Correctional facilities must grapple with unprecedented levels of overcrowding, violence, and suicide, as well as rampant mental illness among inmates. The tightening of budgets and the resulting loss of vocational, educational, and treatment programs pose additional difficulties. In the midst of these struggles, faith-based approaches, led by faith-motivated volunteers and prisoners, are providing the most innovative, holistic, and effective programs available in correctional facilities today.

It’s hard to overstate the current challenges facing the American prison system. Rampant violence, extremely high levels of offender recidivism, mounting taxpayer cost, and difficulty retaining employees, typify recent headlines from the world of American “corrections.” But prisons do little to meaningfully correct offenders’ past transgressions, nor do they deter future offending.
Many American prisons have become so violent that they comprise what Cambridge University prison scholar Alison Liebling describes as “failed state” institutions. In “failed state” institutions, even the most basic levels of safety and control are not provided by authorities. For an example, look no further than the New York Times, which recently reported on the horrifying conditions at Rikers Island, where whole sections of the prison are run by detainees, who fashion make-shift weapons out of the complex’s crumbling buildings. Staff members and detainees have been beaten and stabbed. One detainee reports having been denied food for two days by the gang that controls his unit. Thirteen people have died at Rikers so far this year.

These institutions not only cause more human damage than they prevent, they produce emotionally crippled citizens and elevate the likelihood of reoffending. New research from the nonpartisan Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., moreover, highlights the likelihood of “mass incarceration” becoming a permanent feature of American society.
In the midst of these failures, a new, more successful model of correctional programming is quietly taking hold in the United States. The model draws on innovative work inside some of America’s largest and most violent prison environments. These new approaches are being developed primarily at maximum-security prisons, which have long been under-resourced until lethal violence has boiled over. In the face of this reality, prison administrators have become increasingly open to “outsourcing” rehabilitation programming to religious volunteers. As a result, in an increasingly large number of prisons, religious programming is now the dominant source of inmate rehabilitation.
An Interracial, Ecumenical, Personal Church
For many inmates, religious practice not only provides a momentary escape from prison life. It does something deeper and much more foundational: it helps them redefine and reclaim their lives.
Over the past ten years, as we conducted the research described in our new book, we have had the distinct privilege of sitting with men in prison as they engaged in religious worship. Many of these experiences have taken place in America’s largest maximum-security prisons, including Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Sing Sing (NY), Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman (MS), Darrington Unit Correctional Institution (TX), and Lawtey Correctional Institution (FL), among several others. We have been struck by the reverence, energy, and seriousness with which inmates cultivate a practice of faith.
Perhaps the most striking feature of “church in prison” is the robustly interracial character of the “congregation.” As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out in 1960, American religious practice is nothing if not racially segregated. By necessity, religious worship in prison, however, is both racially integrated and remarkably ecumenical. To witness the sign of the cross and hear a call-and-response during one and the same ceremony—sometimes even from the same practitioner—is not uncommon. For long-time inmate religionists, cross-fertilization of worship becomes a normalized practice, with inmate lifers often referring to themselves as “Bapticostal,” “Catholipalean,” or as one Florida inmate put it, “agnosti-pizza” (“I just come for the pizza”).
Religion in prison is characterized by a relaxed and non-hierarchical openness to various forms of religious practice in a doctrinally neutral space. It is first and foremost preoccupied with the meeting of immediate physical and spiritual needs. Prisoner prayer groups, Bible studies, outside church volunteer groups, yoga practitioners, Buddhist meditation leaders, and many others all combine to create a remarkably elaborate menu of religious options for prisoners. Diverse practitioners and non-believers are welcomed by faithful inmates, who understand themselves to be imperfect seekers. Perfectionism in faith and the performative gestures that often accompany corporate worship are simply not present in prison. By definition, everyone there has fallen.

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As I think about the first 20 years of modern worship and the song that got it all started, I can’t help but wonder when churches last unplugged their instruments to let their people just sing. I can’t help but wonder how many churches actually could. The organic and entirely unprofessional moment that contributed to the beginning of the movement gave way to an obsession with excellence and professionalism. What got lost along the way is that the heart of worship is not a great band, a perfect key change, or a soaring chorus, but human voices lifted together to God. 

