Stories tagged with: prison ministry

• Jail ministry reaches out to inmates' children

  by Kendra Peek/Kentucky Today, posted Monday, July 10, 2017 (7 years ago)

  A new ministry at the Boyle County Detention Center in Kentucky is aimed not at those who are incarcerated, but at their children -- the ones who often suffer most when parents are behind bars. Read More

• ERLC helps lead call for justice reform

  by Tom Strode, posted Thursday, June 22, 2017 (7 years ago)

  The Southern Baptist Convention's ethics entity has joined with Prison Fellowship and other organizations in an appeal to Christians to work for a "fair and redemptive" justice system in the world's leading incarcerating country. Read More

• Prison's 'field ministers' see wide-ranging impact

  by Alex Sibley, posted Monday, March 13, 2017 (7 years ago)

  

  Photo by Matheus Oliveira

  HUNTSVILLE, Texas (BP) -- "I've been in prison before," Michael Rios humbly reflects. "I came in when I was very young. I had the right ideas, I had the right intents: get out, get married, have a life."

  Dressed in a white prison uniform, Rios speaks slowly but directly, his tattooed hands slowly gesturing to accentuate his words. He has been in prison longer than some of his fellow inmates have even been alive. Though Rios had the "right intents," bad choices kept him locked up, and he is now serving a life sentence. Read More

• Inmate's gender transition said to show ministry need

  by David Roach, posted Friday, January 13, 2017 (7 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock/License purchase required

  SACRAMENTO, Calif. (BP) -- The first government-funded gender reassignment surgery for a prison inmate in the U.S. has been cited as evidence of the need to address gender identity struggles in prison ministry.

  Shiloh Quine, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without parole, is recovering from male-to-female gender reassignment surgery funded by the state of California, The Washington Post reported Jan. 10. Read More

• Razor wire & steel door give way to layman's heart

  by Chris Turner/Tennessee Baptist and Reflector, posted Thursday, September 15, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo by David LaMar

  DANDRIDGE, Tenn. (BP) -- It is a familiar routine. First there is the sound of an obnoxious buzzer, then the sudden firing of a heavy deadbolt that unlocks the gray steel door separating freedom from incarceration. The closing slam reverberates down the gray cinderblock hall sending an authoritative reminder that freedom is not an option. Read More

• Bicycle ministry steering lives toward recovery

  by Eric Reed and Morgan Jackson, posted Wednesday, July 27, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo by Eric Reed

  HERRIN, Ill. (BP) -- "Pastor Hurricane! Pastor Hurricane! Me next!" a 9-year-old redhead shouted.

  "That's not his name, Dominic! That's his church," the boy's mother chided. "He's Pastor Gee."

  "Me, me, Pastor Gee!" Dominic chanted. He wanted his turn on the bicycle training path.

  On a warm day behind the Herrin House of Hope soup kitchen and thrift shop, pastor Jeffrey Gee of Hurricane Memorial Baptist Church in Herrin, Ill., and several volunteers taught children bike safety, complete with helmets and a course lined with orange traffic cones. The bikes they rode were second-hand, but they had been completely repaired and spruced up in the church's bike shop. It's all part of Gee's plan to keep the kids out of trouble, and at the same time teach former convicts a trade to keep them from returning to prison. Read More

• Released inmates receive help with 'new start'

  by Grace Thornton/The Alabama Baptist, posted Tuesday, May 31, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo courtesy of Shepherd's Fold

  BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP) -- Imagine what it's like to go decades having someone else make all your decisions for you from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.

  Then imagine -- overnight -- having to start making thousands of decisions a day.

  That's the reality of inmates released from Alabama's prisons every year and it's not an easy thing to process, said Jack Hausen, director of Shepherd's Fold, a ministry that helps recently released men and women re-enter society after ... Read More

• Prison ministries encourage personal, spiritual growth

  by Carrie Brown , posted Tuesday, May 31, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo from Morguefile.com

  WETUMPKA, Ala. (BP) -- When an inmate enters Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Ala., she loses her old life. But in Alicia Smallwood's eyes, she also gains an opportunity for a new life in Christ regardless of past or present circumstances. 

  "She (the inmate) can't see her kids, can't help the person who is taking care of them. She thinks she has lost everything," said Smallwood, a chaplain. "I tell her that God has cleared her mind of drugs, of men, of stealing. In here it's just her and God, and it's up to her whether she takes advantage of that." 

  In prisons throughout Alabama, chaplains and ministry volunteers share the same message of hope and freedom in Jesus Christ that pastors preach from the pulpit every Sunday. In the setting of a prison, the message of forgiveness of sins is a powerful one, Smallwood said. Not every inmate wants to hear it, but that doesn't stop Smallwood and other Christian chaplains from trying. Read More

• Prison ministry focus among pastors, churches studied

  by Bob Smietana, posted Tuesday, May 24, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  NASHVILLE (BP) -- While most Protestant pastors visit correctional facilities and want to help prisoners and their families, their churches often lack the training or finances to run an effective prison ministry.

   

  Those are among the findings of a new phone survey of 1,000 Protestant senior pastors from LifeWay Research. Read More

• David Williams finds new calling after Senate career

  by Kristen Lowry/Kentucky Today , posted Wednesday, January 13, 2016 (8 years ago)

  

  Photo by Kristen Lowry/Kentucky Today

  BURKESVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- A crowd of men in orange pants and white T-shirts gathered around as David Williams handed bags filled with simple gifts through the metal bars of a southern Kentucky jail.

  "All of us have done some things we are not proud of," he told them during a Christmas Day visit to the facility. "And your sin is no worse than mine." Read More