JSP Ministries

A Day in the Life of a Prison Minister

 

When people find out that we are involved in prison ministry they usually ask one question. What’s it like? Its hard to answer on the fly, but I thought I’d try to capture in this letter what it is like going in and ministering in prison.

 

            It is important to be an hour early for each Spanish service because it takes a while to get through security. You must be on the gate list, or you have to turn around and go home. You begin by going though the outside double gates –these gates have the watchtower overhead.

 

Then you go through the screening to get into prison.  All you need to take with you is your drivers license & your keys. You can’t take anything else in with you.  It takes a while to train yourself to empty everything else out of your pockets and into the car and lock it up, but that’s what you have to do each time you enter prison. Once you pass the scan and pat down, you then to back to the inside double gates. There you trade your DL for a visitor’s badge, or sometimes not. (Procedures vary).

 

It can be a challenge to get through all the gates to pass though into the chapel. Men are going and coming to chow, the showers, to work, or being hauled out in shackles. Going through the general population is sobering. You see the faces of boredom and rebellion, mixed in with an occasional acquaintance from the church activities.  These men light up when they see me.  They are beacons in a very dark place. As time goes on you start to meet and know more and more of the inmates and their stories become known and appreciated.

 

It is a breath of fresh air to get back to the chapel where the choirs are already warming up for the praise time. The whole atmosphere is different in the chapel. It is like night and day. The guys are upbeat and excited about worship, and there are a lot of smiles and handshakes and hugs, in contrast to the “mean mugging” and hostility of the general population.

 

Most of the guys in church are happy to be there and so appreciative of my coming to speak to them and to share in their lives. They often approach with questions, prayer requests or the good news of making parole. Some guys are reluctant and tentative having only recently made a commitment or intending to make a change for to give God a chance.

 

            The Spanish services are longish affairs, kind of like Africa or Latin America. Time is not short for men in maximum security prison. We usually have about 45 minutes of praise and worship, followed by about 45 – 60 minutes of preaching. I get to tell them everything I have ever thought about the passage and then throw in some more, but I love bringing the good news to these men. They love hearing about real life in the outside world. They long to hear how their lives can change and how their lives can now have meaning in Christ. The Gospel is such good news to these men, who have lost so much from their own mistakes and sins - the love of God is just so amazing to them.

 

            We often have a time of prayer for the men at the end and they can come forward for prayer. These are precious times of openness as we talk to God together. Their lives and their stories are so dramatic and tragic, but the work of the Lord stands out in contrast to what they have endured.  When the service is over we file out together, I back through the corridors, the men back to their cells. We joke along the way and a say a final good by until I return again. It’s a relief when I hear the final click of that last double gate then I know I am on the outside and free once again, but I know I will be back, for those who have yet to hear the good news, and to give encouragement to those who have.