Last month, Terri and I had the privilege of serving on a ministry team that goes into prisons to minister and bring the gospel of the Lord to their lives. The ministry is called Charis of Minnesota and we served at Faribault prison the weekend of Oct. 3-5.

 

I served one time previously at Sandstone prison two years ago under Charis but my experience then was completely different than this years’.

 

At Sandstone, the table I was assigned to was comprised of insiders (that’s what the prisoners are called) who already had accepted Christ as their savior so there was no real life conversion occurring with my group that weekend.

 

It was completely different at Faribault.

 

I was a table leader with another volunteer from Charis and our table consisted of seven insiders who had various levels of crimes and various levels of sentences among them. The weekend is composed of spiritual messages, music, projects, meals and sharing. 

 

The goal is to get the insiders to realize they are not the lepers of society but that they are loved and accepted by God just as the rest of us are.

 

Jesus said in Matthew 25: 36...”I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.”

 

Most of the guys inside those walls are people just like you and me, it’s just they made a poor decision in their lives that cost them their freedom. If you look at it, we are all one poor decision away from ending up behind bars ourselves.

 

One of the most powerful phases of the weekend program is called a chapel visit where the insiders get the opportunity to spill their guts — about their crimes, about their struggles, about their hopes and dreams and about their belief or lack of belief in a higher judge than the one who put them in cells made of brick and iron.

 

After hearing from our insiders at our table and listening to other insiders at the other tables (45-50 insiders for that weekend), the one subject most of the insiders focused on was finding a way to not only forgive the people who accused them and sent them to prison, but to forgive themselves for all the harm they did to get them where they were.

 

Most of the guys live with guilt, hopelessness, helplessness and deep emotional pain. They are not only locked up from society, they are also locked upon the boundary of their own hearts, minds and souls looking for freedom from the despair that torments them.

 

Our Charis team is instructed as we make our way inside the razor wire to do four things — listen, listen, love, love. And the system works.

 

Most of these guys rarely get the chance to open up their souls — even to strangers — and when they do, they become like an onion — peeling away years of abandonment, guilt, bitterness and unforgiveness until their hearts’ eyes become open to what God’s love is all about.

 

It’s a shame most of them had to go to prison to find it, but many told me they were grateful they went to prison because if they hadn’t they never would have found God outside the walls of imprisonment.

 

Isn’t that ironic? These men had to go to prison to get free.

 

When ministering to prisoners with the Gospel, we follow a path marked out for us by Christ, who freely offered salvation to whomever would recognize their need. 

 

And we acknowledge that throughout history, God has turned those with checkered pasts – Moses the murderer, Jacob the liar, Rahab the prostitute and Paul the persecutor – into heroes of the faith. 

 

Even more, Jesus tells us that whatever we do for the “least of these,” including prisoners, we do for Him. 

 

Whenever one serves the incarcerated, one meets Jesus and Jesus meets them.