Forsyth Jail And Prison Ministry

This is the Truth Network. Well, you would think this would be Robbie Dilmore, but you would be wrong.

It's Bill Nixon. Robbie is having a wonderful time at the ARK Museum and we hope he enjoys himself. I generally get to help out with Christian car guys, but had the wonderful opportunity to step in this morning because I've got some of the neatest folks I know here to talk to us. They're all associated one way or another with the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry, which is a wonderful organization in our community. Mark, Mark Hogsed is our Executive Director at the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry. Good morning, sir.

Good morning, Bill. Thank you for having me on. Well, we appreciate you giving us some time. Would you tell us a little bit about the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry, please, sir?

Sure. Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministers, we're about a 45 year old organization operating in Forsyth County. Our mission is simple. We use Christ's love and forgiveness to transform lives and break the cycle of crime and punishment.

And we do that in a number of unique ways. First of all, at our core, we are a chaplaincy. The ministry is community funded and provides full time chaplains and both incarceration facilities in Forsyth County, the prison, the Cherry Street Prison, Forsyth Correctional Center on the north side of town and then the jail operated by the sheriff's office downtown. And so not only do we provide chaplaincy services every day, in fact, our chaplains are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond to the needs of those individuals who are incarcerated. But we also provide reentry services for men coming out of prison at the at the down at the Cherry Street Prison, where we help them take them through a two year reentry program prior to their release. And then once they are released, then we help support them with things that they're going to need as they make their transition back into society like housing and transportation. We help them find stable employment, which is critical to finding success after incarceration. We're volunteer, we are reliant heavily on hundreds of volunteers to help us as we carry out various programs like worship services and Bible studies every week at both facilities. So we love our volunteers and our local churches that support us as well. We are a holistic jail and prison ministry.

We try to touch every aspect of the incarceration journey to do what we can to make sure that once somebody is free of incarceration, that he or she does not return. We've got one of the Bible study leaders here with me this morning. And Kevin, pronounce your last name so I don't destroy it.

It's OK. It's Gujmand. Gujmand. Tell us, you've been helping out at the Winston-Salem Correctional Facility for a while now. Tell us what it's like to be doing a Bible study in a jail. Well, I've really enjoyed going to the jail for a number of years and Winston-Salem opened up to our church at Twin City and we've just really enjoyed it. We come prepared to talk to men about who God is as a creator.

We go through the fall and sin and why God does what he does and what the word says about itself, what God says about himself, and give them a Bible study based on a Christian worldview. And we've got a pretty good, for the floor that I go on, I've just really enjoyed it because men are coming back. And these are men in transition.

So they come and they go and you don't know who you're going to get. But we always review all of those things when we start out. I have just thoroughly enjoyed it over the years. Gary Roberts coordinates the jail and prison ministry at Twin City and helped get Kevin to come in and volunteer. Would you share with us what you do with your church and what all your church does in the community? Yes, thank you Bill.

Yes, thank you Bill. So last January we reinvigorated our jail and prison ministry opportunities at Twin City and we went through the training process, which is required each year for all church members connected with a local body to go through. And we had about 24 people from our congregation to go through that, men and women. And so over the last 10 or so months, we've been able to go in almost once every month, sometimes more, particularly with the Saturday morning Bible studies that Kevin was mentioning, and do a Sunday worship service. And so that's just been a real honor and pleasure really to bring the gospel in with these inmates. And so we've got a lot of folks in our church that are praying for the ministry that are not able to be a part of it, but are still praying for it.

The elders fully support it and it's just been a real honor. So we're very, very thankful for this opportunity to partner with Forsyth County Jail and Prison Ministry. Mark, as I understand it, you're doing two Sunday services and we've got what, five or six Bible studies going on each week?

That's correct, Bill. We do a men's service and a women's service at the jail every Sunday and we have two different volunteer groups that lead each one of those services in conjunction with our chaplains. And then we do Bible studies on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. So four days a week, we have multiple Bible studies going on down at the jail.

