Last week, Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general of Virginia, and Deborah Daniels, former assistant U.S. attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs, co-published an article on WashingtonPost.com called "Less Incarceration Could Lead to Less Crime."
While most children with a parent in prison wouldn't be able to afford attending a summer camp, church sponsorships allow the kids to get away from home and leave their worries behind.
Robyn, an inmate participating in Prison Fellowship's Prisoners to Pastors program, has begun a prayer movement at her prison in California.
As my friend Quovadis Marshall, the director of spiritual development at Prison Fellowship Ministries, likes to say, Christians aren’t primarily saved from something – we are saved for Someone. Yes, Jesus, redeems us from our sins, and that’s hugely important. But we are saved in order to have a relationship with the living God who loves us.
Just recently Prison Fellowship received a sizable gift from a young man, not yet 30, who is enrolled in one of our intensive, faith-based reentry programs behind prison walls.
I am always encouraged when a man or woman behind bars gives back in this way.
“I started seeing myself and not looking at others, like I usually did, to make excuses for my behavior.”
Never underestimate what He can do with humble hearts totally surrendered to His plans and purposes for the world.
The message of our Savior’s power is just as applicable within the prison walls as it is in our communities.
Hope for Kids, Inc. launched this past December with the vision of reaching underprivileged kids in the Greater Springfield Massachusetts area with acts of kindness, spiritual renewal, authentic relationships, and physical nourishment.
When fear and insecurity fill our hearts, we respond with selfish indifference to the needs of our neighbors. But when faith rules our lives, when we have wrestled with God and found Him true, we become secure in His ability to care for us, and we cease to doubt and fear.
A couple weeks ago I got to teach at Christ United Methodist Church in Texas. It was a thrill! The church meets in a beautiful building with dazzling stained glass and a gleaming organ. The angel-voiced choir was dressed all in white – but then, these particular singers, who are members of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative values-based reentry program at the Carol Vance Unit, are always dressed in white; that’s the color of their prison uniforms.
The world moves fast, doesn’t it? We’re always making another to-do list, reading another best-selling leadership book, and doing more. We buy things that promise to make us faster and more efficient – things that will let us be in a business meeting and at the dinner table at the same time.
Just 445 words long, Paul’s shortest New Testament letter is to a man named Philemon, a well-to-do merchant in the garrison town of Colosse, who was also a leader in the Christian church there. He was a businessman, a family man, and someone respected among the community of believers.
So many of the letters we get from prisoners start out the same: “I hope someone reads this …,” “I don’t have anyone left out there …,” or “I haven’t received a visit or a letter in years. I’m hoping you will help me know God …”
But the letter from Joe, a long-time prisoner in Virginia, was different.
David had finally hit rock bottom, going from underage drinking to serving prison time. But God hadn’t given up on him.
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