I. THE CHALLENGE
The Great Disconnect For many years, in my work running a reentry nonprofit organization that connects returning citizens with service providers and ministries, I’d been noticing the “great disconnect” that I outlined above: namely, that many men and women who were looking for a church upon their release from incarcera- tion failed to make a connection, and that many congregations that I reached out to were declining to take advantage of the opportunity to connect. And then, at the end of 2021, one of our donors reached out to me with a statis- tic that intrigued him. He noted that the number of Christian congregations in the country roughly approximated the number of people leaving incar- ceration. In actuality, it’s a closer to one congregation for every two people being released (roughly 350,000 congregations and 650,000 people leaving prison yearly). But his basic point still held: Just imagine the potential impact of matching up congregations with men and women who are coming home. The idea seemed elegant and simple and like something that should already have happened long ago. So why the Great Disconnect? On the face of it, a local one inmate-one con- gregation “matching” system seems to make a lot of sense. However, this ap- proach faces a host of challenges. Here are some of them. Not every returning citizen wants to connect with a church. Many men and women experience a profound spiritual awakening in prison. Many don’t. Some prefer to connect only with secular agencies. Not many returning citizens want to be “matched.” As with so many other things where personal chemistry is involved, people want options and the ability to choose for themselves. Many returning citizens struggle with unhealthy shame. Nearly forty per- cent of returning citizens report dreaming of finding a church on the out- side where they can grow, thrive, and serve. Many have experienced spiritual growth during incarceration, but they also carry a persistent shame-filled feel- ing that they are fundamentally flawed and unacceptable, and that, conse- quently, they don’t belong, aren’t wanted, won’t be accepted, and won’t fit in with “church people.”
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