'...from darkness to light...'

Gerard Chrispin reports on the launch of the new DAYLIGHT Christian Prison Trust, seeking to bring the gospel to those behind bars...

A helpful missionary vision emphasis in recent years is the concentration on the needs of people groups, in addition to focusing on geographical areas.

The world's 'pond' is huge for 'fishers of men', and the appropriate tackle and bait are needed to attract and catch the targeted 'fish'. The same principle applies to evangelistic work within Britain. It is right, for example, that UCCF targets students in a student-orientated way, that businessmen focus on their business friends and colleagues, and that United Beach Missions concentrates on summer holiday makers. Some people groups are harder to identify and reach than others. Some are relatively simple to locate and contact. Some call for a great deal of work and expense, just to get people to hear the gospel. Other people groups are reachable relatively simply and inexpensively.

Reaching prisoners effectively with the gospel is simple, but never easy. It is extremely cost-effective, though the sheer scale of the work needed across all UK's prisons calls for much prayer, effort and financial support from God's people.

The need and scope

How many people are currently in Britain's prisons? An updated precise answer to that is available from the informative government websites at www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk (England and Wales), www.sps.gov.uk (Scotland), and www.niprisonservice.gov.uk (Northern Ireland). The typical - and rising - figures are respectively 76,000 in 137 prisons (including prisons on British islands), 7,100 in 16 prisons, and 1,400 in three prisons, making a UK total of 84,500 in 156 prisons. SPS (the Scottish Prison Service) estimates its annual turnover of inmates as four to five times its daily number. This may be slightly conservative in considering the UK as a whole, but taking that factor as five, the annual number of people in, or passing through, our prison system would be typically 422,500. We must remember, however, that we are talking about people and not just about statistics. Obviously, these people have sinned - as we all have - but with more dire and obvious consequences for themselves, for others and for society as a whole. How many despairing families and devastated victims have been sucked involuntarily into the vacuum of shame that their sin has produced, like leaves in the gutter following a speeding bus? How many smashed lives are there, both behind those unyielding bars, endless locks and clanging gates and on the other side of them? How many inside ever heard the gospel clearly presented before their imprisonment? Many have not, and saw no reason why they should even have been interested. Often God uses the starkness and shock of their extreme plight in prison to get their attention.

'I would not have missed this for anything'

One inmate, doing life for murder in Northern Ireland's Maghaberry Prison (which took over from the notorious Maize Prison) told me: 'Gerard, if I had not come to prison I would never have come to Christ. I just would not have thought about him outside.' I sympathised with another high profile prisoner, who has consistently denied guilt and imminently awaits his appeal hearing after more than ten years inside. His response brought a lump to my throat. He said: 'I would not have missed this for anything, because I have become a Christian in prison. I doubt if I would have given the gospel five minutes' thought otherwise.' Others reflect the same sentiment. One told me that it was only when he went back inside for the third or fourth time that he looked at the wall of his cell and realised what a fool he had been to ignore the loving care of Christians who had pleaded with him to turn from his sins and trust Jesus Christ as his Saviour.

Those big open doors on those marvellous little hinges!

You may ask how we - that is Phillippa (my wife), myself and our team of honorary local based Prison Ministry Associates - got involved in this great privilege and pleasure of preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible across this needy mission field. We believe that God has opened this door, through the generosity and vision of DayOne and the warm invitations and welcomes given to us by prison chaplains. They so appreciate the DayOne diaries, freely donated and distributed each year to every prison, that they willingly allow us to take their Sunday services (anything from one to five services!) and weekday meetings. Not all share our conservative evangelical position, but we are received invariably with extreme courtesy and kindness, and welcomed back. The diaries, with their beautiful colour photographs and daily texts arranged in monthly and yearly themes, are the hinges upon which these amazing doors of opportunity have swung open for us. 161,000 diaries are budgeted for 2005, and many more are being requested over our budget. Also, we have handed many thousands of evangelistic booklets to willing inmates as we say goodbye to each one on the way back to their cells, fostered individual contacts with prisoners, written lever arch files of personal letters in response to theirs, and sought to link some interested or newly converted prisoners with helpful churches. An average Sunday service will present around 70 listening inmates (sometimes half of that number and sometimes double) and weekday meetings around 30, with whom we share the gospel for anything from 30 to 90 minutes. The longer the meeting, the more varied is our programme, and the easier it is to encourage audience participation, often through lively open question times.

But we are only scratching the surface of this potential for the gospel, where the need and the opportunity so patently meet.

Enter DAYLIGHT Christian Prison Trust

DayOne's main role is as a Christian publisher of books and booklets, not as a prison missionary society. However, such is DayOne's enthusiasm for this prison mission field that, from October 2004 for two years initially, instead of putting me out to grass at my official 'sell by date', they will provide half my salary and costs, with DAYLIGHT providing the rest. At the invitation of DayOne's Council and DAYLIGHT's trustees, I shall be thrilled to continue to direct, in tandem, DayOne Prison Ministries (DOPM) and DAYLIGHT, God willing.

DOPM will continue to donate the diaries to the prisons and provide, at cost, booklets to the new trust. DAYLIGHT has the three main aims detailed below, which can only be realised as God enables and as finance comes in.

First, we look to employ full-time and part-time Regional Directors to replicate regionally in the prisons what Phillippa and I now seek to do nationally. Our first target is to employ one such person as soon as we can, then aim for five to serve the expected ten new divisions of prisons. In time we hope to cover the UK and regions in a more concentrated way. (We could use many people profitably in the prison work even now, if we were able to afford them.) I hope to recognise, groom and help my eventual successor as overall Director from one of these Regional Directors.

Second, we want to provide more prisoner-friendly Christian leaflets, booklets, courses and correspondence courses. Most of these would be either evangelistic or to help and nurture a prisoner's personal faith. Some would deal practically with specific areas of need commonly encountered by the inmates.

Third, DAYLIGHT intends to build on DayOne's niche clientele of conservative evangelical churches, and team with them in order to help to train both those churches and individual Christians for various aspects of prison work and helping prisoners. This would cover the whole range of prison ministry, including writing letters, marking correspondence courses, prison visiting, supporting meetings and services taken, leading or speaking at them, follow up, and contact and courses for pre-release and post-release prisoners to aid their reintegration in society and to make them welcome in the church.

We have a very long way to go to achieve these goals! The pace and ability to achieve them depends on God's help and his provision of people and churches who will pray, get involved and give financially. We see the appointment of the Regional Directors as key, both in their direct involvement at prisons and in the church teaming arrangements which they will oversee in their regions, hopefully helped by Phillippa and me along the way. However, we are actively seeking to instigate a pilot scheme in London now, despite being very thinly spread indeed! We need your prayers and support, please. We really do!

More details from DAYLIGHT CPT, PO Box 1333, Southampton SO16 7XY - or phone 0790 99 66 729 or email Prison@DaylightCPT.org.uk. The website will be www.DaylightCPT.org when completed.

DAYLIGHT Christian Prison Trust is launched

The need and scope

Enter DAYLIGHT Christian Prison Trust

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