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.