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It has been very hard serving incarcerated Christian men here in the Northwest and not being able to spiritually father the sons I make among them beyond prison walls. Also, a frustration and regret is not being able to offer or direct releasing Christian inmates to much in the way of Christian run transitional housing and resources. As it concerns spiritually fathering the many men as sons I have served on lockdown, up until the present moment the Lord has commanded me to direct those that release to the churches and pastors they find (supposedly led by Him) to pick up where I left off as I have written is their responsibility1 in an attempt to build cooperation and avoid any conflict.2
Cooperating with willing churches when it is possible is important to this Ministry because the men are able to see a unity of Kingdom purpose and experience a consistency of biblical teaching they need to help them stay on track after prison. So sadly, there are not many churches I can enthusiastically recommend and of course, keeping it real, some released Christian men do not wish to continue growing in them. Nevertheless, for the incarcerated Christian men that would benefit from Bible teaching, Kingdom focused churches when they release, I wrote this edited 2013 Commentary to challenge these churches to step up to do more for them by way of intentional transitional ministry.
Originally Published July 2013
Concern for the eternal souls of men initially took our Ministry into the prisons to preach the uncompromised Gospel of Jesus Christ and bring strong man of God instruction that many might be saved and taught especially from among the black American community.3 Over the years, however, we have painfully discovered that there is a shameful lack of transitional help from the Christian community and churches many of our incarcerated brethren from all hues must cope with upon release. While there are a number of excellent ministries laboring to turn this around, relatively few churches are interested in this admittedly at times messy and risky business.
I write to remind us all that our Lord’s messianic mandate which every real Christian also shares is not only “to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound,” but also to minister to Him by ministering to “the least of these” He calls “My brethren,” (Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 25:31-40, NKJV). Now, I know that some of the incarcerated brethren of Jesus are guilty of some serious and even repulsive crimes. They were guilty before God and man. In the case of our God, they have received forgiveness upon their heartfelt confession and repentance (Psalm 51:1-17; 1 John 1:9-2:2) and endure His punishment through man by way of prison.
Nevertheless, if God--who is the ultimate Judge--sees fit to release men who have served their punishment back into society (Psalm 146:7c), it becomes necessary particularly for the Body of Christ to do all that we can to help our brothers (and sisters) make a smooth transition. This does not mean that the churches replace the important role family and the larger community has in doing their respective parts. However, we in Christ have a unique role as spiritual family that embraces our brother in love and helps meet his basic spiritual and tangible needs until he is able to get on his feet to support himself. Churches are equipped by God for such a ministry as this (Acts 2:38-47).
Now, all of the reasons most churches do not want to get involved with jail, prison and transitional ministry readymade for them by the Lord, only He knows. Apparently, though, He is not accepting those reasons since many others in the work besides this Ministry continues here in the Northwest and nationally to appeal to churches on behalf of incarcerated Christians. Our Ministry still envisions one day bringing willing Portland, Oregon area churches together to raise up an ongoing transitional work that includes a residence for temporary housing after release, services, continuing basic Christian instruction, mentoring and accountability groups.4
We have the collective means to make transitional help available to our Christian brothers that are incarcerated. The issue is will our pastors led by God concerned for the incarcerated give visionary leadership to their congregations to get behind His will? When the Lord in His Word repeatedly stresses His heart for those in prison, Holy Spirit led believers cannot just ignore this. We cannot ignore or escape the fact either that before meeting Christ we were all imprisoned by sin until He set us free! How can we so easily forget or do we actually believe the lie that we are somehow better than those incarcerated?
I tell you the truth from history, present reality and God’s prophetic Word; American Christians are just a relatively short time from experiencing mass incarcerations for the faith! Arrest and imprisonment for the faith as persecution is prominent in the New Testament and to this hour around the earth! It continues until the Lord returns (Mark 13:9-13, 14:43-46; Acts 5:12-18, 16:16-24; Revelation 2:8-11, 13:1-10).5 Shouldn’t we begin to show a little more empathy for the incarcerated and especially those that are Christians now, since many of our number will one day be among them (Hebrews 13:3)? The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read the March 3, 2019 post, The Need For Spiritual Fathering, under the category, The Cause.
2 While a man may have many godly men instruct and speak wisdom into his life, after his own father or seasoned Christian man that led him to Christ, a local church
pastor or his equipped and trusted designee ought to be among the very few authoritative spiritual fathers he has in Christ (1 Corinthians 4:14-17).
3 This Ministry has been conducting its evangelistic outreach, Strong Man Of God Rally since 2009 and through its Strong Man Institute, what became the published
2014 Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study since 2008 in Northwest prisons. Also, the Ministry is carrying out its Books To USA Prisons Project to place copies
of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics in federal and state prison libraries chaplains maintain for inmates in all fifty states.
4 Visit the About Us Page on our Web Site.
5 I write about the reality of Christian suffering for the faith and the need to gear up for it as aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Jesus Christ
in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. It is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the
Strong Man Store. Additionally, I h ave written many blogs discussing this prophetic reality; most recently, Standing In The Evil Day, posted on November 25, 2018,
under the category, Encouragement.
