PRISON FELLOWSHIP: In Prison

He's the viral video basketball king on social media—but in prison, he's just another guy on the yard.

Celebrate the first Prison Fellowship Academy graduation with the men from cellblock 350B.

"I did my time at Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola or 'The Farm.' I had to learn how to have the respect of both staff and my fellow inmates to make the most of my sentence."

Prison Fellowship Academy graduate Darcy shares her testimony and the calling God has on her life as a woman of impact walking in freedom.

'Prison has put a lot of pressure on me mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.'

We live in a broken society, but the Church is uniquely positioned to have a profound and lasting impact on the surrounding culture.

“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”  

Colossians 1:28 (NIV)  

Prison ministry, like all ministries, is not a single event but a process. The Church is called to make disciples, not simply converts.

Often in life, God redirects our paths using unexpected means. Robyn, a woman serving a prison sentence in California, knows this truth firsthand. God has used her prison time to build her faith more than she thought possible.

Robyn is a student in an intensive Christian leadership training program offered by Prison Fellowship at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.

There is a transformative power in good literature. A book can transport us to faraway places and introduce us to characters from different times and eras. It can rouse the emotions, challenge perceptions, and engage the mind in ways that few things can.

I’ve taught a Bible study in the local church for over 25 years. Once a week I would arrive about 15 minutes early, get my materials out, and chat with any of the women who came early while we waited for the others to arrive.

Charles* is a prisoner who is serving a long sentence in a state prison. He attended weekly Bible study in the prison, not because he had any interest in God, but because the Bible study gave him some social time with outside folk who “spoke” his language—American Sign Language (ASL)—and it broke the boredom of his daily routine.

When Dr. James Gilligan started work as a prison psychiatrist in a medium-security facility in Massachusetts, he took with him a pre-formed perspective on the men he would be treating.

“I had been taught up to that point that violent criminals were untreatable sociopaths, that they would manipulate you,” he remembers.

“Doesn’t the Bible say that murderers can’t go to heaven?”

That’s a question I was asked almost every week during my visits to the Cook County Jail in Chicago.

The inmate who started my weekly jail visits was a young deaf college student who, in a moment of rage, killed another deaf person at his school.