Not every church is motivated. There are a host of social and spiritual needs that need addressing in any congregation. Congregational passion and moti- vation can legitimately flow elsewhere, and often do. Not every church is equipped. The fact that the median church in the U.S. has only 70 regular weekly participants means that many congregations sim- ply don’t have much bandwidth to undertake ministries outside their core strengths. Not every church is in the right place. The geographical distribution of churches at large and the neighborhoods where the majority of returning cit- izens are being released don’t neatly match up. Many congregations focus on equipping their members to serve outside the congregation more than through the congregation. Congregations are in the business of equipping and empowering people to carry out God’s call- ing in their lives in whatever arenas they’ve been called to. Many exercise their faith through service in their workplaces, neighborhood institutions, nonprofit organizations, and civic life rather than through their home con- gregations. The vast majority of congregations can’t adopt a professional social service approach. For good or ill, the current dominant paradigm for reentry work is a professional one. This means that most congregations rule themselves out, saying, “We’re not capable.” We’ll be challenging this paradigm a bit later. Often when congregations do adopt a social service model, they inadver- tently end up creating “clients,” instead of brothers and sisters in the faith. Ironically, the way most congregations engage in social service reentry min- istry makes returning citizens feel like projects or perpetual second-class cit- izens among congregational members. All too often, fellowship and healthy reintegration into a welcoming faith community get short-circuited, and re- turning citizens feel alienated from the very places they dreamed about being part of while incarcerated. Many pastors and other leaders display a generalized reluctance born of the perception that reentry ministry is not only a niche ministry that’s pe- ripheral to their primary work but also that it’s complicated, time-consuming, potentially divisive, and something they have neither trained for nor person- ally experienced. Many congregations cherish their identity as a spiritual home and tend to safeguard their boundaries to ensure the safety and comfort of their fam- ily members. Welcoming a single returning citizen might feel manageable, but the prospect of having ten returning citizens at the front door raises a reflexive fear that this place will no longer feel like home. Allowing program
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