This morning instead of continuing on with our journey through The Book of Acts, my reflection flows out of my experience serving in prison the last four days.
I spent the last four days in St. Clair Prison as part of a Kairos team of remarkable men who went into the prison to share the Gospel of love and grace of Jesus with inmates. It was a n amazing weekend. In the conversations around the tables with team member and inmates was not heard any of the common replies of “I’m fine.” The conversations and exchanges were raw and real. All allowed themselves to become vulnerable, sharing real struggles and failures, weaknesses and hurts, and “fakeness” and hypocrisy in in life,. Both team members and inmates confessed sins, shared deep remorse, asked for forgiveness, repented, shed many tears, many deep embraces, and cried out to Jesus. The prayers shared that came from the broken, humble hearts of strong men were spontaneous, emotional, struggling to get the right words out as they bared their souls before God. The forgiveness, grace and love that outpoured was tangible and thick. The smiles through the tears of joy of those who received and accepted forgiveness was beautiful. The worship! Oh my God! The worship was a sold-out offering of their complete selves to God in praise and thanksgiving. It brought chills to the skin, life back to dry bones, freedom to the soul, and brought heaven down to earth.
To sum it all up: for 4 days we had church. We experienced the power of the church. We were the church.
And I guarantee that yesterday on Sunday morning, any of the men on the team besides the fact they were away from their spouses and family, would rather be sitting in a chair inside prison, than in a pew outside in a church. I still have allot to process from the four days.
My family, I pray this morning as we step out into the beginning of another week of work and routines, we seek in desperation to be raw and real before God. We seek to find ways to enter into conversations with others where we and they can be vulnerable, be real with life, real before God, really love each other, and really be The Church. In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your thoughts on this reflection pin the comments box below.
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