I Was in Prison 

                

 

Open Heart:

We live in a country gone mad on sending people to prison. Today 445 out of every 100,000 Americans are in prison. In Japan only 36 out of that  number are in prison.

Rehabilitation has moderate success: Prison cuts people off from love and support of family, does not offer enough in the way of substance-abuse treatment.  Educational opportunities need to be strengthened.

The goals of prisons are to protect society and to reduce crime; our system might help with the first, but the second is not happening.

Many prisoners never have a single visitor and few churches have any active ministries within Kansas jails and prisons. Yet, imprisoned men and women hunger and thirst for a simple gesture of care - someone who will grieve with their losses, over a past where they made wrong decisions, someone who will love in spite of human brokenness, someone who believes in new beginning and forgiveness.

This requires a step out of your comfort zone.  Yet it is clear God loves it when we do that.

Open Mind:

Matthew 25:35-36: I was in prison and you visited me.

Luke 4:18-19: The spirit of the Lord is upon me.  What is impossible for us to do, is possible for God. 

Open Doors: 

  • Support the current programs like the one run by the United Methodist Women of the Kansas East Conference. Your UMW may want to take a meal to Camp Chippewa where women prisoners get to spend time with their families, volunteer to drive a child to the camp retreat to meet his/her mother, or help with the Parenting Classes at the correctional facilities.

  • Consider sponsorship of one prisoner in one of our state correctional institutions: visit them on Sunday.

  • Talk to the Chaplain at one of the correctional institutions and see if a group might visit for Bible Study, playing chess, or some other activity.

  • Promote a GED program in your county jail, take Bibles (sealed and unopened) to prisoners.

  • Distribute packages of Christmas cards to prisoners so they will have some to send to their families.

  • Sponsor a concert at the jail: vocal or bell choirs could go to the jail.

  • Pastors may regularly want to take communion to the county jail to see if anyone wishes to receive it.

  • Kansas correctional institutions are near you: El Dorado, Lansing, Topeka, Winfield, Hutchinson, Ellsworth, Norton, Larned, and Ossawatomie.  Most county seats of large Kansas towns have a place for your church to live out your call to visit.

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