Recently I involved myself in the prison ministry of our Church. I have worked in this area of ministry before and I felt God’s leading, back into this ministry. I feel God’s call on my life to work with, mentor and lead men, not as one who has done it all correctly, but as one who has made many horrendous mistakes. God has taught me lessons through my sin and poor choices. The Scripture says:

Romans 8:28; And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Truly God has taken what Satan intended for evil and has turned it into a force for good. I have perceptions and incite into thought processes and know the signs of coming pitfalls because the hurt, guilt and shame of falling into these choices and behaviours have burned them into my mind. Surrendered to God these weaknesses become sources for God to manifest His power in my life.

II Corinthians 12:9; But He said to me, ” My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

So here I am leading worship in prison each Sunday and a Bible study each Tuesday night. This Tuesday was our first Bible study, so we were getting acquainted. I shared some of the things God has done in my life and even though I have never been arrested for breaking the law of the land, I am just as guilty before God because if we have broken just one of the laws of God ( and we all have ) then we are guilty of the entire law according to Scripture. So we are all the same as far as God is concerned. The only difference between me and the men inside is that there is a social penalty for the laws they violated. We can devastate a life with harsh words, abuse our spouse verbally, and destroy ou children and families with poor choices and bad behaviour and never spend a minuet in jail. We can fail to be the kind of men we should be as christians before the world, fail to show the love of Christ to our brothers, cheat on our wives, live a lie, and destroy everyone we touch and not break the law of man. You get the picture. We are held to a higher standard, not because we are better but because we are His.

So, Tuesday night, I am asking questions of them and answering their questions. I am trying to get a feel for the type of group we have and how to best lead them in study. I asked their permission to find out how many of them profess to be christians and with their approval asked. Almost every hand went up, professing Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

The response took me a little by surprise. I thought there would be some among them who were Christian but among 40 men in prison, I did not expect nearly everyone. Granted there could be some who felt some pressure to respond because of the environment or the dynamics at work socially there. Some my hold a different definition of the terms used to describe the salvation experience, Even so this is something worth looking at. How many of these men were christians before coming to prison? If even half of this group were christians before prison, what does that say about the Church and how we lead, mentor  and relate to each other as men of God? Somewhere somehow we are missing it.

I understand and believe we are all individually accountable for our action. We are responsible for the choices we make and for our own salvation and spiritual developement. If we choose to isolate ourselves, avoid God’s people, take no intentional action to grow in the Lord etc. bad things will happen. But I also believe we as christian men who do seek God’s presence in our lives and are surrendered to Him, have a responsibility to be vigilent and sensitive to those men in our circles of influence, especially brothers in Christ, to step into their lives and speak truth to them when we see signs of falling away, depression or anything that might indicate the need for mentor leadership. After all the number one evidence of a good mentor leader is that we make everyone around us better.

It is time for a change. This is not new or original with me. Our Men’s group leader at Church has been teaching on this subject for several months and it is changing the men’s culture in our Church. Men have been stepping up to take leadership roles in various ministries of the Church. We have allowed ourselves to draw closer to one another and given permission to allow our brothers to speak into our lives to question and encourage one another. More than an accountability partner, more than another small group. All of these things are good but we are after more. We want to develop a culture, hopefully that will spread beyond our Church, where we mentor, lead one another throughout our circles of influence that becomes perpetual and self developing to include the next generation of men as well.

I want to challenge every man who reads this to consider starting a conversation about this in your own Church or work place, family members and see how we can help each other be better men.

Some great resources for learning more about how to develop this kind of environment  would be  the Bible of course but along with that Toney Dungy’s Book The Mentor Leader,  also  there are books by John Eldridge that will get you off to a great start. Remember it all starts with a conversation, Wouldn’t it be great if we could reach these inmates before they become inmates, to provide encouragement and leadership from other men who love them like Jesus…..Just a thought.