Inmates at correctional facilities in Mobile and Baldwin Counties recently participated in worship services with live music provided by students from the University of Mobile.
Students from the private Christian university visited the Baldwin County Corrections Center and Mobile County Metro Jail to offer inmates the chance to worship together with a live band.
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Jared Baria, UM director of student life and an adjunct professor, said he was looking for ways to serve the community, including in local prisons.
He received word from the Baldwin County Corrections Center’s Chaplain Marcus Huseth that the facility wanted to host its first worship service with a live band.
“We knew that we could meet the need,” Baria said. “I think that’s just being faithful to what God has called us to do.”
Huseth said the idea of offering live worship to his prisoners just “popped into his head.”
“It was just a vision,” Huseth recalled. “Just wanting something extra.”
He discovered the facility offers church services weekly, but prisoners hadn’t had the chance to worship with a live band.
He added that it’s important for prisoners to know they are not forgotten — that people are still praying for and caring about them even though they’ve made a mistake.
Only a limited number are allowed in the facilities at a time so Baria takes a team of 6–10 students. The team does one service project a month on campus, as well as a community-wide project a month, and added the prison worship services to the rotation.
“Because of COVID, I think a lot of those opportunities were shut for us,” Baria said. “I think we already see God’s faithfulness in [that] these doors are opening and they’re reaching out to us.”
He and the students are given an hour to spend with the prisoners, leading worship and Baria preaching a short message.
“From the strum of the first string of a guitar, before a student ever even sang the first lyric, there were grown men in tears,” Baria said. “These students are faithful with the gifts that they’ve been given.”
Part of the agreement required Baria and the students to lead one service for male inmates and another for females, males leading worship at the male service and females for the women in the prison.
Decisions made
Over Christmas break, leaders at Mobile County Metro Jail asked Baria to provide worship services for its inmates, so they led one for males, one for females and another for juveniles.
“That day, there were multiple professions of faith which was, I think, super encouraging for our students,” Baria noted. “Just them getting real-life ministry experience that is off campus is a sweet and neat thing for them.”
Baria said UM is on a four-day school week, and students selflessly give up their Friday mornings to lead worship for prisoners though they could be sleeping in, working or going home for a three-day weekend. But they choose to use their God-given talents to proclaim the gospel behind bars.
“They want those brothers and sisters in the jails to know what they know,” Baria said. “I have to be faithful to His Word to preach it and to proclaim it. That is a privilege of a lifetime, just as it is for a musician who’s a Christian to sing about the King.”
Though Baria and his team are only in the prisons for an hour at a time, he’s seen God’s faithfulness and goodness working in the hearts of inmates.
“Brothers are fighting to lift their hands up during this service with chains on, with handcuffs on,” Baria said. “That’s hard work if your hands are that close together, but they’re raising them in worship; God’s moving in that.”
Some inmates have shared their testimonies at the end of the worship services, Baria said, and there were 12 professions of faith during the three services at Mobile Metro by inmates of all ages.
“We’re prayerfully praying for fruit that remains in their lives,” Baria said. “We have to expose people to the gospel.”
Light in ‘dark place’
Huseth noted he’s seen inmates’ attitudes change as they hold each other accountable and eagerly await the next church service or guest speaker.
“They’re very excited about attending,” Huseth said. “They’re in a dark place so bringing some type of light and showing that somebody from the outside’s coming in and caring about them will have a positive impact.”
Baria’s prayer for his students is that the services would have lasting meaning in their lives as they graduate and leave Mobile. His prayer for prisoners and staff is that they would experience an eternal impact as they trust in Christ’s living hope.
“These brothers and sisters are at a low, possibly the lowest, point of their lives,” Baria said. “What better news to bring in there than the hope of Jesus Christ?”
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