Federal WAy United Methodist Church

Hi friends!

This is where you’re supposed to be—congregants at Federal Way UMC. Scroll down to register as a team member and build out the invitation to join ONE PARISH ONE PRISONER with incarcerated applicants who will soon be returning to the community.

We need team members to write letters to new friends, read the monthly learning modules, and gather together to discuss, share, pray, and plan. This requires about 3 hours/month for the first phase. After introductions are made and relationship builds, reentry planning will ramp up, the larger congregation will be involved, and your team will lead the resurrection effort.

Here’s how it works.

Ready to join as a team member?
Keep reading to get equipped and registered.

APPROACHING THE TOMBS

As you embark on the One Parish One Prisoner journey, you and other members of your congregation are now approaching the tombs of our society today: the prison system.

They are—and often describe feeling—“dead to the world.” Philosopher Lisa Geunther describes incarceration as “social death.” This is the underground, the realm of Hades, where 2.4 million men and women are cut off from the land of the living.

But Jesus loved his friend Lazarus in the tombs. Jesus not only wept at this state of things, he called a local community of his followers to help him undo it: he invited them to draw closer to the tombs and, together, roll away the stone.

That group Jesus called had some understandable reservations.

But Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you do as I say, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40)

That’s our hope. Not just to help someone out of prison—but much more: to join Jesus’ ongoing work of resurrection, so that we may have more close-up exposure to what the mystery of God is all about.

To prepare for your upcoming Kickoff Orientation, we have a few videos and reading to get you thinking.

QUICK NOTE: Washington State DOC volunteers / red badge holders are unable, according to their signed documents, to take the One Parish One Prisoner journey. Our invitation is for a long-term, authentic relationship of embrace and trust. Volunteers with DOC are specifically tasked to keep from individual contact with incarcerated men and women.

PRISON GATES OPEN EVERY DAY

Getting out of prison isn’t the hard part. Most incarcerated men and women have a release date. Dark as prisons are, the day they get out is just the start of a much more difficult story.

In America, roughly 700,000 men and women are released from prison into our communities every year. But without access to new relationships and opportunities, with many barriers to “reentry,” most remain in the “underground” street economy. They eventually get arrested and sucked back into the prison system, disenfranchised and dead to society.

In Washington State, there are roughly the same amount of churches as there are incarcerated men and women.

What if every church built a solid relationship with just one person releasing to their area, and walked with them as they emerged out from the underground of incarceration?

Your church is getting involved and, if you’re reading this, your pastoral leadership has invited you to be part of the team.

The New York Times made a startlingly intimate video portrait of incarcerated men during their first hour of release, at a bus station in Texas. There is no commentary:

• What do you see these men feeling? Wanting?

• Normally we think of prisoners as people to fear. What might these men be afraid of?

• What’s missing from this first day out of the prison facility?

MASS INCARCERATION

If the last video was the up-close-shot of those leaving the tombs, this is big-picture-flyover of the social tomb system we’ve built in America.

You’ve probably heard the term “mass incarceration.” Here’s two quick videos—a clever 4-minute summary, and a more somber 3-minute visualization—of what that term is describing:

COVENANT

God-shaped relationships grow in covenant. It’s not a contract where you sign your name, but a shared commitment—because flakiness is a shared affliction!

To counteract that, we seek to build muscles of faithfulness together.

We have a Covenant in One Parish One Prisoner. It’s part of your orientation to read and agree to this—go no further without agreeing to this.

WHAT’S THE COMMITMENT?

INITIALLY:

3 Hours / Month

• Gather In Monthly Team Meetings: 1.5 hours

• Read Monthly Learning Modules: .5 hour

• Write Two Letters (or prison calls): .5 hours

As the relationship grows, reentry planning ramps up, and you prepare for the return home, more people from the congregation will be looped in to help.

THE BIG PICTURE:

A 2-Year Journey with Your 5-7 Member Parish Team

1. Letters, learning, and relationship-building - 12 months

2. Reentry and accompaniment - 9 months

3. Reflection and discernment forward - 3 months

After two years, you’ll have completed all the learning modules we have for your. Your friend might be out of prison, happy, healthy, and part of a loving community. It’s also possible that your friend fell out of contact, that your team stopped gathering, or that you yourself stepped away from the journey.

Whichever way it goes, the journey continues. We’re aiming to go on a long walk—together. We’ll be here to cheer you on, to learn from you, and to celebrate how you have been transformed.

*Approved Washington State DOC Volunteers are currently not permitted on One Parish One Prisoner teams. We are working on this. There are legal regulations currently in place that do not allow approved Volunteers to have direct, ongoing contact with incarcerated individuals. We are in discussion with the DOC to officially exempt Underground Ministries activity from these restrictions.

REGISTRATION & SELF-ASSESSMENT

We want to get a solid roster for your team, as well as a quick, honest glimpse of our team members’ prior exposure to incarceration. We will return to some of these questions throughout your journey ahead. Right now is the first snapshot of who you are and where you’re at. Once your team is registered, we’ll be in touch about scheduling a Kickoff Orientation.

You’ve watched the videos and you have an idea of how to move forward with your Parish Team. This simple registration below is how you officially join—and get signed up for your Kickoff Orientation.

Then there’s some self-assessment questions below. You’ll see the same questions again every few months in this journey, like those lines on the same doorframe that mark our growth over time. No tippy toes. Be honest and don’t overthink this. There are no wrong answers here.

Thank you for your responses. Your feedback helps inform programmatic decisions and helps our team understand how One Parish One Prisoner is forming the journey.

This shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.

A BLESSING

God of the Resurrection,

Thank you for calling this community member reading this right now closer to your sons and daughters still inside the tombs we’ve built. We invite Your Spirit to lovingly begin a deeper conversation with our new friend, where Your Voice can be heard through this journey ahead.

Help us follow Your lead together. Help this team love and grow in vulnerability and trust together.

Help us, now and throughout, to let go of anxiety or control—and welcome your kindness into our own shadows.

Amen.