Last Wednesday I was in Oklahoma City to hear Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson speak at the monthly meeting of the Oklahoma Business Ethics Consortium. Several hundred people gathered to hear Chuck speak about “doing the right thing” and why it is imperative that we follow the teachings of Jesus if we want to see families, communities, churches, businesses, and our country healed and prosperous.
Today’s BreakPoint from Chuck Colson explores the impact Angel Tree has had on Nation of Islam inmates who sign up their children for Angel Tree simply to give them a gift. As Colson explains, God is using this program to soften their hearts to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Prison Fellowship is announcing a new partnership with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), the largest Christian Hispanic association in the United States.
“This partnership will not only allow us to focus our efforts to reach and engage more Hispanic churches, but to also increase our ministry to touch the hearts of Hispanic prisoners and their children, an estimated 20 percent of our total outreach,” says Prison Fellowship President Garland Hunt.
Before I went to Oklahoma City last week I was told several times by several people in several locations across the country that I “just had to meet Larry and Judy Mills – especially Judy.” I was told that Judy is the leader of Angel Tree – a Prison Fellowship ministry that cares for the children of incarcerated parents beginning at Christmas and extending throughout the year – in her local church.
Like most values of worth, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy are simple concepts that are easy to demand of others, but harder to implement in our own lives. We all agree that the world would be a better place if there were more of these virtues on display, but are usually content with lamenting their absence than we are with actually making them a part of how we interact with others.
Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God.
– Dueteronomy 1:17
Since ancient times justice has been portrayed as impartial – an elegant lady holding a set of scales in one hand and a sword in her other hand.
KRIV TV in Houston recently ran a short story on Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange program at the Carol Vance Unit in Richmond. The InnerChange program prepares prisoners for reentry, offering participants the chance to develop “real world” skills they can use to become productive members of society.
On the night of September 21, as the nation focused on the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, another man was being executed in Texas. Unlike the Davis case, there was little question about the guilt of the prisoner, and little outcry over his execution.
Is revolution possible in a Western culture? Author Mark Steyn thinks so. And he points to recent mob attacks at the Wisconsin State Fair and in Philadelphia as a possible foreshadowing of more escalated, pre-revolutionary riots in Greece and London.
Chuck Colson recently interviewed Mark Steyn for BreakPoint on Steyn’s latest book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.
I found this article about Mel Gibson’s fall from grace on People of the Second Chance’s Twitter feed. At first glance you may not think the article is germane for a prison ministry blog (though Mel has had his run-ins with the law).
It might be the oddest pairing of two individuals since Oscar Madison and Felix Unger: a conservative, law-and-order attorney general hiring a convicted sex offender to work in his office while he attempts to clear the man from the charges that caused him to spend 27 years in prison.
A small town in Alabama is introducing a unique program aimed at reducing recidivism, and has drawn the ire of some civil liberties groups as a result.
Named “Operation Restore Our Community,” the program gives first-time, non-violent offenders in Bay Minette, Alabama, the option of either serving jail time or attending the church of their choice every Sunday for a full year.
I am in my office in West Michigan. The trees are beginning to change up here, and it feels like fall.
I have a couple of days to catch up on some writing, emails, and study as I prepare to preach this weekend at Ridge Point.
A recent story in the Christian Post examines the story of Luke Woodham, a mass murderer in Mississippi who is 14 years into a life sentence. Woodham is now applying for clemency, claiming, “I am sorry for my crimes and I am asking for a chance to live the new life that God has given me.”
When Chuck Colson went to prison in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, there were approximately 239,000 Americans in our penal institutions. Today that figure has risen to an astounding 2.3 million. Ask Mr. Colson why and he’ll tell you that the “real reason we’re building prisons” is because of the lack of moral training and education.