The mission of the church is to GO! Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” We are sent into the world to seek and to save the lost just like Jesus was. The posture of a church that is following Jesus Christ is not “You’ll Come” on a big sign in the front yard, it is “we’d better get GO-ing” – as we walk across the side yard to our neighbors.
For six years, our KAIROS team has been GO-ing to a Level 5 Maximum Security prison called Wallens Ridge State Prison (WRSP) in Big Stone Gap – way down in SW Virginia. Twice a year we’ve done a 4-day mission inside the prison and once a month we return to disciple them.
The result? Over the last 6 years about 500 men have participated in KAIROS, and the Lord has planted a church inside a maximum security prison. Following Jesus is not easy, but it is certainly not boring! Many of our ‘graduates’ have been transferred to other prisons (good behavior often secures a transfer to a lower security level). So, just like us, these men also are being ‘sent‘ by Jesus.
On our second mission, the Sergeant told us he had recruited “the worst of the worst. Let’s see if the gospel can change these men!” It did. In thirty years of gospel ministry, I’ve never seen anything like it! At the end of the weekend, the residents and team members formed a huge circle in the Gym, all interlocked at the shoulders like a huge black and white piano keyboard-in-the-round and sang Hallelujah!
So the Sergeant kept recruiting men for KAIROS and the prison began to change. We noticed the change. One man always tells me when he sees me: “Tom, I pray for you every day”. I believe him and I begin to wonder: ‘Who’s discipling who now?’ The Warden and many of the Officers (COs) noticed the change.
Last Spring a large number of residents were transferred within the prison system and and a number of men from Red Onion (A Supermax Level 6 facility) were transferred to a new Supermax section at WRSP. From our perspective, it was God’s answer to our prayers to create new opportunities to reach these men with the gospel. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”.
In late September of this year, we found ourselves on mission again at WRSP and asked permission to deliver cookies to ALL the men in the prison – including the new Supermax section. When Saturday came, we still weren’t sure whether we’d be allowed in.
After the long day of mission, we had our Team meeting and our supper and then some of us headed back up the mountain to deliver cookies. We packed into the shift commander’s office while he assembled COs to go with us.
“Will we be allowed in the Supermax?” “I don’t know”, he said at first, and then as he scanned his security monitors he noticed that some men were still out in the common areas in other pods, so he suddenly said, “Okay, why don’t you guys actually START in the Supermax? They’re already locked down. Just be careful; let the officers hand the cookies through the door slots.”
You have to understand: no one ‘visits’ these men. No one is allowed back there except COs and Medics. But 12 white men from Roanoke, in street clothes, were slowly going door-to-door in the Supermax delivering cookies in the name of Christ to men whom the world had forgotten.
We proceeded slowly, cell by cell, with the guards being very careful. We couldn’t all stand in front of one door, so some began to go ahead to talk with the men in the next cells through their doors. Sometimes we would ask them, “Can we pray for you?”. None of the men refused our offer of prayer.
I remember it vividly: inside all that gray concrete and blue steel, I would place my hand on the small window slit in their doors, they’d bow their heads, close their eyes (REALLY!) and I would pray for their safety, for their loved ones and for their hearts and close by praying the name of Jesus over them. At the “Amen”, they would slowly raise their heads and a broad smile would spread across their faces. As we moved on to the next cell, many of them would shout after us: “Man, you have no idea what this means to us, for you guys to come back here.” And then our own benediction would get flung back at us: “God bless you guys!”
Handing out cookies and bringing the love of Jesus to prisoners is not a panacea. There is real darkness on the mountain that doesn’t yield easily to the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God; it never does. But we didn’t pack Jesus up and take Him down the mountain with us as we got in our cars and drove away. Every Saturday night Jesus is still there. “It’s not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I came to seek and to save that which is lost.”
Tom Oster
Lead Pastor, Christ Our Redeemer Church
(540)915-0897 – www.christourredeemer.com