For all the advantages the Internet age provides, it doesn’t come close to replacing the core need of the Church to shine the light of the Gospel in the lives of prisoners. That means “life on life”: Getting up close and personal, dealing with the messiness of broken lives, and letting God’s grace and power go to work.
Thirty years ago, American culture needed to hear a bold truth as lawmakers got tough on crime—God cares about prisoners as much as justice. Prison Fellowship accepted the challenge. Together with the Church, we called on thousands of volunteers to enter prisons worldwide to take the love and hope of Jesus Christ to the “least of these.”
Back then, the U.S. housed around 300,000 prisoners. Today, more than 2.3 million fill our jails and prisons. Much has been accomplished through these evangelism and discipleship efforts in the prisons. But as the need multiplied, we needed to rethink the best way to take Christ to prisoners and their families.
The answer takes aim at the massive reentry of prisoners into society—700,000 return to our communities every year. We need not only our veteran volunteers who are familiar with the prison setting, but also a new generation of world-changers who will help with some aspect of prisoner reentry. And rather than building scattered pockets of individuals doing work on a local level, the time has come to energize a national movement of restorative justice.
Using the Internet, we will be able to pour the expertise we’ve gained over 30 years into far more people than ever before. Our tools, resources, and networking capabilities can be expanded faster and to greater audiences.
Building awareness and equipping volunteers nationally is the only way we can address the massive challenge of hundreds of thousands of released prisoners streaming annually into our communities. The mission and results are nothing less than God-sized—prisoners not only coming to Christ, but also proving that they can be restored to their families and become effective members of their churches and communities.
Today’s volunteers will be focused on a host of needs where their gifts can be applied. That can include going into prisons to teach Bible studies, job skills, and parenting tips. It can include providing housing assistance, transportation, small-group fellowship, help with getting a driver’s license, drug rehab, clothing needs, and so much more.
For all the advantages the Internet age provides, it doesn’t come close to replacing the core need of the Church to shine the light of the Gospel in the lives of prisoners. That means “life on life”: Getting up close and personal, dealing with the messiness of broken lives, and letting God’s grace and power go to work.
We at Prison Fellowship have a lot to do still in the coming months to translate all the material help we have into forms you can find online. We’ll notify you through Frontlines of new resources as they become available. We look forward to hearing your feedback and your stories, and to getting you even more connected to this life-changing movement as a volunteer in prison ministry.
David Lawson
Sr. Vice President
Prison Fellowship