The Small Church Making a Big Difference

NEW LIFE IN PRISON

Oasis on the Mount’s pastor, Chris Pipkin, knows what it’s like to be a child with an incarcerated parent.

When Chris was just a young child, his family was marked by violence and abuse, which eventually led to his parents’ divorce. Wanting a fresh start, Chris’ mother moved him and his brother from Texas to California to start over.

One afternoon when he was 10, Chris left school with his brother expecting to see their mother. Instead, the boys found their aunt and uncle waiting for them. These relatives revealed that the boys would be staying with them indefinitely, adding that the boys’ mother was in the hospital and would come for them when she was better.

Chris and his brother experienced sad Christmases in their two years with their aunt and uncle. They sat to the side watching their cousins ooh and aah over their gifts. There were no presents for either brother, only festive wrapping paper and ribbons scattered on the floor.

“How did I know that it was two years? Because I remember [those] two Christmases,” Chris recalls.

The boys missed their home and their mother, hoping she was getting better at the hospital. She called her sons regularly, but they were not allowed to call or visit her.

Being kept from his mother for so long eventually played a role in Chris’ heart for children with a parent in prison.

It wasn’t until many decades later, well into his own career working in prison ministry, that Chris learned his mom had actually been incarcerated for the time she was away.

FINDING HIS WAY TO JESUS

Although Chris’ parents had provided for him and his brother in Texas, money became tight after the divorce and the move to California. The young brothers, influenced by their father, relied on the streets to earn a living.

“Selling drugs was a means of survival,” Chris says. “My brother and I started hustling around ages 9 and 10. My dad was a known gangster, and he was my idol. I patterned my life after him.”

As a young adult, Chris got married and had two daughters. He loved his children, but continued selling drugs, which landed him in prison when his girls were 6 years old and 6 months old.

While incarcerated, he was told about Prison Fellowship^® Angel Tree. He applied to have Christmas gifts given to his girls in his name, along with a personal note from him.

When his daughters visited him after Christmas, they expressed their delight in the gifts a local church delivered to them along with his note. Chris had forgotten all about his Angel Tree^® application and was taken aback. It touched him that someone who didn’t even know him or his family would help him reach out to his kids and show them his love when he couldn’t be there himself.

A FULL SURRENDER

After his daughters’ experience with Angel Tree, Chris started hanging around the chapel hoping to find out about similar programs. When a visiting preacher came and delivered a message that reached into Chris’ heart, Chris gave his life to Christ. Unfortunately, the preaching at Chris’ prison dealt mostly with salvation and baptism, but not much with how to live the Christian life.

“It was a heart conversion, but not a head conversion,” he says. While Chris believed in Jesus, his lifestyle showed little change.

Chris was released from prison but then returned five years later for selling drugs again. He continued signing his daughter Christina up for Angel Tree (his older daughter Daphney had aged out of the program). Christina later told him, “Dad, I wanted to be mad at you, but I just couldn’t. Because I knew that no matter what, you cared enough about me to make sure that I got gifts from you each year.”

Chris had no intention of attending church in prison again, but when a “guy in Chuck Colson glasses” invited him to a revival service, he went.

There he rededicated his life to Christ. Previously, he had vowed to live for Jesus, but it had been a lukewarm commitment. This time, it was a full surrender. He joined the Prison Fellowship Academy in the Carol Vance Unit in Texas, a yearlong, intensive program that invites all those living in prison to build their lives on Christ’s teachings in community.

“The Academy [prepared] me for reentry because it helped me think about what was important and how to work for what you want,” Chris says of the program that he knew would help him leave prison a changed person.

He was ready to share what he had received with others.

AN ANGEL TREE OASIS

Chris was released from prison in 2001. His family’s experience with Angel Tree inspired him to share the love of Christ with other families with incarcerated loved ones. The foundation Chris received from the Academy helped him realize the leadership skills he wasn’t even aware he possessed.

Following his release, Chris attended the College of Biblical Studies. He then returned to Dallas in 2003 and, shortly after, made Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist Church his home church.

He immersed himself as a volunteer at Operation Oasis, a nonprofit providing reentry services for formerly incarcerated men coming to Dallas from the Academy at the Carol Vance Unit. In 2005, Chris completed his pastoral training through the Baptist General Conventions of Texas, receiving a license to minister.

As pastor of Oasis on the Mount—and as church partnerships manager since 2008 at Prison Fellowship—Chris is devoted to living out the call to minister to incarcerated individuals and their families.

Oasis on the Mount, which Chris founded through a partnership between Operation Oasis and Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist Church, opened its doors in 2006. Partnering with Angel Tree to serve the children of incarcerated men and women was an easy decision for Chris.

He knows the experience of having an incarcerated parent. But he also grasps the other perspective: “I understand [Angel Tree] from the incarcerated parent,” Chris says. “I understand it from providing the gifts.”

Chris knew his church would be up to the task. What he hadn’t anticipated was their determination.

“The surprise has been the commitment,” he says. “Angel Tree has become the fiber of who we are and what we do. There wasn’t any fear [from the volunteers] because we gradually worked up to it.”

MEET THE COORDINATOR

In serving Angel Tree children, every helping hand of this congregation is needed.

Initially, the church served about 100 children. Chandra was one of the many church members who volunteered for Angel Tree at the church.

Her motivation to serve came from an interaction she had while visiting a local women’s prison many years prior.

“I had the opportunity to meet with [an incarcerated] lady,” Chandra recalls. “When we left, the lady said, ‘Just don’t forget to pray for me. It’s my kids. It’s my babies.’ She started really crying. That made an impact on my heart.”

Several years after Chandra began attending Oasis on the Mount, the church’s Angel Tree coordinator moved out of state, and Chris asked Chandra to consider manning the vital role. She said yes. Before long, the church was bringing hope to more families than they had ever envisioned.

'EVERYBODY KNOWS SOMEBODY'

The church went from serving 100 children to 150. They continued adding more children—and soon the number was up to 200. The congregation stepped out in faith when Chandra and Pastor Chris agreed to move up to serving 300 Angel Tree kids.

“We’ve done 300 for the last three years,” Chandra says.

Each year, in preparation for another Angel Tree Christmas, she has her volunteers text or call their contacts for donations.

“That’s how it grows,” she says. “That’s how we do 300. Everybody knows somebody.”

The church also hosts a yearly Angel Tree Christmas party, welcoming the children and their parents and guardians. While the party may come to an end, Oasis on the Mount’s commitment to the families does not.

“Pastor has us calling our families every month,” she says. “Every time we call, we pray, and we listen. We invite them to whatever we have going on at the church. Any event, we invite them throughout the year.”

Through this church, Angel Tree children have attended Prison Fellowship’s one-day sports camps and STEM camps, as well as summer camps, all hosted by local churches or ministry partners. These events provide a space where children can experience healing, hope, and connection.

For Pastor Chris, the heart of Oasis on the Mount’s participation in Angel Tree stems from his moments as a child, wondering where his mother really was: “I understand the brokenness of experiencing Christmas in a way that everybody else does not. … I’m passionate because I don’t want any kids to experience that pain, that hurt, or that isolation.”