Some days there's several different time slots as well. And churches like Twin Cities, we cannot do it without them. I cannot stress enough how vital these volunteers, faithful servants are coming into our jail and the prison to impact folks who find themselves incarcerated in probably the most difficult situation they've ever faced in life. It's just critical that we share the love of Christ as often as we can, because just like what was mentioned earlier, the jail especially is transient.

So you never know how long somebody is going to be in there, so every opportunity is critical for them to hear the gospel. And the prison, what type of programs do you have going on at the prison? We have a wide variety of programs at the prison.

Some of them are similar to the jail. We have a couple of Bible studies, volunteer-led, and some that are led by our chaplains every week. We also have worship services every Sunday evening at five o'clock and those are, our chaplains typically preach those worship services and then we'll have a local church come in as well and provide special music and maybe do a testimony time and just have a time of fellowship with the men at the prison. We also have some life skills types of classes. We're right now teaching a financial literacy class on Tuesday nights, and then we partner with Goodwill to teach project re-entry, and we teach a class with Forsyth Tech, human resource development as well.

They send one of their professors over to teach that class and it's phenomenal. We also have various programs that go on throughout the year, some family builder programs. We do a program around Father's Day, one around Mother's Day, and then one at Christmas time as well. In fact, we even have volunteers that come out to the prison and teach pickleball, if you can believe that. We've set up a pickleball court out on the prison yard, on the basketball court, and it's just a great time to get the men up and moving and getting some exercise and the volunteers will pray with them and it's just become a really popular, fantastic program at the prison. Now, there have been some baptisms at both the jail and the prison or just the prison? Just the last couple of years since COVID, we've been able to do a baptism service on the prison yard and that's open to anybody who feels the call, who's given his life to Christ and feels the call to be baptized. Our chaplains, we have a wonderful volunteer that has a mobile baptismal that will bring that out to the prison. We put it right in the middle of the prison yard and our chaplains will baptize those who wish to be baptized right there on the prison yard. It's just a fantastic setting.

All the inmates in the prison will surround it. They're clapping, they're cheering, and it's just a great, great time, a unique time of the ministry. Okay, Toon. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back. We're so glad you tuned in.

We're a call-in show, 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. I was sharing some things I probably shouldn't have shared about during the break. A lot of us had a period in our life when we did not know Christ. And there are folks out there that we're supposed to help introduce to Christ. That's the reason Jesus came.

And Jesus, God puts people in our path that we're supposed to make a difference in their life so that we can share the good news with them. And there are a few folks that are willing to walk into a prison or a jail and do that. My mother worked at Polk Youth Center, which was central prison for anybody in the state that was under 22. And I've been told by folks that work at central prison that central was a fine place compared to Polk because at least they had some common sense. Never dreamed that I was going to end up in a jail sharing my faith. I went kicking and screaming, but after the first time there, I really fell in love with it.

It really is a neat experience. So, those of you that aren't in Forsyth County, I encourage you to pray for those that are incarcerated in your area and to pick up the phone and to call those facilities and say, by chance, is there a chaplain in your facility that I might be able to assist in some way? I promise you that they could use some Bibles.

I promise you they can use some reading material. I promise you that they could use some hygiene items that the chaplains could pass out. You might not understand this, but if you get locked up and put in jail, they do not provide you with toothpaste and toothbrush and shampoo and soap. And imagine being locked up for any period of time with no idea when you're getting out without the very basic things to stay clean. It is difficult for a chaplain when people come up to them and say, chaplain, I really could use some toothpaste. And the chaplain has to say, I'm so sorry, I don't have any to give you. Jesus tells us that we're supposed to visit those that are incarcerated. And there's a reason that Jesus tells us that he really would prefer that we were sheep and not goats.

