PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Mentoring

These short devotionals written by men and women in prison paint a picture of how each writer grew in Christ by studying God’s Word and surrendering to Him.

These short devotionals written by men and women in prison paint a picture of how each writer grew in Christ by studying God’s Word and surrendering to Him.

Ex-prisoners must navigate a myriad of new choices and they need a strong friend to help them along the journey. Prison Fellowship’s reentry program counselors have identified three significant pitfalls mentors need to be aware of when coaching mentees.

You are who you hang out with. You may have heard this in your younger years from a parent or teacher. And it’s true. If you’ve got friends who study and do well in school, you’ll try to do the same.

In today’s society, we generally do not have the kind of relationships God ordained – relationships that foster our growth, hold us accountable, and encourage us to press toward healthy goals. The primary reason Christian mentoring is desperately needed today is to supply positive relationships that are lacking in our culture.

Effective mentors focus on building supportive relationships, not fixing people. Research conducted in 2001 by the National Resilience Resource Center at the University of Minnesota highlighted this important principle.

God has called every Christian to “make disciples.” However, every Christian is not called to be a mentor to prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families. Mentoring this population is a special calling and is one of the most demanding ministries within Prison Fellowship.

The ultimate source of true life transformation is the Holy Spirit plus the Word of God, skillfully and prayerfully utilized by those called as mentors within the Body of Christ. Prison ministry mentors are change agents that walk alongside their mentees, setting an example of how to live a Christian life.

In John 4:35, Jesus commands us, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest.” When wheat is ready for harvest, it looks almost white. But Jesus wasn’t speaking of fields of grain; He was speaking of a mission field that is “white for harvest.”

A controversial new plan to prepare inmates for reentry into society is being proposed in Louisiana.  The idea is to move a thousand prisoners from a minimum-security prison in the state and transfer them to Angola Prison, a maximum-security prison once infamous for violence and decrepit conditions.