We ought to accept a person’s conversion as real until and unless he shows us something different. If a person comes into our congregation and he came from prison, we ought not to make him “prove himself” to us. Rather, we must trust that he is converted and wants to worship in a church that teaches the truth.

On February 29, 2004, I walked into Sierra View Presbyterian Church in Fresno, Calif. This was ten days after I walked out of the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, Calif. I had never been in a Reformed/Presbyterian church before, and I didn’t know what to expect. After the service, I asked the pastor if I could call him that evening. I called him that night and the conversation went something like this:

“Pastor Peterson, my name is Mark Casson and I just got out of prison after more than fifteen years of incarceration. Is it OK if I come to your church for worship?” Pastor Peterson took a few seconds (which seemed like a few minutes to me), and his reply shocked me: “Sure; why are you asking?” I explained that perhaps people in his congregation wouldn’t want someone like me, someone who had been convicted of a violent crime, in their congregation. Again, Pastor Peterson’s reply shocked me. He said: “Keep coming back. If people in this church have a problem with it and leave, then they really don’t understand grace and it will be a better place without them.”

I continued attending Sierra View, and my wife and I became members there that fall. In 2006, I was called to serve as a ruling elder, and I served that congregation until my family moved away in 2013. That church family was exactly what I needed when I was released. They loved me and worked with me throughout my five years of high-control parole, the births of my daughters, and my calling to serve the Presbyterian Church in America’s director of prison ministry.

I was the first of many returning citizens who walked through the doors of Sierra View. From 2004 through 2013, the church had no fewer than five former prisoners welcomed into her midst. That may not seem like a lot, but for a church that had between fifty and 120 members, it was remarkable. What follows are a few of the things we learned along the way.

In Luke 10:25–37, we see that the second great commandment is to love “your neighbor as yourself” (v. 27). The lawyer in the story goes on to ask, “Who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). This is a pertinent question we must ask. What if a person comes to church who is an ex-felon? Are we required to simply love a person despite his past? What about ex-prisoners who committed an especially grievous crime such as murder or a sexual offense? Certainly, we don’t have to love those people, do we? I believe the short answer is yes.

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