Reaching behind bars

How virtual volunteering is making prison ministry more accessible than ever.

→en français. Illustration above by Eva Bee

In the King James Bible the word prison appears 90 times. In some instances it’s context – “I was in prison and you came to me.” In others it’s a command – “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them.”

Most Christians recognize prison ministry as an important calling, but a recent study from Lifeway Research suggests most have no idea how to put that calling into practice. According to the 2024 survey, more than 50% of churchgoers are interested in helping the incarcerated, but only one in four make the leap from interest to involvement.

Why the disconnect? Lifeway respondents gave a variety of reasons, from feeling intimidated to simply not having the opportunity.

These are familiar themes for Mackenna Gonyou of London, Ont., church partnership coordinator at New Life Prison Ministries (NLPM.ca).

Gonyou says, “People often come to us because they have a passion for reaching the lost and serving in those spaces where it’s harder to reach people with the gospel, [but] they have this fear of not knowing how to interact or engage with inmates because they’ve not had any experience of prison ministry before.”

Bible studies for prisoners

New Life offers Bible study correspondence courses to prisoners throughout Canada. Inmates, or students as they’re referred to by New Life, receive the courses from their prison chaplain or directly from the New Life offices.

Once completed and returned each student’s coursework is sent out to a volunteer virtual instructor. Instructors write encouraging feedback alongside the student’s answers, as well as penning them a longform letter. These are reviewed by the office before being returned to the student.

Last year New Life served 2,504 students and sent out more than 38,000 courses.

“The instructor [label] can be confusing, but our volunteers aren’t teaching. They’re encouraging and mentoring,” says Gonyou. “We’re not looking for theologians. We’re just looking for people who love Jesus and are passionate about helping people follow Him too. People are always more equipped to do that than they realize.”

New Life is not the only organization in Canada doing this kind of work. Others include Crossroads for Prisoners Canada, Redemption Prison Ministry and Prison Fellowship Canada (see sidebar on page 31). But the New Life model is unique in its range of more than 90 topic-based courses and the central role volunteers play in guiding students through their studies.

Chaplain R. Wayne Hagerman, who serves in the Southeast Regional Correctional Centre in New Brunswick, says New Life instructors are an important complement to his work behind bars as they inspire and motivate inmates.

“When I encounter clients who have received mail back from New Life, they are always excited to tell me about the person on the other end of the pen who has communicated deeply, lovingly and compassionately to them. It gives them hope.”

Virtual volunteering

There are currently around 200 volunteer instructors working with New Life, participating in a growing prison ministry without ever leaving the house. For many, this ease and accessibility is part of the appeal.

“We have a lot of people who can’t serve in their church because they have mobility issues or they have time constraints. We provide a flexible way to serve and reach people with the gospel. That’s really meaningful,” says Gonyou.

But, of course, it’s not just that it’s easy. Many volunteers come to New Life with more personal motivations. Lori Fellner, a retired nurse from London, Ont., has been with the charity for four years and was drawn to the program after a road to Damascus-style moment of repentance and clarity.

Fellner began her career at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in Ontario. Despite being a very competent nurse, she struggled to relate to her patients and was often judgmental. “I had a pretty good rapport with the inmates, but I had this very standoffish attitude towards them. I wasn’t a Christian at the time and I had no compassion. I cared about their health, but that’s where it stopped.”

Decades later, after she had become a Christian and retired from nursing, Fellner was listening to her car radio when a program about Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson came over the airwaves. The more she listened to his story, the more it resonated with her.

“It was as if God was nudging me to revisit who I was and to come full circle. I felt really compelled to search for a way into prison ministry.”

Fellner did some research and found New Life. In the years since, working with the organization, she says she has felt God working through her to transform not just her students, but also herself.

“God has given me a chance to be redeemed for how I treated inmates in the past. These people are just as deserving of God’s grace as I am. When I started to see people as God wanted me to, it was life changing. My heart was filled with compassion.”

Fellow volunteer Wendy Gatschene has also found the program life changing. Four years ago Gatschene suffered a devastating stroke that left her hospitalized for two months. When she came out of hospital her previously busy life, in which she’d volunteered at a children’s ministry for 40 hours a week, was over.

These people are just as deserving of God’s grace as I am.

Unable to serve in the way she loved, she felt lost and useless. It was Gonyou, a member of her church, who told her about New Life and encouraged her to get involved.

While nervous at first, Gatschene says she has never looked back, “I live for it now. Humbling myself under God’s hand and letting Him use me in this way has been phenomenally wonderful. It’s hard to express the joy I get from it. It has fulfilled me and given purpose to my life again.”

Challenges of a deskbound ministry

Volunteering from behind a desk may make prison ministry more accessible, but it’s not without its challenges. Students typically battle issues such as drug addiction, abuse and trauma – topics tough to navigate from a distance. As Chaplain Hagerman says, “Prison ministry is messy, it is raw and it is real. It is not in any way, shape or form like ministry in a church setting. It is not polite or pretty.”

All New Life volunteers must complete a rigorous training program with sample letters and responses providing a template for sensitively handling difficult topics. Volunteers can’t share personal information with students – they write under a pseudonym – and are advised not to push students for more information than they’re willing to share.

Every letter is carefully vetted by the New Life team before it’s returned to the student, and volunteers are encouraged to get in touch with the office if they’re unsure how to respond or what to say.

“We don’t ask instructors to sit at home and do this by themselves,” says Gonyou.

Seeking to bridge the gap between instructor and inmate, Gonyou recently spearheaded a revamp of New Life’s training program, focusing on prison conditions to give volunteers a clearer idea of where exactly their letters go.

“Instructors at home are far removed from the mission and can struggle to know the story of an inmate and understand their pain,” says Gonyou. “The goal of the new program is to give them a full picture of the prison system so they can respond with compassion, care and grace.”

For Fellner the training has been invaluable, providing a structured environment from which to serve. “They make sure people are aware of the role they will be playing, and set boundaries to make sure you’re safe and the inmate is safe as well.”

Results and rewards

The staff, volunteers and chaplains working with New Life all strive toward the same goal – spiritual growth. Hagerman has seen these transformations firsthand, recalling how two inmates who struggled with literacy issues were given comic book-style Bible courses from New Life and told him they’d “found Jesus” among the cartoon-like pages.

“I was blown away,” he says. “I’ve discovered through this encounter and many more that, if I can just get out of God’s way and let the Holy Spirit work, miracles really do take place in a correctional centre.”

Gatschene says she often receives notes from her students telling her they’ve seen God working in their lives and are amazed by it. Some conversions take longer than others, however, and she remembers a particularly challenging situation when a student was grieving the loss of their child and had become very bitter.

“I spent hours trying to find Bible verses to help her heal,” Gatschene says. “And I trusted God that He was giving me the right things to tell her. She eventually found peace.”

Catherine Morris is a writer in Lakefield, Ont. (CatMorWrites.com).