PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Prayer

On March 30, Prison Fellowship Vice President for Advocacy and Public Policy Craig DeRoche offered the closing prayer as part of the annual White House Easter celebration.

In moments of challenge, you and I have two options: We can yield to anxiety, or we can choose thanksgiving. We can rejoice in our secure spiritual inheritance. We can rest in God’s promises of provision. We can trust the One who holds us in the palms of His nail-scarred hands.

The following is a version of remarks given by Prison Fellowship President and CEO Jim Liske at Movement Day NYC, a gathering of Christian leaders discussing how to cultivate Gospel movements in urban areas across the country.  For more information about Movement Day, visit www.movementday.com.

I visit prisons frequently, and rarely do I feel uncomfortable. When the prison staff will permit it, I shake hands with and even embrace incarcerated men without fear. But one recent experience left me feeling shaken.

After a worship service in a prison auditorium, I was taken to F Block, a multi-tier roundhouse where the prison’s most violent and hardened residents are kept.

We were being watched.

At a worship service behind bars, I was sitting among some men that I remembered from a previous visit. I was jarred out of the music by the realization that officers armed with rifles were standing watch in “guard shacks” that extended from the walls of the auditorium.

The community reentry team connected Albert with Paving the Way, one of Prison Fellowship's reentry partners that helps former prisoners in their search for employment.

There are approximately 2.3 million prisoners in America that need our intercession and petition to God. They need to know that we are praying for them and we need to spread the word to other believers to pray for them.

That’s why starting this March, at 2:30PM EST every weekday, Prison Fellowship will post a prayer reminder on its Facebook and Twitter pages using the hashtag #PRAY4PRISONERS, to encourage everyone to pause for a while and lift up these men and women behind bars and anyone affected by crime and incarceration.

At a recent event in New York City, I was privileged to introduce Quovadis Marshall to a group pf people who financially support the ministries of Prison Fellowship.

“Q,” as we call him, shared his story: He was raised in poverty by a single mom who worked diligently to feed her kids.

Ninety percent of runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. So are 63 percent of teens who commit suicide, and 39 percent of jail inmates. When it comes to kids’ well-being, nothing is more beneficial than a loving, supportive relationship with their fathers.

The challenge of successful, crime-free re-entry is enormous. Lack of a place to live and the temptation of old friends are immediate issues that newly-released prisoners face. Praying Christians help provide an important and necessary supportive route back into the community.

"If we truly love people, we will desire for them far more than it is within our power to give them, and this will lead us to prayer. Intercession is a way of loving others." - Richard Foster

For any prison ministry to be truly effective, it must have a solid foundation of prayer. In prayer we call upon God for resources that He alone can provide in our battle against the spiritual forces of darkness.