by Jim Carmichael
I often wonder if any of you are curious about what happens when 
we go to the prison. So I thought I would just share a little bit of the experience with you. It takes about an hour to get there, and normally Jim Pinkston drives, which greatly improves my prayer life. When we arrive at the prison we have to make sure we leave everything in the
car, if you happen to carry your cell phone in with you, well, that’s a felony, you may end up staying there. We had just arrived the other day, had gone through the first two gates, and Jim P’s phone rang, so he got to go through the gates a couple of unplanned times.
Well in any case when we first arrive at the prison we see the tower, and all the razor wire. The header photo on my website is exactly what it looks like.
Well then we have to go through the first two gates, they lead into an outdoor holding chamber, so when you go through the first gate you are in a chain link pen much like a dog pen, except it’s about 12 feet high with razor wire all around it.
Once inside the holding area they close the first gate and then open the 2nd, which allows us to approach the building, which as soon as we are inside we have to remove all metal objects, belts and etc, and sometimes our shoes and then proceed through the gate that scans for metal devices and all your belongings are put into a plastic bucket of sorts, and passes through an x-ray machine.
Then we enter in an area with the title “sally gate” over it. It’s a heavy steel door that a guard behind glass opens for us, once we enter this area, they close the first door, and then the 2nd door opens and we enter the prison yard.
We then walk completely through the prison yard to a gate at the far end, and then once through that we head to the chapel, where we experience the most spiritual worship one can imagine with men who have committed every crime there is to commit, and some have been in for over 30 years, some just got there, and many will never get out.
And we worship God, unbelievably moving, and when Booker can make it to lead singing, the guys really get it going, because Mr. Booker is the most spiritually alive, most motivating song leader you will ever meet. He displays more energy at 82 than most men a third his age.
Generally Elaine comes with us, and will sing a solo for the men, and with her beautiful voice, it is one of the high lights of their night.
Jim delivers his sermon, sometimes a little more singing, and then we repeat the process in reverse. Of course now it is dark, and generally I do not prepare for the weather. Here a while back when we were leaving a rain storm hit us, and I mean a hard one, and I didn’t bring an umbrella, and the only one who did was Booker, and guess who made fun of the rest of us?
But here’s the really cool thing about that, those men will come stand in that pouring rain to worship with us. I heard a preacher say once that for every drop of rain, five people will not come to worship, well he wasn’t speaking about the prison, almost nothing short of a lock down will keep them from coming to worship with us.
We are so blessed by this work, I hope many of you reading this will find your way to a prison ministry, and join, learn true worship. I never wanted to go into a prison, but when there, you really don’t want the worship to end, just keep going on and on for eternity as it will someday.
I have to confess; when I first went to the prison there was an element of fear. My grandfather died in Lansing Penitentiary, and my father was incarcerated in Hutchinson Reformatory, and going to that prison for the first time I felt like Jonah, I wanted to catch the next ship out of town. But I went, now all three generations of my family have been in prison, except I go to worship, and they bless me, God blesses me, and what I feared turned into one of my greatest blessings.
Maybe you can be blessed by it as well.