And if you don't understand or remember the context, I would encourage you to do a little Google. Find ways to make a difference in your community, whether it's with the homeless or whether it's with the people that are incarcerated or whether it's the people in the convalescent homes. But your Christianity, you're supposed to be working out, is supposed to be an active word.

Love is an active word. Mark, talk about some of the things that a congregation or a church could do. I know we used to put a box outside the minister's door and we'd publish a list of items that we could fill up a box and bring over to the ministry. What type of things could be gathered that would make the ministry more effective? Certainly, like you mentioned, Bill, hygiene items, that's always something, it's always a need, because we do at least a monthly distribution of hygiene items for individuals who are incarcerated, because like you said, oftentimes they don't have proper access or just kind of need something to tide them over for a week or two until they can get something else.

So hygiene items are always needed. One unique way that anybody can minister to folks who are incarcerated is simply by writing a card, a card of encouragement, a note card. We have a number of small groups or church groups around the community that just gather together for an evening and everybody writes a handful of cards and then that allows us to give those out, oftentimes with the hygiene items, just something saying, dear friend, we're praying for you, or maybe an encouraging verse or encouraging message, something very simple, but a little bit in a card goes a long way for somebody who may not get any type of mail or anything like that from anybody from the outside. So that's a great way to impact those that are incarcerated. And even if you have maybe a couple of old books or Bibles, Christian books or something like that, that you can always drop that by.

We get a number of requests. We have a small library at the prison and we get a number of requests at the jail for Bibles and different types of reading materials, specifically Christian-based reading materials. So we like our chaplains to have access to those types of things to pass out as well. And then finally, we can't use a lot, but we can use some gently used or new clothing items for men who are getting out of prison. We like to resource them and provide them with a couple of outfits so that when they go to their transition home or wherever their home is after incarceration, that they have a couple of outfits to get them started with work or just started back into their life of newfound freedom.

Now, I would encourage everybody to call and talk to whoever you plan to see us before you start gathering things in a lot of areas. You can't just take used books into a facility. So even the Bibles have to be ordered by case and then taken to the Forsyth jail and prison ministry, then the chaplains have to take those pristine Bibles in. You would be amazed at what can be hidden inside a book.

You'd be amazed what can be hidden behind a stamp. So before you start collecting, make a phone call and make sure, especially with a flood relief, it's really good to call whoever it is that you want to drop the stuff off with and say, do you actually need these items here and what exactly should we be gathering instead of taking a load of something somewhere where we just don't have room to store that anymore. There are huge needs, but it's good to figure out those needs and pray about them and then start gathering them instead of showing up somewhere where the items can't be used. It's interesting that in some churches they do lots of outreach and you've got a coordinator there that makes sure things run smooth. And in some churches it just happens because you've got some key people. I know we have some wonderful elders in our church that make sure we do what we're supposed to. If your church is not reaching outside its four walls, I would encourage you to pray about starting to reach out and make a difference in your community. The homeless, the convalescent homes, the jail and prison, we've got to be out there and working and making a difference in our community.

And even more important than that is our kids need to see us doing those type of things. How many volunteers do you know of in your church that you work with the jail and prison ministry and the other programs? Well with the jail and prison ministry at Twin City, with the jail and prison ministry at Twin City, again we've got just a little over 20 people that have been through the training process. We've not had a chance to utilize every person these last 10 months to go in, but that's about what we've got in the jail and prison ministry. We also support the rescue mission and a crisis pregnancy center. And also we go to various festivals and events a couple of times a year in downtown Greensboro or Winston-Salem and give out gospel tracts in hope of having a conversation with someone about the Lord and their need for the Lord. So those are some of the highlights.

