Contents
What we do
We help those who are incarcerated – whatever their religious affiliation or lack of affiliation – and their institutions by providing:
- Visiting chaplains with special training who are available to meet with inmates in more than 30 institutions throughout California
- Corresponding chaplains with special training who are available to correspond with any inmate in any institution in California who asks for such contact in order to explore more about the Bible and who they are as the loved child of God
- Bibles and/or related Christian Science literature and articles for an inmate to study and grow in his or her understanding of God and how precious each one of us is to God
- Recent issues of the Christian Science Monitor, an international newspaper
- Prayer in support of inmates and staff and their families and all connected to the criminal justice system in California.
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What we don’t do
We want to share the light of the Christ with inmates. We want to help inmates grow spiritually to better understand and feel their relationship to God as described in the Bible. This sharing has been an enormous blessing to many inmates in many facilities over many decades. We are not a social service organization or a pen pal organization. Accordingly, we:
- Do not try to delve into the inmate’s past history or motivations or psychological state;
- Do not act as a go-between or messenger for inmates;
- Do not advise inmates about their legal status or offer any legal advice;
- Do not testify for or act as a character reference for inmates
Our Motive
Sometimes people confuse our prison ministry with proselytizing. Actually, what we do is the opposite of proselytizing. Proselytizing involves a narrow and selfish desire to get outsiders to join your group to make your group more numerous and humanly powerful and convince everyone that your way is the best way. In contrast, Jesus instructed his followers to preach the Gospel and share the good news of the kingdom of heaven at hand. Our motivation is to follow the command of Jesus and to share what we know about God out of a pure sense of love for mankind – an unselfish motive to bless and help others regardless of their religious affiliation or lack of such affiliation.