Franklin County officer, church reach prisoners

When Alabama Baptists spread the news of Jesus to inmates they usually visit the jail, but in one Alabama community the inmates come to the church.
   
Lt. David Hester of the Russellville Police Department has been taking trustee prisoners from the Franklin County jail with him to Calvary Baptist Church, Russellville, for the last four years. Trustee prisoners are nonviolent offenders who have shown good behavior and are allowed to leave jail temporarily.
   
“This is a unique approach,” said Ray Baker, associate for correctional ministries at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
   
Inmates benefit by going to the church because they realize people can be accepting of them, Baker said. Having someone like Hester, who is willing to be a friend to them, take them and sit with them is vital.
   
“It’s not like they point fingers at them and say, ‘look what you’ve done,’” he said. “And the inmates’ demeanors are usually no different than anyone else and they should be welcomed.”
   
Several of the people Hester has taken to church with him have completed their prison terms and are active in churches, some of them Baptist.
   
Hester recalled “Jeff.” “He began coming with me on Sunday mornings, evenings and on Wednesday nights,” Hester said.
   
It was in a Wednesday night discipleship class where Jeff expressed he wanted to accept Christ. In the presence of Hester and Calvary Baptist Minister of Education Guy Estave, he did. Calvary Baptist Pastor Matt Hall baptized him. “Now he’s out of prison, employed in Georgia and when he left he promised me he would find a good church to join,” Hester said.
   
Hester’s commitment to this ministry has meant that more than 20 different inmates have come to church with him and several have accepted Christ, Estave said.
“He’s had more influence on the prisoners than anyone I’ve ever met before,” Estave said. “I have seen as many as five on the same row with him.”
   
Hester can bring as many trustee inmates as want to come, but he hand-picks who he brings with him, Hall said. “He doesn’t just drag them here. He’s discerning and looks for those who really are open to coming to know Christ and learning more,” Hall explained.
   
Some prisoners have voluntarily attended church with Hester repeatedly and others once or twice.
   
He picks them up and makes sure they are dressed in nonprison clothing. “Their self-esteem is so low. They are down and out and this way they can see there is more to life than crime,” Hester said.
   
Mike Haley, a member of Woodridge Baptist Church, Mobile, is warden of the Mobile County Metro Jail and former commissioner of corrections for the state of Alabama. He said the idea of trustee inmates going from jail to a church service can work anywhere in Alabama.
   
But three conditions must be met, Haley said. 1. The inmates must want to go. 2. An officer or an approved volunteer must accompany them. 3. The sheriff overseeing the facility must approve it.
   
“I don’t see this as widespread simply because the vast majority of inmates in Alabama are not trustees,” he said.
   
So for the majority of inmates who cannot leave prison, church volunteers do prison ministry within correctional facilities. Baptist involvement is widespread in Alabama with volunteers and church staff ministering in every prison and youth detention facility in Alabama and in most jails, Baker said.
   
Prison chaplains coordinate church volunteers to help lead chapel, fellowship with prisoners or supply donated items to prisoners or their families. Chaplains also offer counseling for the inmates.
   
Based on Haley’s experience and education prison ministry works best when church volunteers remember to “give of themselves, yielding to the call that God has placed on their lives to minister to others in His name.”
   
Keeping this at the forefront of prison ministry is the heart of its effectiveness, he said.
   
One of the most effective ways prison ministry can work is for inmates to share their experiences with other inmates, Baker noted, saying the “greatest evangelism” in correctional ministry is “inmate to inmate.