A version of the following article originally appeared on the website of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. To learn more about the work and the mission of the Colson Center, visit their website at www.colsoncenter.org.
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”
– Matthew 13:33
I recently had the privilege of traveling with Prison Fellowship CEO Jim Liske to a Midwestern state to meet with Prison Fellowship volunteers, staff, supporters and a number of state officials and legislators.
During the meeting, Jim had an open-mike discussion with two prison wardens about the work of Prison Fellowship in their prisons. While I’ve always known that PF is well-respected among corrections staff, I was blown away by the wardens’ enthusiastic responses.
I can’t quote them, because I wasn’t taking notes, but here goes . . . Both of them loved Prison Fellowship volunteers. They found them to be not only competent, but caring and most of all committed. But what impressed them most was the impact Prison Fellowship’s ministry was having on the prisoners.
At one of the prisons, Prison Fellowship is working with World Impact to operate what is called The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) program. At Prison Fellowship, we like to call it “Prisoners to Pastors,” because the program teaches university-level Bible, pastoral, and theology courses to prisoners to prepare them to return to their urban communities as Christian leaders.
And the warden of that prison is impressed. During her rounds, she said, she began noticing prisoners in their cells studying quietly, taking notes, working hard. And during her trips to the yard, she says she’s always on the receiving end of “God bless you” from the men.
She and her staff agree that the prisoners who are participating in PF programs are changing the culture of the prison for the better. Imagine how God will use them when they return to their neighborhoods!
A few Christian men (in other prisons, a few Christian women), can make all the difference. Like leaven in a lump of dough.
That’s the operative Kingdom principle at work in Prison Fellowship as it seeks to restore broken communities and transform the culture of crime in this nation.
This is the same principle that guides the Colson Center. It’s why we have trained more than 900 men and women as Centurions to go back to their communities, to their spheres of influence, and live out their Christian worldview in such a way that those communities are transformed.
This is the kind of “leavening” work to which we believe God has called the Colson Center, Prison Fellowship, and Justice Fellowship. And perhaps He is calling you to join us in some form or another—to add your pinch of leaven to the work God is doing.