What is the local
church’s role in prison ministry?
According to some prison chaplains, the church isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to fulfill the segment of Jesus’ mandate in Matthew 25:36 regarding visiting those in prison.
Art Lyons, who for 21 years has ministered to convicts and ex-convicts, sees this ministry as being accomplished more by individual Christians, but said he hopes that more churches will get involved. One incredulous response he gets is from church leaders who ask questions like: “Why invest in these guys — in losers, in someone who’s going to turn around and go back into prison again?” Lyons’ response is that Jesus told us to.
The ministry is just like mining for those precious few gold nuggets, Lyons said. “We’re there for the 10 percent,” he said. Lyons concedes that those success stories may not become apparent for many years. He said working with convicts is like working with junior high youngsters. He sees the two groups as possessing about the same maturity level, lacking the social and job skills to succeed in this world. “It’s a long, intense journey to learn this stuff as an adult,” Lyons said.
Ex-convict William MeGarry says he is a case in point. MeGarry, who is the facility manager of Caring Ministries, a state certified Christian residential recovery program in the North Park area, credits a lot of his success to the man he calls his spiritual father, prison chaplain David Chute. Chute said that a leader in his church ask him why he worked in jails and prisons. “Why don’t you work in a nursing home?” the man asked Chute.
Because of the lack of support from their own churches, Lyons said that those individual Christians who support themselves to serve as part-time volunteer chaplains often form their own para-church organizations, such as the nonprofit Re-Entry Prison and Jail Ministry that Lyons directs.
Lyons said his ministry is a walk of faith. The money to keep Re-Entry going comes in a month at a time from unexpected sources. “It’s hard work,” Lyons said. “It’s a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of passion. If it becomes stressful, it’s time to lay it down.”
Tim Lyons (no relation) has written a musical he hopes will fund a major local prison ministry project. Tim Lyons believes strongly in the need for and power of Christian prison and re-entry programs. “My dream is to create a Delancy Street here in San Diego.” The privately funded program in San Francisco brings in more than 200 fresh parolees at a time and provides them jobs in many fields. “It’s time we quit camping on the river of denial and deal with issues,” he said. “We pay either way. The only thing that works is Jesus. The only thing that works is faith-based programs.”
“Jesus Knows the Blues” tells the story of someone just released from jail who gets offers to deal drugs as well as overtures of friendship from Christians. The contemporary gospel blues production incorporates true stories addressing issues of forgiveness and guilt by association suffered by families of inmates. Lyons said the musical has a national capacity, kind of like a Christian equivalent of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Once the project is complete, church and other youth group will have free access to the script and music. Its creator foresees his lyrics and script being used for everything in local churches from a single song for a worship service to a 12-song concert to a full-blown musical drama production.
Tim Lyons is seeking financial supporters, ethnic cast members and a few musicians. “There’s sufficient sizzle in and around it,” he said. “We’re interested in talking to anybody who’s willing to throw some bucks down to cure something that’s a constant.” Music from the score will be featured in a concert in September as part of the fall concert series at College Avenue Baptist Church in San Diego.
The musical points out the drug-prison connection, and most prison and jail ministers agree that if drug offenders were released into recovery programs that prisons would be 50 percent less crowded.
Brother’s Keeper Prison Ministry, directed by Virginia Sanderson, addresses the drug issue at a grassroots level through a sobriety meeting from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays in Escondido. The program, The Most Excellent Way, directed by Hal Toby in San Diego, is a Christian counterpart to Narcotics Anonymous. Plans are underway to kick off a youth meeting using The Most Excellent Way’s “Kick It Kids” program.
Sanderson, assisted by her son, David, and a crew of volunteers, sends out Brother’s Keeper newsletter, “Behind the Wall,” to people in jails and prisons across the country. The newsletter contains a coupon whereby prisoners can enroll in a Bible correspondence course. Some prisoners respond by sending original artwork, often created on handkerchiefs or a square of bed sheet. Sanderson transforms some of the art into greeting cards to sell to support the ministry. The ministry also sends Bibles, books, clothing and other materials to chaplains who minister in detention centers that are too small to receive funding. Support and encouragement for the families of prisoners and inmates is close to Sanderson’s heart, especially at Christmastime. Sanderson also spends a lot of time in court helping prisoners and their families with legal issues. She has a vision for incarcerated brethren. “We’re going to see revival before the end in prisoners and in places not expected,” Sanderson said.
Addressing the legal education needs of prisoners and their families is a big part of the Outlawzzz Prison Ministry of Serra Mesa father and son team Bob and Rondel Williams. Bob says that his illegal arrest and incarceration resulting from a custody battle for his youngest son, now 14, was what motivated him to reach out to prisoners. The ordained minister said his time behind bars brought him kicking and screaming back into ministry.