And certainly we support several, several missionaries in other parts of the world and some even fairly close by in the United States. Kevin, what's it like to go into the jail? What's the process? How many people do you end up talking to? Well it varies and the jail can be, if I can make a pre-comment, it can be for men a time of reflection and because they're there they've got a lot of time on their hands. And so I'm just glad that they show up. I've been, I've tried to be consistent week after week and let them know how much I care for them. And because these are image bearers. Every one of us is an image bearer of God. And that is what keeps me coming back. The other thing that keeps you coming back is the encouragement of God's word. And God says that his word goes out in Isaiah 55 and it does not return to him void. It accomplishes his purpose. And so I'm encouraged just by that, that the Holy Spirit can move. And as long as I'm reading God's word and I'm saying what it says and I share with them what it means and then we talk about application, they can be family, domestic, all kinds of different things. We've many topics we've gone through about life.

And God's word is very complete when it comes to how we should be living. Please. Yes, and one of the specifics when we go there, of course you have to go bring your driver's license and go through the metal detector. But we are thankful, as Mark mentioned earlier, for the staff, the sheriff's department staff. It's a, you know, a responsibility on them. They have their normal tasks. So when they accommodate us, we're very, very thankful. One of the things that the Forsyth County Jail and Prison Ministry does, and maybe some other ministries throughout the state, is once a year, Mark, correct me if I'm wrong, we encircle the jail and hopefully clasp hands and pray for the inmates. And we have a large building. It's probably eight or ten stories tall. Bill, would you guess? Six-eight, six-eight.

Yeah. And sometimes we will see the inmates up in the small windows, and they will knock on the glass doors when we're down on the street encircling and praying. And that's a real encouragement. Also, once a year at Christmastime, we go in and pass out cookies and give the gospel and sing carols.

That's a real special time as well. Now, I'd like you to pray about how you're going to share your faith and who you're going to share your faith with, because there's absolutely no doubt Paul said you're an ambassador for Christ. That means you're supposed to be getting out there and making a difference in the world around you. How are you going to do that? You're listening to The Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Well, we're so glad you came back to the call-in show. There's not a whole lot of time to call in, but there's still a little, 866-348-7884. I hope that you will add your local jail and prison ministry, the chaplains, the officers, the administration, the inmates, and the families of all those above in your prayers. They need loving. Most of the jails and most of the prisons and most of the police forces are operating on a whole lot less help than they need. And in our area, if you become an officer in the sheriff's department, you're forced to work down at the correctional facility for a certain amount of time, which means a lot of them really didn't sign up to do that and they're hoping that that gets through as soon as possible. And it sort of puts an attitude on the way they behave.

Point being, if you're in there, and you know, there are an awful lot of people that wouldn't be there if all the truth be known. It just does something to your head and your spirit when you're locked up. And then you find out who's willing to come up with some money and how hard it is to get out and what's life going to be like when you get out.

Those folks need prayer, but they also need help. So I would encourage you to make a call to your local correctional facilities and say, I want to talk to whoever the chaplain is and just say, Chaplain, if nothing else, I want to pray for you by name. And I would love to know what type of assistance you're already getting in our community.

And we would like to find a way to get connected and see what you can do. In our area, there's something called transition to work, that when you get ready to get out of jail, there's help that's provided. And you would be amazed I helped with the homeless at a place called city with dwellings, we get people that come in homeless, because they were serving time in the other end of the state, and the state dropped them off in a city that they knew absolutely nobody in life can be a whole lot more difficult than some of us realize. Mark, what type of things does the Forsyth jail and prison ministry do to help people when they get out? I know there's a resource book.

Sure, the resource book is called plan to prosper. And it's just full of critical information that can help individuals coming out of prison, set their life on on the right path. Also, a listing of resources available of transition homes and counseling agencies and those types of things as well.

