“I would definitely encourage the pastor to pray first and foremost and then, secondly, go and visit a prison in his local area. We’d definitely love for him to sign up with Prison Fellowship to get a tour of prison and visit one of our academies, would love that,” Wilson answered. “But definitely pray. Go inside of a prison and pray and ask God to clear his mind, open up his heart, so he can receive whatever it is that God is telling him to do regarding prison ministry.”
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Wilson noted that the Bible instructs believers “to continue to remember those that are in prison. And [God] says that because he wants us to know that his people are in prison.”
“And in order for his people to be able to experience freedom on the inside,” Wilson said, “we as the church need to go and encounter Jesus with our brothers and sisters that’s incarcerated. People in prison are still people.”
“And so there’s many parts of the body, but there’s only one body,” Wilson added, “and the prison population is part of the body of Christ.”
Both Wilson and Rice-Minus suggested that churches interested in getting involved in prison ministry start with Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program, which partners with churches to provide Christmas gifts to children on behalf of their incarcerated parents.
“A lot of churches, they want service projects around Christmas time, and so it’s a natural entry point to say, ‘You know, would you take on kids who are local to your community, who have a mom or dad behind bars?’” Rice-Minus said. “‘And would your congregation step up, provide gifts, not on behalf of you or your church, but actually on behalf of their incarcerated mom or dad?’”
Church volunteers provide the gifts on behalf of the incarcerated parents, wrap the gifts, and include a message from the parents. Then the churches either host a party for the children or deliver the gifts to the children’s homes. The Angel Tree program was pivotal in helping to restore Wilson’s relationship with his son when Wilson was in prison.
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Prison Fellowship has a number of other opportunities for churches to serve apart from Angel Tree, and Angel Tree serves children throughout the entire year, not just during the Christmas season. To church leaders in particular, Rice-Minus suggested Prison Fellowship’s Restore Conference, which will be in Washington, D.C., Sept. 15-16. The conference “really speaks to all of these opportunities and how to go deeper,” she said.
