During my first week here in the Philippines, I was afforded the opportunity to do something that I had yet to experience in my life…prison ministry. I was admittedly nervous because I had pretty much no idea what to expect. Within the first five minutes, two things became abundantly clear. First, and most importantly, the Holy Spirit was present in this prison. I am not one to be able to typically walk into a space and immediately feel the Spirit’s presence, but I could on this day. It was as if a peace and a calm rested within those walls. A peaceful calm that I can guarantee you Paul brought with him into a Roman prison two thousand years ago. Second, I realized quickly that these were not bad men. In fact, had this encounter happened outside of the prison and had they not been wearing prison mandated garments, I would have guessed about a dozen other identities for these men. Oh the happiness that flooded many of their faces. The joy behind their eyes. These were not expressions of hardened criminals and these certainly were not bad men. Before I go any further, I want to preface this blog with a bit of a dangerous statement. I never expected to experience this on the Race, but the Lord clearly had some tricks up his sleeve. I witnessed more freedom inside a prison in the Philippines than I have witnessed in many American churches. In a place where the word freedom rings with a mocking irony, I watched as it echoed ever greater than within the walls of institutions that are meant to declare freedom for the world to see. Let me tell you why…
We introduced ourselves, shook hands, and listened as Pastor Mike spoke briefly about why we were there that day. Pastor Mike is a man of incredible faith, spending time with these men each week, so it was an incredible honor to be able to step into ministry with him on this day. One of my teammates, Drew Dahlsten, led worship for the men. I really cannot put into words what it feels like to be in a prison worshipping the Father while standing arm in arm with a group of Filipino men serving various lengths of time for some past mistakes. “There should be no hope here,” I told myself. Yet my eyes witnessed the contrary. Hope. Expectancy. Excitement to be worshiping the Father. Clearly these men are aware of the Father’s love. There existed a semblance of freedom unlike anything I have witnessed thus far on the Race. Freedom to worship a holy God from a place of brokenness and with an identity secure in the knowledge that Jesus paved a way for their sin to be blotted out and forgotten. Even as I sit here now, I am discovering a deeper sense of the freedom I gained that day.
The best part of the morning came not long after when a German missionary named Peter came forward to do some magic tricks for the men. Let me preface by saying that I hate magic. I do not understand it and it drives me crazy when I cannot understand how something works. That being said, I loved what Peter did that day. He brought happiness, laughter, and child-like amazement into a room where such emotions and expressions should not have the freedom to exist. Yet with each illusion, I saw the faces of these men (and my teammates) light up with wonder, amazement, and excitement. We were having fun together. We were laughing together. We were doing life together. “How can these men, some of which are waiting as many as SEVEN years just to have their trial, be smiling, much less laughing, right now?” My mind is still blown by this reality. I have a bad day if my plans get ruined by the rain. I lose my sense of joy and happiness if someone eats the food from the refrigerator that I have been saving. How can my feeble mind reconcile the happiness these men were feeling? It did not make sense, which is precisely why it was so beautiful. You see, the Lord is the source of their joy. He is the one who brings them a reason to be happy each day. He supplies them with reason to experience wonder and amazement. How often have I seen the church in a place of discontent because we are disconnected from the one who seeks to supply our joy, happiness, wonder, and amazement. If the offering plate is not overflowing, if the music is not appealing, if the sermon is not applicable or not delivered with enough fervor, or if the coffee is too weak, our ability to enjoy our experience is threatened. All because our hearts are not set on the true source of joy. It is something I see infecting many churches. Our hearts are deliberately focused inwardly rather than upwardly. We miss the heart of the Creator more often than we simply live in the joy that comes from knowing Him.
We closed out our morning with an opportunity to share some of our stories. My teammate, Zack Toth, shared first and told a beautiful story of redemption in his family. After Zack finished speaking, it was my turn to speak to this room full of Filipino men. I was unprepared, primarily because I was not aware I would be speaking until we arrived that morning. Fortunately the Spirit urged me to say yes to speaking and gave me the words to say about my own journey. And now for the hard part. Much of what I shared is junk I am still unpacking along this journey, so my understanding is still in the development stages. I shared of my upbringing in a family devoted to the Lord. I shared of my knowledge of the Bible and the Scriptures from a young age. I also shared that I spent a long time growing up and prior to leaving for the race secretly living in obstinance to the truth, in fear of God’s judgment, and in shame over the sin that controlled my life. I confessed to these men about my struggles with lust and an addiction to alcohol. I shared about how my life verse has been John 3:30 for the past decade. “He must become greater, I must become less.” I shared how these words caused me to see that my life needed a reordering.
I shared of a freedom that allows us to walk confidently in our identity as adopted sons and daughters, grafted into the vine, free from sin, shame, and condemnation because, as Paul says in Romans 8:1-2, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” I shared many other things that I would love to share with you all if you care to contact me, but for now, I will leave it at that. The important thing to know, though, is that I was able to express my freedom to be open and vulnerable before a body of believers in a way that I know many out there are wishing they had the freedom to do before believers in the church. Yet they fear the judgment that might come with that exposure and vulnerability. They fear condemnation and a stirring up of guilt within their hearts as they are told they are not good enough. That is not the picture of freedom I want…and it is not the picture Jesus provides in the Gospel. I thank God for the freedom these men experience in those jail cells. I pray this same freedom invades many churches worldwide so that genuine Spirit-led healing can take place in the hearts of men and women everywhere.
We finished by presenting the men with Christmas gifts and praying over them. I still do not have words to really describe their joy, thankfulness, and excitement. They left the room with hugs, smiles, and nods of appreciation. We left with full hearts having done what we were called to the Philippines to do: proclaim freedom and deliver hope. I wonder if those men will ever know how much they actually did those things for me on that day. I hope they do and I hope they know that they are not bad men, but rather sons of the Father.
If you have remained through this entire blog, I want to say thank you for hearing this story that the Lord has written, directed, and orchestrated here in the Philippines. I want to close by saying that my words are not an indictment on the church. There are many exceptional churches out there. I worked for a church for close to a decade. No church is perfect. I witnessed the Kingdom being built in my home church. I also witnessed some symptoms of a body of believers that never fully experienced the same freedom I saw in a Filipino prison. I have witnessed those same symptoms in many churches. These are not easy hallways to navigate. It will likely take a lifetime for many believers and churches to fully embrace and experience this freedom. So no, this is not an indictment, but rather a calling to dive deeper into the freedom that the Lord wants for all of us. Freedom to worship in joy, expectation, wonder, and amazement at how completely our Father in Heaven loves us. Freedom to laugh and have fun together, putting off the meaningless concerns that dominate the hearts of many in churches. Freedom to come before other believers and expose the pains and struggles in our lives that cause us shame and cause us to fear judgment at the hands of our brothers and sisters. I want to invite you all into that with me. I am still learning what it looks like, but I can already guarantee you that it is better than the false sense of security that comes from hiding our lives behind a veil.
