YOU’RE INVITED TO JOIN ONE PARISH ONE PRISONER

PRACTICE RESURRECTION

If you received this page, that means your congregation is building its One Parish One Prisoner team—and you are ready to join.

Join what? A two-year, transformative resurrection journey together, alongside one community member releasing from the local prison tombs.

Is this something that calls to you?

Here’s a 6-min tour of what looks like:

APPROACHING THE TOMBS—TOGETHER

You’ve probably heard about “mass incarceration.”

Our country incarcerates more of its own people than any nation in the world. About 2 million people—men and women, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, youths and elderly, often poor and usually the most wounded members of every communities—are locked away in a disastrous system of mass tombs. They are cut off from the land of the living.

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 the US, roughly 700,000 people are released from prison back 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.

But there are communities everywhere who proclaim the resurrection of the dead.

In Washington State, there are roughly the same amount of churches as there are folks in prison.

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?

Union Church in Seattle at the gates of immigration detention just minutes after their friend Antonio was released—after over two years of letters, calls, trust-building, legal strategy, and energizing the entire congregation around Antonio’s story, and God’s story.

LAZARUS IS OUR MODEL

One Parish One Prisoner’s model is built on Jesus’ resurrection of his friend Lazarus, involving the local community.

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 stony barrier.

That group Jesus called had some understandable reservations.

But Jesus spoke to their fears at the tomb: “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40)

That’s our hope. Not just churches helping someone out of prison, but much more: helping God’s people practice the mystery of our faith and experience Jesus’ ongoing work of resurrection today.

This is what we call mutual transformation:

Not one-way charity, not community service, but an opportunity to experience with our releasing friends the authentic growth and healing we all need.

Your church has signed up to begin. As you consider whether to join, consider…

WHY OTHERS SAID “YES”

WHAT’S THE COMMITMENT?

Just 4 Hours / Month (average)

A Two-Year Journey with Your Team & Releasing Friend

  • Prison letters, monthly learning, relationship-building, reentry planning (12 months)

  • Reentry work and personal accompaniment (9 months)

  • Reflection and discernment forward (3 months)

NOTE: Washington State DOC volunteers / red badge holders are unfortunately unable to take the One Parish One Prisoner journey, due to DOC policies barring official volunteers inside the prison from having personal/outside contact.

REGISTER NOW

PRE-KICKOFF HOMEWORK

To keep the live Kickoff Orientation as short as possible, we ask you to watch a few essential videos ahead of time—BELOW—from the comfort of you own home. TOTAL TIME: 45 MINUTES

THE DAY YOU GET OUT

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.

To consider:

  • 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. Here’s two quick videos—a clever 4-minute summary, and a more somber 3-minute visualization—of the vast human burial system we are dealing with:

HERE’S WHERE YOU COME IN

This is how One Parish One Prisoner is a new answer to the problem depicted above: by mobilizing communities like yours into direct relationship and reentry support.

Yep, these are the same two One Parish One Prisoner videos we shared at the top of this page. If you skimmed or skipped them (glad you registered that easily), please enjoy these core introductions to how One Parish One Prisoner meets a national need.

ONE PARISH ONE PRISONER: JOIN US

PARTICIPANTS SHARE THEIR “WHY”

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 friends on both sides of the prison walls, where Your Voice can be heard throughout 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.

See you at the Kickoff Orientation!