Why I like my church

Dear Prayer Partners,

I just had a conversation out on the track with an inmate. When he told me his story, I realized why I like my church.

His name is Jonathon Shorter. Evidently it is a big name in Kentucky and that part of the country. There is aShorter College, a town named Shorter and streets named Shorter.

John Shorter pulled up along side me on the track and this is how the conversation started. I had never met John, I saw him in a Bible study one night but never met him. John just blurted out to me, "You know that a little Mexican dog can kill a Doberman?" I said, "No". He said when the Doberman swallows them they get stuck in their throat". I don't know if that was a planned opener or not, but that's John.

John's story was that he was working for Ford Motor Company as a robotics engineer. He was gone almost all the time and his family was under stress so he quit and went to UPS as a hazards material inspector. He has a wife and three children with the oldest being sixteen and the youngest eight. He said he did a really stupid and foolish thing. In opening material he found stamp machines that validate passports. He stole one and sold it for $5,000. Over a period of time he stole five more. The State turned it over to the Federal. They caught him with a hidden camera on the inside of a truck and saw him opening boxes. He was in jail 18 months before trial. He plead guilty and got a fifteen-year sentence.

    John said he has not seen his wife or children since he went to jail. His pastor went past the jail every day as he went to and from church, but in the year and a half there, he only saw his pastor three times. His wife is very angry at him and has left him. He hasn't seen his children again since that day. His pastor said he would appear for him and be a character witness. He didn't show. He said, "I went to that church for nine years. I tithed there. I always had my kids at all the church events. I sent the pastor a letter and apologized for what I had done. I asked him for help to try to get my family together or to help me to see my kids. I haven't even got a picture of my kids. My whole family has rejected me except two uncles." He said, "I have nobody".

    John does not have cancer. He is here as an orderly up on the fifth floor where men go to die. He said the nurses barely do their job. They are only interested in doing their job with the least amount of work. He said the inmates there don't get visits, hardly any of them. He said, "I tell them I'm going to try to be to you what I wished I had for me. This is the way I'm going to try to find peace".

    I tell you this because John's is not an isolated story. I have heard this from guys about their church way too much, particularly with churches that tend to have a legalistic view toward life. I think, how different my experience is. I have received so much grace, love and acceptance from my church. I get email's of encouragement.

Let me tell you why visits and email's are so important. For me I have more people who want to visit than I have room on my visitors list, but I can receive unlimited email's and I do. The reason they are so important to a prisoner is that in prison and through the justice system you are scorned. You reach the point that you expect people to respond negatively toward you. It means that if you don't hear from people you assume they think badly about you. Prison really has a stigma. Not only for the inmate but for the families. I know so many spouses that have lost their jobs, even volunteer Sunday School jobs because their husband is in prison. It is very hard on families even when they are accepted well. I'm sure this is why the Lord made such a point about, "When I was in prison, you visited me". By the time men get out of prison they are filled with fear of meeting the world again. They are broke, in most cases their families are gone, they have a history where they can only get a minimal job if any. Their lives are really ruined.

     It makes me appreciate so much how my family has responded to me, how you people are responding to my family, and the acceptance I feel from your email's. To me a few lines on an email is like a visit. It tells me you don't think of me in the way most people think of a prisoner.

    When I walk into a new place, like the first place I walked into Duluth, I felt I was walking in on a bunch of bad, undesirable people. After three years I realize that they are not as bad as I thought, and I really am no better than they. I look the same, eat the same, have the same rules they do. I'm inmate number 14451-041.

    My first days at Butner it was the same shocking feeling. Everyone looked terrible to me. different from the guys in Duluth but older, sicker, kind of like the walking dead. I've adjusted. I feel very much like one of them.

    Jan and Tom just drove two days to be with me. Jan will move in and stay. that is very unusual. I came to the unit tonight and I had 12 email's. My cell mate gets mad at me because I get so much mail. I average two letters a day. I feel so blessed. It makes my life completely different.

    I don't get visits from my pastors. I haven't come to expect that. It isn't really my view that that needs to be the pastor's job. Email's would be nice but it doesn't seem to fall into the envelope of what pastors do. I'm not bothered by that, not that I agree with it, but I'm not bothered by that. My view is that a pastor should not be what makes a church. Unfortunately most churches live from pastor to pastor hoping the next one is the one whose going to really make it happen. I find it's the people that make it happen. In my church i think there is really deep level of love and acceptance. To me that is the church.

    The most important ministers in my life, to shape my life, are not men that I pick as friends. I really like John Piper and  O.K. Sprout. I admire their work and they have really shaped me. I have been to multi-day conferences under both of them. I have never introduced myself or shaken the hand of either man. I thought about it, waited for a while to do it, but they were always busy. I wasn't sure they would be particularly happy to meet me anyway. I was not offended by them, just didn't pick them because of their personalities.

   I felt about Jeff Reed the same way. I have been so shaped by Jeff's work. I love his work and would use the tools I have from his work for the rest of my life. I spoke in Jeff's own church and said the same thing in front of the congregation. Everyone laughed because they know Jeff is not a warm fussy person. They don't come there for warm and fussy, but they are coming to become established in their faith, families, and the church. All pastors are human, they all have flaws. We can't expect perfection. I just wish that churches would teach that this is the way it is so that when people get into these places like prison they didn't expect that. It's expecting it and not getting it that hurts the guys so badly.

    John's eyes were welled up with water as we talked. Fifteen years is a long time for him to sit with these thoughts. So sad. So just accept my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all of you who have written and supported me. I know you can't imagine what it means. I hope you never need to find out.

Thankfully,
Bob