I had been lost in a kind of daydream and snapped back to reality with the realization I had been singing “The Heart of Worship.” It surprised me to learn I know the song by memory, and since I was already well into it, I kept on going. You probably remember the chorus: “I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus.”
It was 20 years ago that Matt Redman penned this song, which means it was 20 years ago that the modern worship movement emerged from the UK and swept across the world. The groundwork laid through the Jesus movement of the 70s and the million-and-one choruses of the 80s led to the rise of Redman and Tomlin and Delirious? and Sonicflood and so many others in the 90s. There is no objective way to define exactly when the movement began, but I say it was the day Mike Pilavachi, pastor of Soul Survivor church, in Watford, England, pulled the plug on his band.
Here’s the story: Soul Survivor church was doing well, drawing people, enjoying success. They were gathering as a church every week, singing loud songs, and having a good time. But the leaders couldn’t shake the growing conviction that for all the good they were seeing and all the fun they were having, they had completely lost track of what it is to worship. So one week Pilavachi unplugged the sound system and had the band leave the stage. For a time they sat in awkward silence until finally they began to raise their voices unaccompanied by instruments, amplification, and lights.
Redman later reflected on that experience and penned “The Heart of Worship” which immediately became a smash hit and a worldwide worship staple. It is certainly not one of the great songs of history, but it was the song for a moment. It was a song of confession, a song of commitment, and in some ways a song of hope. “When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come / Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart / I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus.”
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Not only should we lay aside or put off sin, but we also should read our Bibles carefully in order to hear from God. Once we hear from God, we want to obey what the Bible teaches us in the midst of or after our suffering. In this way, we position ourselves to become Christlike through the suffering – which is one of God’s purposes in it.

All of us go through times of tragedy. Hard. Shocking. Life-changing. Miserable. Devastating. Tragedy strikes all of us. The question is what about After tragedy strikes?
What about after tragedy? When tragedy hits, how do you handle it? What do you do?
In Part One, we considered the context of tragedy. In that article, we helped set up the tragedy of first century Christians who initially lived in Jerusalem. These Christians, under persecution, waited frustratingly upon the return of Jesus Christ. The angel had promised. Everything seemed to have been going so well until Peter and John had been imprisoned twice and Stephen martyred. After this, all the Christians began running for their lives. They wander about in very small groups. They have very little money or food. Rich people are abusing them in various ways as they try to make enough money to live.
Although it is beyond the scope of this two-part article to give you every way you should respond to tragedy, please allow me now in Part Two to help you get in the right position to handle it. Maintaining your spiritual stability in the midst of tragedy and after tragedy strikes is critical for your overall response to it.
The Dilemma After Tragedy Strikes
As we explained, the first Christians, to whom Pastor James writes who are scattered across the near ancient Middle East, needed help responding to their personal tragedy. With life upended, these followers of Christ were not responding well to their tragedy. Some were angry at the rich people who oppressed them. Others were confused, discontent, and suffering under the relentless burden of disappointment in their circumstances. Some were angry at God and accusing Him for tempting them to sin, or worse yet, causing them to sin. In many ways, they were hopeless.
These first century Christians were much like today’s Christians whenever we work our way through a tragedy. They each suffered on their own pathway consisting of a variety of intermixed responses. Confusion. Disappointment. Discontentment. Disillusionment. Anger. Blame shifting. Hopeless.
How does their loving pastor help them respond? What position does he put them in in order to respond well? How does he help them to overcome their tragedy rather than be overcome by it? How does he position them for victory in the midst of and after tragedy?
The Strongest Position to Handle Tragedy
Pastor James explains the purpose of suffering, how to identify our own sin in the midst of it, and the strongest position to handle it. In an abbreviated way, let me summarize the first two issues and explain in some detail the strongest position to handle tragedy.
Regarding the purpose of suffering, James explains that God never allows suffering providentially in our lives without purpose in it. Although there may be many things God accomplishes through our suffering, we can know for sure that He intends through our suffering for us to grow in our spiritual maturity. The pressure of suffering functions to develop us toward Christlikeness (cf., James 1:2-5, 17-18). As followers of Jesus undergo various pressured-filled situations, God uses the totality of that process to help us become complete or mature as disciples of Jesus. As we go through the pressure, one of the purposes of the suffering is spiritual growth.
Knowing that we often do not respond perfectly in the midst of suffering, Pastor James provides an explanation for our sinning while we undergo various pressures. He explains that we respond sinfully to our pressure whenever something we desire in the midst of the pressure controls our hearts in the suffering more than honoring God through the suffering. In other words, we sin because something we want possesses functional control over our inner man as we bear the weight of our suffering (cf., James 1:13-18).
With these things in mind, Pastor James then addresses our strongest position to handle our personal trials and tragedies well. He highlights four strategies or steps to maintain the strongest position to respond well in and through suffering.
Your Anger Only Produces More Suffering
Pastor James initially addresses our whole-person response of judgment to our pressure or tragedy – our anger.
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