“I lost my son for a short time and gained thousands of other kids,” Bob said. Bob said that he was considered a hero by many of the young men he met behind bars, because most of them did not have a father in their lives, and they were impressed that he would go to prison for his son. While locked up in several correctional facilities in Colorado and Florida, Williams talked to a lot of prisoners about the Lord, and left prison with several names and addresses of prisoners with whom to correspond.
Now, he gets regular letters from at least 800 prisoners, all of whom he answers personally. The Williams maintain a 500-some page Web site, www.Outlawzzzfreepress.com. The site offers the Free Press newsletter via e-mail or regular mail, a link for people to use to search for inmates with whom they have lost touch, and a place for inmates to express themselves and tell their stories.
Although Williams is alarmed by what he sees as a prison culture created by the rapidly growing number of prisoners, mostly male, a larger and larger percentage of those being incarcerated are women. Some of the women locked up in San Diego facilities are setting standards and breaking new ground for their sisters in chains around the world. Welcome Home Ministries is on the cutting edge of prison ministry, evidenced by the fact that director Carmen Warren-Robbins recently was invited for the third time to take the ministry’s protocol to international conferences addressing social health issues. In June, Warren-Robbins and Mickey Parsons, a research professor from San Antonio, attended the first International Congress on Creating Healthy Environments.
Prison Fellowship funded Welcome Home’s original two-year research on participatory action. Warren-Robbins and her fellow volunteers gave women inmates profile questionnaires to ascertain their felt needs. “It’s women planning their own healthy futures,” Warren-Robbins said. “The thing that is so critical about this is they know what’s best for them for their healing. I’ve always involved them. ... It’s much better than me telling them what they need to do. It’s Christ centered and they create their own futures. That’s why it works, for the first time we know of. That’s why they all take ownership.”
To the ex-convicts she helps, Warren-Robbins, 60, is “Mom,” who offers lots of hugs, smiles and words of encouragement, wit and wisdom for her girls.
Warren-Robbins introduces one of her girls, ex-convict Tina Ramirez: “She used to be the drug queen of North County and now she’s a prayer warrior.” Ramirez, 48, was in and out of jail for 20 years, and has fought substance abuse since her mother started giving her alcohol in her bottle when she was 2. She’s been out of jail for six years and clean and sober the same amount of time, but it was only 6 1/2 years ago that she met Jesus, the same day that she met Warren-Robbins. “Girls in jail told me about a pastor and I wasn’t too happy if it were a man,” Ramirez said. “I don’t think I would have talked to her if it were a man, but I felt more comfortable. Then I decided to accept the Lord. Then doors started opening.”
Warren-Robbins has averaged six conversions a week over the seven years she’s been ministering to women in jails. She said it all began with a tiny one-on-one visit she held with a woman in jail back in August 1994.
A big key to her successful ministry is her non-critical spirit, said Warren-Robbins. “I know it’s not human,” she said. “It’s a gift from God. Everybody does something for a reason. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s a response. Many times I just sit quietly and lean forward and I just listen and I’m quiet and soft spoken and that’s not like me. I just let the women be, which gives them a sense of mutual trust. We have ups and downs, but we must trust. Many haven’t been able to trust anyone, not even God. I point out that they do have value, and a place to grow.”
The 900-some juvenile detainees in the county receive spiritual guidance from chaplains including the Rev. Chuck Workman, who recruits, trains and coordinates 130 religious volunteers at the county’s five juvenile detention institutions. “We have an excellent program with a lot of dedicated people who have been involved a long time,” Workman said. Workman said he spends about 60 percent of his time counseling juvenile hall residents upon request. The only full-time clergy with the juvenile program, Workman is paid by an evangelical Christian organization called the Southwest Leadership Council.
To connect the county’s 100 to 120 faith-based prison ministries, Lyons helped form an umbrella ministry called All Care Prison Ministry. All Care also encourages Christians and churches to support prison and jail chaplains financially and with prayer. Lyons said he would like to see a volunteer come forward to create and maintain a prayer list for the ministries. Most prison ministries are anxious to supply churches with speakers to bring to the congregation a vision for prison, jail and re-entry ministry.
Anyone interested in prison, jail and re-entry ministries is invited to attend All Care’s third networking luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 28 at College Avenue Baptist Church in San Diego. The luncheon is free, but donations will be accepted. RSVP by Sept. 19 to Lyons at (619) 426-4557, or e-mail him at reentry@reentry.org. Readers can educate themselves in prison, jail and re-entry ministries by accessing the Web site, http://www.reentry.org.