|
Christian Library
International is pleased to announce its 2008 Author-Dinner with special guest speaker Lennie Spitale,
author of his landmark book, Prison Ministry.
Prior to becoming
a Christian in 1975, Lennie's life was dominated by his own anger and
restlessness. By the time he was thirty years old, the anger and
rebellion had resulted in over 35 different jobs and several
incarcerations, including a trip to the New Hampshire State Prison in
1966 for assault and robbery.
However, in the spring of 1975, Lennie was granted faith in Jesus Christ
for his salvation and began to enjoy God’s life-changing power. By 1977,
he became involved in ministry at a local jail and began to lead Bible
studies and visit the men at their cells. Beginning in 1979, he served
the Lord for three years as a para-chaplain for Campus Crusade for
Christ in the California and Florida prison systems, followed by
twenty-two years of ministry as Director of Prison Ministries for Vision
New England. He was also instrumental in planting two churches in his
hometown of Pepperell, Massachusetts, during this time.
In August of 1993, Lennie became one of the few men in recent New
Hampshire history to receive a complete pardon from the Governor and his
council. In 2002, the fruit of his ministry led to the publication of
his first book, Prison Ministry: Understanding Prison Culture Inside and
Out by Broadman & Holman Publishers. This was followed by two more
publications in 2007.
Lennie served with Good News Jail & Prison Ministry from 2004 to 2008 as
a part of their training team for chaplains and later as a regional
director. During this time, he also served for several months as an
interim chaplain in two correctional facilities. Today he volunteers
weekly in two prisons in the Philadelphia area, leads a prison ministry
team from his church and mentors a young chaplain. He continues to write
and speak.
A review of Lennie's book:
IN MY WORK as a state prison chaplain I sometimes receive phone
calls from zealous, well-meaning Christians who want to come "preach
to the prisoners." My usual response is to smile benignly at their
naivete and attempt to arrange a face-to-face meeting at the prison,
where the would-be volunteers can tour the facility and perhaps
attend one of the worship services over which I preside. In this
way, I explain, they will be better able to understand the setting,
scope and vision of the chaplaincy department's ministry.
It is against this background that I highly recommend Lennie
Spitale's excellent book. Drawing on his experiences as both an
ex-offender (he did a prison term for robbery and assault) and a
full-time prison minister, Spitale provides an insider's view into
that parallel universe known as prison. His purpose is to "help the
reader understand the culture (from within the culture) so that
those who hope to minister within its confines may be better
equipped to operate, not only with compassion, but also with
wisdom."
For many people prison is the most rewarding ministry venue
imaginable. In my own experience--which includes service in urban
and suburban churches, a homeless shelter, a county correctional
facility and a maximum-security state prison--nothing has been as
challenging or gratifying as ministry to the incarcerated. I've seen
gangbangers, thugs and murderers truly repent of their sins and
become stalwart Christian soldiers in the face of fierce resistance
from fellow inmates and corrections officers alike. I've seen
Christian inmates demonstrate compassion and love to a degree I've
never witnessed in any other setting. And I've seen chaplaincy
volunteers make heroic sacrifices, sometimes traveling hundreds of
miles under icy road conditions, to ensure that the needs of the
inmates were served.
Yet for all of its human miracles, heroic gestures and concomitant
rewards, prison ministry is not for everyone. The challenges are
formidable and can prove disheartening to potential volunteers who
don't understand the vagaries of prison life and culture.
Criminologist Todd Clear has defined imprisonment as the product of
a flawed life, while characterizing prisoners as social outcasts.
"To be shunned by one's community is to invite a special kind of
shame, the mortification that comes with undeniable public rebuke,"
he writes.
It is this shame which gives rise to what Spitale calls "the
feeling." "Once or twice a year I still experience dreams in the
night of going back to prison--dreams so vivid that I awaken with
the feeling of returning to prison. I experience afresh the turmoil
of emotions connected with the event: the hopelessness, the fear,
the separation from my loved ones, and the awful, indomitable enemy
of time that stretches out before me like a thick, steel chain that
can never be broken," he writes.
Understanding the feeling, then, is crucial to understanding prison
life. The hopelessness, fear and despair inmates experience are part
of the penalty for violating society's rules. They are an outgrowth
of being ostracized from one's family and fellow citizens. This
penalty is reinforced by a predatory culture in which vulnerability
is viewed as a sign of weakness and power is the currency de
rigueur.
On one level, prison can be viewed as a morality play in which those
who have power exploit those who don't. This pattern marks the
spectrum of interactions that regularly occur behind the
walls--inmate-to-inmate, corrections officer-to-inmate, corrections
officer-to-civilian, inmate-to-civilian and so on. As a result,
prison relationships are often utilitarian, and friendships, as
Spitale notes, are approached with caution. Such is the challenge
facing the person who would minister in prison.
Christian ministry is about hope, not only of eternal life in heaven
but also of abundant, meaningful life here on earth. This hope is
conditioned by trust. The message of the gospel is that one can only
have hope by trusting in Christ as Savior. To minister in prison,
therefore, is to swim against the current of a culture in which
hopelessness and mistrust are the norm.
It is just this issue that is the focal point of Prison Ministry. As
Spitale takes the reader on a Rod Serling--like tour of the "Prison
Zone," the uninitiated learn how to navigate the culture while
sharing the hope of the gospel. The reader feels the inmate's
divorce from his wife, his lack of contact with his children, his
abandonment by his father and the pain behind his mask. The reader
also is advised of some of the mind games prisoners play, learns
what pitfalls to avoid, and obtains a lexicon of new terms. He
learns how to be "wise as a serpent, yet harmless as a dove."
Reviewed by Samuel K. Atchison, a prison chaplain in Trenton, New
Jersey, and a fellow of the George H. Gallup International Institute
in Princeton, New Jersey
CLI has been incredibly blessed with outstanding Christian speakers 2003
- Elisabeth Elliot
2004 - Gary Chapman 2005 - Evelyn Christensen 2006 - Pat
Robertson 2007 - Davis Bunn Reserve Your Place
Now! Credit Card - You can reserve your table
and make a donation right now through your charge card. Click this button for $500.
Credit Card - You can reserve
2 places right now through your charge card. Click this button for $78.
Credit Card - You can reserve
1 place right now through your charge card. Click this button for $39.
Download the
or the
Check: If you'd like to pay for your place by check, our address is:
Christian Library International
3800-A Hillcrest Drive
Raleigh, NC 27610
CLI is a non-profit corporation
Christian Library International has over 50 prayer team members
who pray every every week for CLI and the people we serve. If you
would like to join the prayer team, please contact Kathleen Skaar at
the address below.
|