But that book is a small piece. We also, as you mentioned, part of our transition to work program, the post release, this is after an individual gets out of prison, once they go through our two year pre release program, the post release program is full of support through our transition to work coordinator and our other staff and volunteers, and then a network of mentors as well that can make sure these men at least have access to somebody who's going to help guide them and answer questions for them and help them through the critical first few months out of prison. In addition to individuals helping, we also provide two months of housing for folks who come through our program will pay for two months of housing and a transitional home to make sure that these so when they get out, they can just focus on getting a job and saving some money and not having to worry about paying rent for a couple of months. We'll help them link them up with various employers in town. There's a number of fantastic second chance employers in town that really give men coming out of prison an opportunity to get back to work.

The vast majority of guys coming out, they just want to go to work. They just want to live a life, a quiet life of success and put their incarceration journey behind them. So as part of our transition to work program, we we help them find stable employment.

That's one of the critical components of staying free of incarceration after their release. And then we provide them with transportation as well. And that may look like a ride when they first get out a ride to the DMV or a ride to the transition home or a ride to a job interview, something like that. That may that may look like an Uber card or a bus pass.

Eventually it can when somebody's been out for a little while, a month or two and they're working and finding success. We partner with some local car dealership, Hometown Auto, who helps us find very cheap, affordable transportation cars for these men. And we provide these men for just a couple of hundred dollars for with reliable transportation that they can get that's going to help them get back and forth to work. It's probably not a car they're going to keep for 10 years, but they might keep it for a year or two while they're in the in the, you know, finding success as they as they leave incarceration.

So we want to walk alongside them to make sure that they have everything that they need to where they don't end up back in prison. And it's a fantastic program. Mark, at the fundraising breakfast last week, it was really interesting to hear correct me if I'm wrong on these percentages, but I think it was stated that the recidivism rate nationwide once someone gets out of jail and the percentage of them returning is around 60 percent. And in North Carolina, 45 percent. And then what is the rate for people that have graduated from the transition to work program? Yeah, that your percentages are exactly right. But we've we've found that for those that come through our transition to work program, they're they're not 60 percent likely to return to prison or 45 percent likely that that percentage that recidivism rate percentage drops to about seven percent. So we're excited about that. I wish it was zero percent.

That's not the case. Of course, we we want that to be as low as possible. But ninety three percent of those that come through the program are finding success and working and doing what they're supposed to do. And that's exactly what the program is designed for. And we're just grateful for everybody that takes part in that and everybody that supports that program. We have an incredible coordinator who spent some time incarcerated himself. So he knows what it's like to be behind the fence or behind the bars and then to find success after incarceration.

So we're we're truly grateful for our transition to work program. We had a police chief in town, Chief Sweat, that was talking to a group when I was trying to decide whether I was going to follow through and volunteer in the jail. And he said that, yeah, almost all the people that get arrested and serve time in the prison are going to end up back in jail again, except for that select few that find Christ and that those that find Christ, the numbers change dramatically. And that just kept going over and over and over my head until they they dragged me in through those six doors that require keys in the elevator that requires keys. You think about it.

If you got locked up and you spent a chunk of time in jail and your family more or less turn their back on you and then you get out and you have no money and you have no job and you have no I mean, how hard is it not to end up back in jail? I'd much rather my tax dollars go somewhere else. I really I tell him if I get a chance to go in and share a Bible study, I tell him nobody out there wants you in here. Nobody wants you in here.

We just want to know our car is going to be where we left it the night before. You know, you got to have a positive attitude. You've got to feel love.

You got to there are a lot of people that grew up that don't understand what love is. They didn't see it in their family. The voice in their head is not a voice that encourages them. It's one that beats them down. And if we don't go in and share the good news and the word of Christ with folks and let them know that there's another way.

They won't ever know that there's another way. John, Bill, I'd like to bring something to this real quick. It makes me think of Romans 10, 14 and 15 where it says, How can they call on the one in whom they have not believed and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without someone to preach and how can they preach unless they are sent that is written. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you tuning in. We want you to stay to the other side. Pray for the show. Pray how you can be God's hands on this planet. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.

We've got five minutes left. Mark, what do we want to make sure that people hear in addition to the website how to find Forsyth jail and prison ministry? Yeah, our website FJPM Forsythjpm.org.

