FBC Sylacauga welcomes inmates within church walls with new brand of ministry

Movies are made about Southern miracles — tales of redemption, humidity and humility — old-time religion in the New South. 
   
Dear Hollywood: There is a blockbuster waiting to be filmed in Sylacauga. 
   
It all started Christmas of 2003.
   
For 18 months, First Baptist Church, Sylacauga, has played host to an unconventional prison ministry, a ministry unshackled by cellblocks and iron bars. 
   
Rather than bringing church to the inmates of nearby Childersburg Community Work Center, First, Sylacauga, is bringing the inmates to church.
   
And it’s all thanks to the vision of one very unconventional 92-year-old man — Bloise Zeigler.
   
Zeigler’s life defies his age. His schedule flat out belittles the notion of retirement. 
   
Of all his titles, memberships and activities, only “politician” is listed as former, unless you count his current status as District 32 representative of the Alabama Silver-Haired Legislature. 
   
If so, Zeigler is currently a politician, a Shriner and a proprietor of a 24-acre Christmas tree farm. 
   
He serves on a committee dedicated to solving Anniston Army Depot’s chemical weapons removal problems because he worked at a chemical weapons factory in the 1940s.
   
He’s a member of the Alabama Senior Citizen Hall of Fame, has a day named in his honor and is a lay ministry leader. If age is an attitude, then he’s a rebel — and most definitely one with a cause. 
   
The former mayor of Oak Grove in Talladega County (retiring after 20 years at 87), Zeigler has been a member of First, Sylacauga, since 1948 — his entire Christian life. Now, 57 years after joining the church, Zeigler is responsible for providing a fresh take on the Great Commission. 
   
As mayor, Zeigler often utilized free work-crew labor, and it was that experience that developed his empathy for the incarcerated. “I’ve just got a compassion for these fellas. Some of them in there aren’t bad at all, they just made a mistake,” Zeigler said. 
   
Keith Pugh, pastor of First, Sylacauga, said Zeigler initiated the move to involve the inmates in church activities. “We put on a dinner theatre each Christmas, and Mr. Bloise came to me that year and told me he thought we should put on a special performance for some of the prisoners he used to work with,” Pugh said.
   
Such a specialized undertaking as a prisoner fieldtrip would likely require countless bureaucratic hoops to maneuver, but Pugh said it just wasn’t so. “There hasn’t been any red tape,” Pugh said. “Mr. Bloise and I just went down to see the warden and told him what we were thinking. We told him we would just want to help compliment the work camp’s own spiritual programs and that we’d facilitate everything. The rest is history.”
   
“The rest” now includes once-a-month chartered buses full of prisoners headed for First, Sylacauga, for Sunday services. The same vehicles return to the work camp full of human beings. Just ask 46-year-old inmate Tim Stone.
   
“That’s the good part about it because sometimes when a man’s been incarcerated, no matter what you’ve done, you feel alone,” Stone said. “You feel like people, even your family, don’t want to have anything to do with you, like now you’re just a number or something.”
   
But inside the church, and especially around Zeigler, Stone and the others light up the room — not with their white Department of Corrections jumpsuits but with their smiles. They are treated as guests, and despite their dress, they are indistinguishable from regular attenders. All awkwardness has long vanished, and all involved are at ease.
   
“This has given me a sense of purpose, a sense that at least someone out there cares for me,” Stone said. “That gives you a sense of hope that no matter what you may have done, you can become a better person,” Stone said. “And these people don’t even know me, but they’re taking their time to give me something, and not just a free meal after the service but something to feed your spirit.
   
“It’s something you can learn from so that when you get out, you won’t go back to prison. I’m born again. It’s been seven months since I’ve been saved, so I’m incredibly thankful for any chance to get out and fellowship with other Christians,” Stone said.
   
Zeigler’s informal and simple approach to reaching inmates for Christ is quickly garnering attention from surrounding churches. The Sanctuary, a Pentecostal congregation just down the road, is about to begin a similarly styled ministry, and pastors from Birmingham are seeking Zeigler’s advice on applying his methods on a larger scale. 
   
According to Zeigler’s practice, the only secret to winning a prisoner’s soul is to treat it like any other — to treat them like people.  “I am convinced if you put a fella in there, you can’t punish him enough in five, 10, 15 or 20 years to make him feel like he can make it when he gets out if he thinks the world is still against him,” he said. “If he thinks that way, he doesn’t stand much of a chance to make it.”
   
Zeigler has ridden to and from the prison every time the church has sent a bus. He gets letters by the hundreds from prisoners and former prisoners expressing gratitude. They quote Scripture to him by heart. 
   
Several who were released still attend First, Sylacauga, and one is going into the ministry. “Some of those guys really witness to me, they really do,” Zeigler said.