How healthy it is to share a cellblock with a spiritual elder, to be under their accountability when you are struggling with sin, or to have an abundance of time to spend with a new believer you are discipling! For its transparency and the time together it allows, the prison environment is fertile ground for deep discipleship.

“You just threw your life away.”

I heard these words many times during the two years I awaited trial in a Fort Worth jail. The words missed the point. The life I threw away was not my own.

Thirty years ago, as a high school senior with two military academy appointments, I bludgeoned and shot a harmless sixteen-year-old friend. I am confused to this day as to what motivated me to do it. I still shake my head in disbelief. Somehow, I thought her death would placate another girl, my fiancée and partner in crime.

Nine months later I was arrested and charged with murder. Inexplicably, I pled not guilty. Despite my refusal to take responsibility, the victim’s parents graciously refused to request the death penalty. I was convicted and sentenced to a minimum of forty years in prison. Four years later I ended my appeals and admitted my guilt. I was a twenty-four-year-old atheist with a life sentence and a striking resemblance to the unbelievers described in Romans 1:30–31: “slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

God’s grace and my family’s prayers protected me from further self-destruction through the following decade. While I earned a B.S. in sociology and worked in a prison factory as a draftsman, I selfishly pursued relationships with the curious women who wrote to me.

Drawn by the Spirit

In 2009 I met Charlotte, a witty, pretty, and vulnerable professing Christian who was undeterred by my atheism. I encouraged her advances, and within months we were in love and talking about marriage. My sister was the lone voice of opposition to a union that served my interests with little benefit to Charlotte. Although I ignored wise counsel and married her, the time before and after our 2010 wedding was a season of spiritual awakening for me.

Three clues emerged that the Holy Spirit was drawing me to place my faith in Jesus Christ. First, my praying mother persuaded me to start reading the Bible, if only out of love for Charlotte. I did. Unlike my childhood exposure to God’s Word, which was mandatory and led me to try to manipulate God to my advantage, this time I was sincerely and hopefully seeking.

My second clue came when I read a pamphlet that defended the historicity of the Gospels. Previously the claim that Jesus lived, died, and rose again fell on a hard heart. Now I was awakened to the reality and reliability of God’s Word.

My third clue came when I began to be more sensitive to Charlotte’s needs than my own. During the weeks following our marriage, I realized how little I had to offer her. With my worldview of humanism and materialism, I was cynical and selfish. I had left behind a series of broken lives and relationships, and I had little hope that the future would be different. Something had to change. It had to be me.

Charlotte and I married in August, and in September I went to the prison chapel where I heard the gospel proclaimed. I went freely, silently praying for help to overcome unbelief, aware of the futility of my atheism, and hopeful that in this surrender the God who made both me and my new wife would mercifully remake me into a loving husband and son. In that moment, I was not aware of the scope of my depravity, nor did I have every doubt answered, nor did my heart grow warm inside. I simply knew I needed the mercy of Christ’s cross.

I prayed, “God, I have denied you for ten years. If it takes ten years to get my answers, I’ll still follow Jesus.” I called Charlotte and said, “I’m ready to build our marriage on the Word of God.”

Baptized and Building Healthy Churches

The next month I was baptized by the prison chaplain and began a year of discipleship under inmate elders. That same month state prison officials announced a partnership with the non-profit Heart of Texas Foundation and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Under this arrangement, forty prisoners per year were selected for a bachelor’s program that would prepare them to serve as “field ministers.” Two years after I turned to Jesus in faith and repentance, I was selected to attend this seminary. In May 2017, I graduated and was sent to preach the gospel at a prison near Wichita Falls.

I threw my life away in sin, but Jesus gave it back to me when he saved me.

My first ministry assignment lasted eight years. Along the way I experienced many challenges that come with building a healthy church in prison. Since I was convinced that 9Marks resources were biblical, I began to examine our weekly gathering against each mark of church health. Though it’s an unusual context, my experience has proven to me that healthy churches can be built even within the walls of a prison.

Allow me, then, to identify three traits of prison churches, and then I’ll share some ways that I’ve tried to promote the biblical marks of a healthy church in this unique context.

Prison Churches Have Ecumenical Gatherings

Texas prison chaplains must facilitate one weekly service for Protestant inmates, which means that Baptists worship alongside our brothers from Methodist, Pentecostal, and non-denominational backgrounds. Resident inmates serve as music ministers and ushers, while guest volunteers, inmates, and the chaplain himself handle the preaching. Already you see how a prison church looks different than most other churches on the outside.

However, what may seem like a recipe for confusion can provide these churches an opportunity to display unity in their core beliefs. To build a church in this setting, I appeal to the congregation’s shared convictions concerning their love for God’s Word and their reverence for the gospel.

The Effectiveness of Expositional Preaching

Expositional preaching in particular allows ministers to present God’s Word in a clear and straightforward manner. Prisoners in our church know the difference between text-driven and testimony-driven sermons, and they want the Bible. Sadly, the men (and women) who volunteer to preach in prison must pass security checks, not theological ones. Although the chaplain is responsible to screen the guest volunteers, the sermon’s method and content typically receive little oversight. And the prisoners rarely know the text beforehand and often don’t know the preacher.

While this situation is far from ideal, I have worked for chaplains who are open to showing greater discernment regarding who comes in and what they say.

Read More