Spinning the flywheel

By and large, churches are really good at caring for the needs brought about by brokenness.

When a church discovers that a husband is hospitalized, for example, it immediately mobilizes to support the family. Someone from the church’s care ministry visits him in the hospital. Their small group or Sunday School class bring meals to the family. They help get the kids to and from school. These and other similar practical and emotional support emerges without much prompting.

Or what if a wife tragically dies in a car accident? The church likewise acts immediately. The Body of Christ comes along side the widower and helps with the emotional strain of grief. The Bereavement Team goes with him to the funeral home to make the arrangements. They again bring meals and help shuttle children to give the widower space to grieve. The church might even help him financially as he misses more work than usual and deals with the flood of unexpected expenses. The flywheel of support starts spinning as soon as the need is discovered, and the church walks beside the family as healing occurs.

But what happens when a husband or wife is incarcerated? Who is mobilized? What happens next? Sadly, most of us don’t know what to do. And so we do nothing.

For Pam and me, our experience was different. Exceptional even. Our family and friends mobilized miraculously to care for Pam and the kids. This was due in small part to our own preparations.

“For Pam and me, our experience was different. Exceptional even. Our family and friends mobilized miraculously to care for Pam and the kids.”

But even our preparations had their roots in the investment of time from a friend of a friend who had walked a similar road. He sent me a long document telling me what he would have done differently if he had known then what he knows now. His input was super helpful, but it alone would not have been enough.

What made the biggest difference in our lives was the organic mobilization of the Body of Christ from all the communities of relationships we enjoyed. Our church was part of it, but it was also parents from our kids’ school, our workplace, our friends in Texas, Florida and elsewhere. It was our next door neighbors and other acquaintances. We had a remarkable group of people around us, and through those relationships, they saw firsthand the needs that Pam and the kids were experiencing. And the met them.

As I said, our support was exceptional. But we don’t think it should be the exception.

Matthew 7:12 says, “Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get." (MSG) In other familiar translations, this verse refers to the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“Our support was exceptional. But we don’t think it should be the exception. ”

Or as the writer of Hebrews so eloquently put it, “Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself.” (NLT)

The issue isn’t an unwillingness of the church to care for the families of the incarcerated. We truly believe that when the need is known, it is met abundantly and generously. Rather, the issue is unawareness. We the church simply haven’t sufficiently considered (thoughtfully, prayerfully, and compassionately) the plight of these hidden and forgotten victims of incarceration.

Our hope is that as you hear our story, and as you hear the stories of the many people who cared for the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of our family, that you will be inspired to do the same. We hope that the next time you read a news story about someone being convicted of a crime, that your first instinctual response isn’t one of judgment, but of compassion. We hope that your heart will break for the spouses and children that will be affected; that you’ll think about their prison without walls and remember them as though you were there yourself.

And most importantly, we hope that as they wait for their season of unpleasantness to pass, that you will take action to bring them Hope in the Waiting.