Of the greatest sins manifested among many church leaders today is the arrogance to believe that they can somehow improve upon and expedite God’s program for making and teaching disciples of Jesus Christ! Though ancient now, the methods Christ and His apostles empowered by the Holy Spirit used to make disciples (preaching the Gospel) and teach them to obey God’s whole Word were effective (Mark 1:9-20, 3:13-19, 4:10-12, 33-34, 8:27-38; John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-16, 36-47). Even so, 100% of the people who heard their preaching and teaching did not accept it (John 6:60-71; Acts 4:1-4). Our problem is we want that 100% even if it means doing stuff in the flesh to get them!
The Lord’s approach and example to teaching men as disciples was Self-denying, labor intensive and time consuming. But these are the inescapable realities of spiritual fathering our Lord embraced as well as called, equipped and charged His disciples turned apostles to also do. Church pastors are imperative in the work (John 21:15-17)! Having been a pastor and mentor of boys and men I fully understand the demands especially of time spiritual fathering make on one’s life. However, this is why a pastor equips those he spiritually fathers to do as he does. If he is too busy to do what the Lord has commanded as his priority, then he is too busy! As the Lord leads me to point out in this edited 2013 Commentary, men are being hurt because of disobedience to His commands.
Originally Published September 2013
While our Ministry celebrates every brave incarcerated man that steps out before our Strong Man Of God Rally assemblies to publically pray to receive Christ or rededicate to Him, it saddens me personally to see the great numbers that rededicate. Most of these rededications are men that were Christians before their incarceration for a second or third time. It is certainly true Christians that commit crimes must take personal responsibility for their actions. However, after talking to many of these men it becomes clear that they are not getting the one on one mentoring of a “spiritual father” needed to deepen their walk with Christ in the churches they are members of as I did not early on.1
To be sure, the failure to make committed followers of Christ is a wide spread problem in the churches. Spiritual infancy dominates today in a Western church culture that is more concerned with the numbers than whether members are maturing in Christ. This lack of emphasis on the slow process of making disciples as our Lord commanded is hurting men the most since they are God’s chosen leaders in the home and churches. Many sit and the relative few that serve largely do so as babes in Christ with no intentional plan to disciple them. Once a month meetings and the annual golf tournament are not enough to turn baby Christian men into fiery, maturing disciples of Christ!
As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, teaching his family is a responsibility God assigns every man.2 As the head of the house, a man teaches his wife and children. As a father, he teaches all of the children, but with a special duty to mentor and guide his sons into manhood; his wife, their daughters into womanhood. Beyond their families, aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ imitate Him in taking newborn Christian men under their wing to spiritually father them into maturity. We know this process is slow because our Lord spent more than three years of intensive time with His twelve disciples, then the rest of the lives of those who became faithful apostles (Matthew 4:18-22; John 14:18, 16:12-15).
In the Lord’s “Great Commission,” He commands His disciples to make, baptize and teach new disciples from all of the nations (Matthew 28:19-20). As it concerns teaching, veteran disciples are to teach the new “to observe all things that” Christ had commanded them (vs. 20, NKJV). Teaching what Christ “the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV) commanded entails more than just important doctrines, but also all of the thinking, attitudes and behaviors of Christ-likeness we are also to possess in pleasing God the Father as He did (Philippians 2:5). To this end, the apostle Paul also instructed his spiritual sons to teach and pass on what they had learned to men who would do the same with other men also (2 Timothy 2:1-2; Titus 1:1-9, 2:1-5).
To their shame, not only do many pastors and churches not encourage spiritual fathering or mothering in their ranks today, but too many have no formal discipleship instruction at all much less for newborn Christians in the pews who need the “pure milk of the Word” not the philosophical musings of men (1 Peter 2:1-3, NKJV).3 And for the churches that pride themselves on offering lofty sectarian seminary level courses such as Systematic Theology as sufficient to fulfill Christ’s command to teach especially babes, repent! You are causing them to gag and choke in confusion on what is not even biblically organic, but sinful humanly processed and genetically altered meat (1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:14-16, 3:14-17).
Shame too on you guilty pastors that look down on my work in the prisons as though it were inconsequential when Christ your Judge is recording for Judgment Day how many of the Christians I find there that are members of your churches (Romans 14:10-13; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11)! We salute all of our fellow workers in the prisons filling in what lacks in the churches. To the pastors that need help setting up a discipleship plan for new believers or want to know more about teaching biblical manhood to and spiritually fathering men contact this Ministry.4 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read Part 1 of the August 21, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, instruction. I lament the early lack of spiritual fathering that potentially
could have saved me from many painful failures and shortened the inordinate length of my infancy in Christ in the opening of this post and also that of the October 2,
2016 post, Gifted With A Prophet’s Heart, under the category, Call To Repent.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 See the September 25, 2016 post, A Leadership Caused Failure and Pastors As Developing Christian Men posted on December 17, 2017 both under the category,
Call To Repent.
4 Get contact information for Strong Man Ministries and learn about for example, the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study as an important help in making disciples of
men and teaching them biblical manhood on our Web Site.
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