prison ministry

Last year President Trump signed a proclamation declaring April to be “Second Chance Month.” In the declaration, he said “We celebrate those who have exited the prison system and successfully re-entered society.”

It had never crossed Anthony Ray Hinton's mind either, who as a young 29-year-old man had only known living life as a sheltered and marginalized black man, having grown up in the sunbelt of a little small Alabama town outside of Montgomery. Hinton served 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. He only saw the sun for an hour a day and never knew or even at times believed that he would see the sun as a free man again.

Gateway church announced last Sunday that they have opened up a new campus, and it’s at a nearby prison.

On Friday, Christian artist Lauren Daigle visited the Statesville Correctional Prison in Crest Hill, Illinois and had an unexpected experience.

Last week Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison for drugging women and sexually abusing them. In the last 12 months dozens of men have lost their careers over sexual abuse scandals that began with Harvey Weinstein, the most powerful man in Hollywood.

A national prison ministry is joining forces with conservative and liberal groups to call on church leaders and politicians to give former prisoners a second chance at normal lives.

Most Protestant pastors go to jail, at least for a visit, and want to help prisoners and their families. But their churches often lack the training or finances to run an effective prison ministry.

A former prisoner who spent more than 30 years behind bars has become Saddleback Church’s leader of Mercy Ministry, a ministry to prisoners.

The state of Kentucky has recently become enmeshed in a controversy of religious and sexual freedom because of its requirement to have ministers who volunteer at youth prisons sign a contract asserting that homosexuality is not sinful.