I wanted to let a great article from "The Voice" magazine speak for itself....
Prison ministry - Apostolic prophetic prison ministry - Setting The Captives Free
Apostolic and prophetic prison ministry is not only seeing the captives set free - it's seeing the captives saved, delivered, filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesying.
"We had a rapist murderer in one of our meetings," recalls Pastor Jonathan Medley of Holy Light Deliverance Church in Columbus, Ga. "We sang a prophetic song and gave him a prophetic word and it touched him. He came up to the altar, gave his life to Jesus and got delivered from demonic oppression. Today he is active in prison ministry and is the strongest prayer warrior in his ward."
Prison ministries are rising up across the nation to set the captives free. They know that Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. They know that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. And they know that the prisons are a vast harvest field with millions of lost souls.
Indeed, prison ministry is more vital today than ever. United States prisons are filled with some 2.1 million prisoners, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The number of prisoners is rising 3.4 percent each year, with an estimated 488 prison inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents. In fact, more than 6 million people are currently incarcerated, on probation, or on parole in America.
Multiply those figures on a worldwide basis and it is clear to see the need to visit those who are in prison with some Good News. With a keen understanding that many prisoners are eventually released back into society - even those who have committed violent crimes - prison ministers are zealous about reaching them for Christ before the devil has an opportunity to use their lives to kill, steal and destroy anymore.
"Without a moral and spiritual change of heart, released inmates will likely return to temptations, associations, and activities that stimulate criminal actions," says Chuck Colson, founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship, a prison outreach and criminal justice reform organization in Lansdowne, Va. An aide to President Richard Nixon, Colson served time in a federal prison on Watergate-related charges. His experience left him with a passion to target the root causes of crime with faith-based programs.
That's one thing prison ministers have in common: a passion to reach society's persona non grata with the Word of God. Let's face it. God is not always going to give you a prophetic word that brings a murderer to his knees. Getting through to lost souls behind steel bars requires a different approach than sharing God's plan with a wealthy real estate investor, a rebellious teen or an average American housewife. Reaching illicit risk takers demands persistence, transparency, and an understanding of the criminal mind, knowing that these convicts donning county blues crave peace of mind as much as literal freedom.
"People who have been in prison two or three times are the easiest to reach," says Richard Bland, co-founder of United Prison Ministries (UPM) in Verbana, Ala. UPM visits ministries with the Gospel and leaves them with spiritual materials. By providing them with spiritual food, he believes the Holy Spirit can change their hearts. His mission is to give them a choice.
"I tell them to try my God for 90 days. If they aren't happy, I tell them, they can take their misery back if they want to," Bland says. "When you give them the truth head on - what the Bible says - instead of preaching to them, they'll listen. They are risk takers. They have nothing to lose."
One of Bland�s tactics is to ask the question �Who committed the first sin?� Most people say Adam and Eve. So he takes them to 1 John 3:8, which shows them, �He who does what is sinful is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.� That simple exercise breaks through the �I already know this stuff� mentality that keeps them in deception, Bland explains, and they begin to realize that much of what they thought they knew about Jesus isn�t true. From there He shares the Word of God and the plan for salvation. The Holy Spirit takes over and miracles of rebirth cause angels in heaven to rejoice.
�Prisoners don�t want someone to talk high and holy to them. They want pure honesty. When we provide them with that honesty they open up,� Medley affirms. �You have to mingle with the prisoners, listen to them when they share about their lives and truly minister to their needs � not just preach a sermon and get out of there. They�ve seen too much of that already. It�s not about doing a good work. It�s about changing lives.�
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