The Progress

In 1981 the economy was not strong, and the aerospace firm with which I was employed was downsizing. My wife, Marlene, and I were not certain that we wanted to move away from our families and church in the Grand Rapids, Mich., area. We said that if we could move to an area where there was a sound, conservative, psalm-singing Reformed church, we would consider it.

I received a call to interview at a small electronics and development firm in Lafayette, Ind. Since there was a Reformed Presbyterian Church nearby, we felt compelled to take a look. After receiving a job offer; we came back as a family for a followup visit. This time we spent a weekend in Lafayette, visited the church, looked for a house, and visited the jail. Yes, we visited the jail.

The reason for the jail visit was to meet the sheriff and inquire if there was a possibility of ministering the gospel at his correctional facility. I had been involved with jail ministry in Grand Rapids through Forgotten Man Ministries and had been able, by God’s grace, to start a jail ministry in our church there.

The meeting with the sheriff went extremely well, and he gave his approval for ministry at the jail. Following the meeting, he asked me to make the necessary arrangements with Bill Smith, the Southern Baptist pastor who was acting as the chaplain at the jail. Based on all this, Marlene and I felt confident that, in God’s providence, this was where the Lord was calling us. We moved to Lafayette in March 1981.

Within a couple of weeks, I met with Bill Smith. The next Lord’s Day, I ministered to the inmates at the jail. At that time, the inmate population was 55-65 inmates, and two of us were at the jail for one hour every other Lord’s Day afternoon. After a couple of years, the RP church had three volunteers doing ministry work at the jail. In those days, we ministered in an older jail by walking on the catwalks and speaking to the inmates through the bars.

In 1987, the chaplain from the sponsoring church felt he could no longer be involved due to health problems and asked if the RP church would be interested in taking over the ministry. He felt confident that this was the correct direction. His congregation was not interested in being involved, and, other than him, we were the only volunteers. I presented the idea to our session, and they agreed to support the ministry as an official outreach of our congregation. With the session approval, I made the proposal to the new sheriff. In February 1987 (with great fear and trembling) I became the chaplain of the Tippecanoe County Jail Ministry.

From these humble beginnings we, by God’s grace, have been able to see the ministry expand in the following areas:

• Increased ministry activity from every other week to weekly

• Moved to a new jail that changed the inmate population from 65 to 550 inmates

• Developed specific teams ministering to men and women

• Added Tuesday night Bible studies

• Established Lord’s Day and midweek Bible studies at an additional 200-bed work-release facility

• Created a Christian section in the jail library filled with solid Reformed literature

• Developed a Spanish-language ministry

• Have become the first level of contact by the nursing staff for inmates requesting drugs for depression or anxiety

• Progressed to a ministry team of 21 volunteers, 17 of whom are members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Lafayette.

The Process

Each Lord’s Day afternoon, we assemble as a team in the main lobby of the Tippecanoe County Correctional Facility. Once the team arrives, we go through the steel and glass entry doors leading to the various cell blocks, pass through a metal detector, and proceed to the jail library, where we meet for prayer. After prayer, we disperse to the various cell blocks (pods) in the jail to begin to minister the Word of God to inmates in groups as high as 40 men or women, or even for one-on-one sessions with inmates that are segregated from the rest of the inmate population. We spend 1-2 hours with them, during which we share from the Scriptures, spend time in prayer, and, in some pods, sing the Psalms.

Sometimes we are ministering to those who have been in and out of jail or prison all their lives, and sometimes we are ministering to people who are in trouble for the first time in their lives. Truly it is an awesome responsibility; we are ministering to people who are at the end of their rope, people without hope, people that are lost, and, in many cases, people who are searching for answers for the first time.

We acknowledge that we cannot change these men and women—it must be a work of God in their lives. They need Jesus Christ, and it is our hope as we share the truths of the gospel with them that the Lord would draw them to Himself. Most of those we speak to understand sin. They have been living in it, and they are tired of its weight on their lives. We demonstrate from the Scriptures that they will only gain freedom from the bondage of sin through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If they truly know Christ, they will be truly free indeed.

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:31-36).

On Tuesday evenings, we return again to the jail for an interactive teaching time. We show inmates how to read and study the Scriptures on their own. We study a book of the Bible or a topic from Scripture or the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Throughout all of this, we encourage the memorization of the Word.

This ministry is a jail ministry rather than a prison ministry. The difference may not be very apparent, but a county jail is the first place someone is incarcerated when suspected of a crime. It is at the jail that they wait for trial. Once sentenced, they will typically go to a state or federal prison if their sentence is more than one year. If the sentence is a year or less, they will typically serve their time in the local county jail. The jail thus has a very transient population. The groups are always changing, but one always has the opportunity to sow seeds of the gospel in the hearts of those whom the Lord has placed in his or her path.

In addition to the work at the jail each week, we are also responsible for all ministry activity at a work-release facility, which opened in 1999. It is a place where inmates transition into society by working full-time jobs on the outside and spending the remainder of their day incarcerated. As with the jail, we open the Word at this facility on Lord’s Day afternoons and Tuesday evenings. Four churches are responsible for three-month periods of expounding the Word of God on the Lord’s Day. This exposes the inmates to pastors of conservative local churches and ties these men and women more closely to the visible church. Lafayette RPC pastors Dave Long and Jared Olivetti participate in one of these 3-month cycles.

The People

This ministry is not for the faint of heart. You must believe the Lord is calling you to this type of ministry before you begin. The men and women you will be ministering to need people they can count on, because they have been surrounded by people their whole lives who have given up on them—people who wouldn’t stick it out. There will be days when you will be weary, and there will be days when you have great disappointments; but there is no greater joy than to watch the Lord work in someone’s life and see that person come to faith in Christ.

So He spoke this parable to them, saying:

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:3-7).

Where can you go where you will be forced to share the gospel with non-Christians week after week? Where can you go where you will be challenged on your knowledge of the Scriptures, causing you to dig deeper and deeper into the Word of God? Where can you go where you have the opportunity to invest in people with broken and hardened lives and actually see them transformed and softened by the gospel right before your eyes? Ministering the Word of God at your local jail! But always keep in mind—it is God’s work, and we are simply the instruments of His hand.