to changing behaviors is changing hearts. The trajectory of prison ministry is toward equipping church leaders within the prison system.
“I view our work as training indigenous gospel leaders to bring the good news of Jesus and his kingdom to a closed mission field. It’s a far more effective model than sending the occasional pastoral team to minister inside prison walls,” Brown says of Angola. “Our guys are there 24/7 while outsiders can only be there sporadically. The ministry is lived inside this environment and the good news is communicated in both word and deed at all times of the day.”
This model of ministry is driving a new wave of churches to partner with church leaders inside prisons rather than feeling the need to take over. Vibrant two-way partnerships are being forged between churches on the outside and churches on the inside.
“The impact our Ark Valley campus has made on Woodmen is difficult to quantify. Simply put, it has been one of the most exciting things we have done in the last few years,” Lindstrom says. “For the men inside, I think the formal relationship and consistency reminds them they have not been forgotten. For those outside at our other campuses, they are thrilled to see such dramatic life change in the lives of our Ark Valley brothers and love having the opportunity to get involved in it.”
As more and more churches discover the power of collaborating with church leaders inside prisons through equipping them and/or incorporating their churches as campuses, they are discovering that the gospel is very much living and active in these often neglected places.
“While I can appreciate that prison ministry can be daunting at first, at the end of the day prisons are an often untapped mission field,” Lindstrom says. “The men at our Ark Valley campus have a tremendous opportunity before them. We feel we are just getting started.”
Read more about how your church can reach prisoners at outreachmagazine.com/prison-ministry.
RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Churches that aren’t ready or equipped to add a prison campus can still reach out to prisoners in myriad ways. These resources and ministries are a helpful introduction for a church of any size:
• Cain’s Redemption (Northfield Press)—The story of warden Burl Cain’s efforts to transform Angola from the most violent U.S. prison into a model of reform.
• Rethinking Incarceration (IVP)—A comprehensive look at the U.S. prison system and how the message of the gospel speaks to matters of prison reform.
• Crossroads Prison Ministries—Connects prisoners with volunteer mentors and Bible correspondence courses.
• Global Prison Seminaries Foundation—Helps facilitate creating seminaries in prisons. Started by Burl Cain.
• Kairos Prison Ministry—Addresses the spiritual needs of prisoners and their families through programs and long-term support.
• Koinonia House National Ministries—Provides post-prison aftercare resources.
• Lifeline Global Ministries—Launched in 2004 at Angola by Awana co-founder Art Rorheim and then president/CEO Jack Eggar, this ministry equips inmates in 220 prisons globally to become the fathers and mothers God intends through their Malachi Dads and Hannah’s Gift (moms) programs.
• Prison Fellowship—Helps reconcile all affected by crime to God, their families and their communities. Started by Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship is the largest Christian nonprofit for prisoners and justice reform.
• Prison Mission Association—Provides free Bible correspondence courses for college credit to raise up leaders inside prisons with the goal of planting churches.
• Prisoners for Christ—Brings the gospel to men, women and juveniles in prison.
• World Impact—Partners with reentry homes, local churches and mentors to move incarcerated leaders toward success and incorporation into the body of believers through Incarceration to Incorporation (I2I).