You can find all the information you need on that site. Bill, I think I mentioned we are community funded. Of course, we have about 100 or so local churches that support us in some capacity, whether that be financially with volunteers or certainly with prayer. It's critical that we have local churches involved. One thing I want to mention about local churches that we may not think about, when a local church like Twin Cities shows up to the jail or shows up to the prison, those men that are incarcerated or those women at the jail that are incarcerated, they're going to remember that church. When they get out, they're looking for a church home that's going to say, that's going to welcome them as somebody who's formerly incarcerated, going to welcome them into their community, into their church family. So those churches showing up, it provides a safe place for formerly incarcerated individuals to worship after their release.

And that's how they continue to find success by continually being exposed to godly individuals in our community. Anybody can be involved. I want everybody to know that if you have a desire, we want you to be involved. It may be in a limited capacity because we have a number of great volunteers, we want everybody to have a seat at the table.

But you don't have to have special skills oftentimes. We just want people who are willing to serve the men and women who are incarcerated need it. They deserve it.

And they certainly want it as well. So we want everybody that wants to be a part to come on out and serve with us. We have an interesting program in North Carolina, understanding that in the prison system, you you go to central prison, then you get sent to one prison. And if you behave and do all that you're supposed to, you sort of migrate through the prisons to facilities that are less and less strict.

And in Forsyth County, we've got one of the ones that is on top of the list of these folks have really worked hard and done a good job to get where they are. But in some of the prisons, not all, you can go in and you can invite an inmate to go with you to church and go with you to lunch. A few other options are there. And to give that inmate an opportunity to see what it's like to be back in the real world. In some situations, they've got to go through that process to enter into a works program so that they can go out and they can earn some money and to get some work experience before they get out.

There are things that you just can't imagine that are opportunities. So at the very least, you can pray for somebody by name. So you can call the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry or your local facility and pray for the chaplain. But reach out and find out what's going on and see what you can do.

It makes a difference when we're actually putting our faith and our belief to practice. You've got some wonderful staff. You want to lift up any of your staff folks while we got a second?

Sure. We we do have some some wonderful chaplains that are day in and day out at the jail and at the prison as well. Jeff and Roy and Jamie. And I just ask that everybody pray for for our our chaplain specifically. It's a critical, critical job they're doing. And then Brooke is our office manager. She works so hard keeping everything organized. And she just does such a fantastic job. Holly is our director of community engagement. She's the one on the front lines out in the community sharing the message of Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry. And then Jason, who runs our transition to work program.

Jason, like I said, is formerly incarcerated. He doesn't mind me sharing that, but it makes him uniquely qualified to run a reentry program. We're so grateful for Jason giving his time and investing his energy in a program like transition to work.

He just is the perfect person to do that. So lift our staff up in prayer. We're a small staff.

We rely heavily on our volunteers, but we make a big impact through through God's grace. How many inmates do we have at the two facilities? Yeah, right now at the prison, we have about 175. Typically, there's 250, but they're doing some renovation work there. So that some have been sent to other facilities. And then at the jail, there's anywhere between eight and 900.

That number fluctuates. So on an average day, there's anywhere between 1000 and 1200 individuals in our county, all men at the prison and then men and women at the jail. Generally, at the jail, they're only supposed to be there less than a year, right? Typically, they're there short term that that isn't isn't always exactly the case. But yes, at the jail, they're awaiting their day in court.

And then depending on the outcome, they'll either be sent to prison or they'll be free. Well, we appreciate everybody that's tuned in. We hope some of you will be praying more for those in your neighborhood that need help. I want to thank my guests that came on this morning. And keep Robbie and the show in your prayers. Let's remember that we've got responsibilities as Christians. It's not a free ride. Somebody else paved it. But we're supposed to remember we're ambassadors for Christ. Have a wonderful weekend. This is the Truth Network.