One Parish One Prisoner:
illinois
Hi team,
We did it! You’re here! You are the OPOP team at ICSJ with Robert.
Robert Deja M32416
TAYLORVILLE CC
1144 IL-29
Taylorville, IL 62568
ERD: 7/2024
Here are essential documents to keep close as your team moves forward:
Success?
It’s not what you think. Come back to this page often.
I. RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNDERGROUND
The Lost Art of Letter Writing
Prison letters make up much of the New Testament. It’s also how we start a new relationship.
Through the Gates
Prison visits, email, phone calls, and the even trickier barriers within us.
Money
Maintaining relationship & removing barriers.
The Art of Building Trust
It’s the environment for healing. From the voices of our incarcerated mentors.
Welcoming Prayer
This is our own spiritual formation: releasing control, opening up the locked doors within.
II. IDENTIFYING THE STONES & LAYERS
Re-entry Planning Begins: HOUSING
The first steps toward a tangible release plan.
THE STONES TO ROLL AWAY
This is the big one: facing the overwhelming obstacles to re-entry—together.
HERE ARE SHORTCUTS TO THE FIVE “ROLES” IN THE STONE-ROLLING WORK:
Mass Incarceration
A culture that disposes of humans. And how one relationship at a time interrupts it.
Trauma & Healing
Pain can isolate us, or draw us into connection.
Addiction
How do we understand this phenomena?
Mental Health
This affects all of us. It’s about disconnection.
Writing My Wrongs
“What was their crime?” Storytelling goes both ways.
For the White Church
We have our own shady history. We can learn how to own our past, not repeat it, and ask for help—from our releasing brothers and sisters.
COMING SOON
III. ROLLING AWAY THE STONES
BEGIN THESE MODULES 2-3 MONTHS BEFORE RELEASE DATE
The Welcome Home Prep Event
Storytelling and organizing with more of the congregation. Here’s what some teams have done.
Accompaniment Through the System
This will be your reentry work after release: doing it all together. You’ll see why people rarely make it out of the underground.
Release Week!
It’s like when a new life is born. Be ready. Be flexible. Here’s how to plan a solid homecoming.
IV. GENTLY REMOVING THE LAYERS
The prison walls are no longer between us. The stones are rolling away. The next step is actually more vulnerable: when Jesus invites the community to help remove our protective “layers.”
During this fragile season, your released friend could be taking shaky steps into new life, or crumbling in fear and withdrawing. So feel free to select the modules in this section as you need them.
The Magic Season
The prison walls are no longer between you. Enjoy the land of the living together. Be creative. Try new things as friends, neighbors. Let it get awkward. It’s about savoring, not saving.
Employment
This is part of lasting resurrection today. We have some pointers for building new employment connections. (This is the Employment & Finances track one of your team members has been working on.)
OR
When They Disappear
We wait. The prodigal son story gets more real than all the sermons we’ve heard.
Not the Story We Wanted
Resurrection usually means passing through a death—or “failure”—first.
(This photo was taken just days before the pandemic quarantine began in WA State, 2020.)
V. BEARING WITNESS TO THE RESURRECTION
The few disciples and followers who witnessed something new at the emptied tomb Easter morning ran back to the larger community, telling them what they’d seen. What happened there changed their lives, turned their imaginations of God and of the future upside down.
When the stone is rolled away, it’s the start of a local movement. And, as the movement spread, their letters in the New Testament outlined a radical new ethic.
These final two modules will hopefully help your team connect the rupture of your experience so far with the larger opportunities ahead.
Rethinking Incarceration
What if we’re only starting to glimpse a very different imagination of God’s justice and restoration?
Is This Just the Beginning?
The program is ending, sure. But something more real has only begun.
THE NEXT CHURCH
Would you want more congregations in your area to have this One Parish One Prisoner experience?
Would you want more men and women leaving the prison system to have a local resurrection community walking alongside them?
BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR
And tithe into this church mobilization. Help us expand this program to new cities, develop wider partnerships, record fresh stories in video and audio for a culture of mutual transformation to grow:
TELL ANOTHER CHURCH YOU KNOW
You are the greatest ambassadors for this to grow.
Invite friends and leaders at another church to hear your experience and consider doing One Parish One Prisoner themselves. Send them this link and see what they think:
THANK YOU
A New Calling for Your Church?
BONUS Module (if you’re itching for more)
“We believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”