THE TRUTH ABOUT PRISON MINISTRY

BY CLAIRE BONHAM

What is truth? That's a pretty difficult thing to answer sometimes. As Christians, we believe that there is a certain kind of truth - the greatest truth of all - that is the difference between life and death, freedom and slavery. Jesus says ‘I am the way, the truth and the life'. It doesn't get any more truthful than that.

I think there are a couple of truths that can be thought about in relation to prison ministry:

1^st truth - everyone is redeemable. If Jesus' death on the cross was for every one of us, we need to recognise that all prisoners are redeemable and loved by God. In a video for Prison Fellowship, James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool and Bishop for Prisons, draws on one of the New Testament's best known stories (the parable of the Prodigal Son) to stress that the ‘redeeming ability of the offender' is what is at stake for those involved in prison ministry.

He says: ‘Christians really need to look again at the Parable of the Prodigal Son and look practically at the context of this story [that Jesus told] because Jesus was confronted with people who were outraged at the fact that he was spending his own time with, what we would call today, the low life...'

Bishop James goes on ‘So he tells this story of the Prodigal Son, which, in effect, is about the redeeming ability of the offender; and the point that I love most in the story is when the good father pleads with the elder brother to come into the party. In effect, this is God pleading with us to believe in the redeeming ability of the offender.'

2^nd truth - everyone can be forgiven, whatever they have done. For prisoners, one of the hardest things to do is recognise their wrong doing, and the impact that their crimes have had on others. Prison Fellowship's restorative justice course, Sycamore Tree, helps prisoners to come to terms with their offending behaviour and to say sorry. For some prisoners, this is a step towards recognising the truth of God's forgiveness, that they could be loved by God after what they have done.

One offender says that recognising God's love and understanding how He can forgive is one of the hardest hurdles to overcome. He says that "it's hard to know the love and forgiveness of God when we struggle to love and forgive ourselves"... However, when prisoners are able to recognise this truth of forgiveness, then they know that ‘the truth will set you free'. Many prisoners say the only way they could be truly ‘free' was by being imprisoned.

Kathryn, a Prison Fellowship volunteer explains that ‘prison is the place to be. For any Christian who wants to see God at work, go into prison, because I had this thought that I might be taking God into prison, but he was alive and well already in the prison.' We have a chance to be part of this transformation from spiritual captivity to freedom, by praying for God's truth to be revealed in the hearts of prisoners, and by going into prisons and showing this freedom we have in Christ. Or in other words, as Rob Bell recently said, ‘truth is being able to see what you believe in action'.

Claire Bonham is the Head of volunteering at Prison Fellowship. Through its volunteers, Prison Fellowship works for the restoration of the lives of prisoners and victims, and their families. We support these groups in practical ways and help to break the cycle of reoffending. Prison Fellowship now has over 1,400 volunteers in England and Wales and is represented in almost all of the prisons in the country. For more information, visit www.pfew.org.uk.

Source: Prayer for Today