http://www.charismamag.com/stories/cs197101.htm More Than Jailhouse Religion Since he began his ministry in 1980, former inmate William Bumphus has led thousands of prisoners to Christ. Charisma went with him inside prisons in Indiana, Kentucky and Florida to document what God is doing behind bars. By: Billy Bruce ------------- Enjoy! Bard
More Than Jailhouse Religion Since he began his ministry in 1980, former inmate William Bumphus has led thousands of prisoners to Christ. Charisma went with him inside prisons in Indiana, Kentucky and Florida to document what God is doing behind bars. By: Billy Bruce -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Guard towers and 40-foot cement walls bordered with razor-edged barbed wire cast a grim sense of darkness through the hushed evening air around Indiana State Prison. Its thick metal doors are shut and locked; some of the 1,600 men who exist in this hell-hole will never venture into the outside world again. Inside an entrance lobby, a sign warns visitors: "Enter At Your Own Risk." Welcome to one of the nation's toughest prisons. Built in 1860 and later converted to a state facility, the prison is known today as Michigan City because it is located near Michigan City, Indiana, just 75 miles from Chicago. Notorious gangster John Dillinger served time here. So did Civil War criminals. Today, almost one-third of the prison's inmates are classified as "Level 5." They are some of the most dangerous men on earth. On this particular Sunday, a spiritual riot in the heavens is about to take place. Pastor William Bumphus, a charismatic prison evangelist and ex-offender who served time in the same prison several years ago, is gearing up his ministry team for an evening of revival in the prison chapel. Because of tonight's meeting, Indiana will merit a slight dent in a surging crime rate. And the devil will lose some ground. Bumphus is among a growing number of prison evangelists who are sparking spiritual revival inside America's prisons. He believes inmates are the church's most neglected mission field, noting that between December 1985 and June 1996, the prison population grew from 744,208 to more than 1.6 million, an increase of 119 percent. Ninety percent of those inmates will be released from prison, and 70 percent of those will commit a repeat offense that lands them back in prison. The U.S. incarceration rate of one out of every 163 residents is the world's highest, according to the U.S. Justice Department. While politicians base re-election bids on pledges to get tough on crime by instituting longer prison sentences and by building more jails, Bumphus' strategy is to reduce the prison population by changing lives with the gospel. He teaches by example how to get out of prison and stay out. "There is a revival inside prisons today," said Bumphus, who also pastors an independent charismatic church, Faith Center Church, in Indianapolis. Bumphus formed Jesus Inside Prison Ministries in Indianapolis in 1981. A former hustler who says he shot heroin every day for 10 years, Bumphus was arrested 23 times--11 times for felonies--and served three prison terms. On his last trip in 1978, he was sentenced to four years for burglary and theft. He served 10 months of that sentence before a judge released him on the grounds that he had become a born-again Christian. Bumphus could have faced a life sentence as a habitual offender, but God intervened. A former member of the Nation of Islam, Bumphus professed faith in Jesus in January 1978 while awaiting trial at Marion County Jail in Indianapolis. While serving his last days in Indiana State Prison, Bumphus heard his calling. "I had just put out a cigarette when Jesus walked in the cell and told me He wanted me to start a prison ministry," Bumphus says. He has since ministered in prisons in 14 states, leading an average of 1,000 inmates to Christ each year. The tougher the prisoner, the better, as far as Bumphus is concerned. He says even the worst killers in the Bible were no match for God's redeeming love. "Before I got out of prison, there was one thing I noticed. Almost everyone who was in prison in the Bible got out," Bumphus says. "That tells me God doesn't want anyone in prison. If you serve the Lord, the Truth will set you free, just like it did for me." He has delivered that message to thousands of inmates, some on death row, and he's seen several men set free from lengthy prison sentences years early--after they gave their lives to Jesus. One former inmate, Walter Sealey Jr. of Louisville, Kentucky, heard Bumphus speak while serving time in a Kentucky prison in 1982. Sealey had been a street enforcer and a junkie. He ran a fraudulent check-cashing ring from Miami to New York City before the FBI caught up with him. He had served time in 11 different prisons and was facing 120 years behind bars. While hiding out at home, he asked Jesus into his life. After turning himself in, he served six years and was released. "God had another plan for my life," Sealey says. "I did not want to go back into prisons to minister, but God laid it on my heart. I've been working with pastor Bumphus ever since. Now we are partners in anti-crime." Bumphus and Sealey, both black and ex-offenders, provide a miracle-working one-two punch in prisons throughout the country. Sealey sings songs for prisoners to taped accompaniment and mixes his strong baritone musical delivery with persuasive words of witness about how Jesus changed his life. "The fact that I am standing here before you is proof that the gospel is true," Sealey tells a group of inmates in a chapel at Lakeside Correctional Facility, a medium-security facility adjacent to Indiana State Prison. Dressed in blue and white prison khakis, the inmates glue their attention to Sealey. Older prisoners whose faces mirror years of prison life sit shoulder-to-shoulder with younger inmates in the small chapel's church pews. A late morning sun highlights an outer courtyard through the chapel's windows. Inmates' thoughts, however, are not on the freedom waiting for them beyond the yard's chain-link fence, but on the freedom that Sealey loudly proclaims. Bumphus follows Sealey, delivering a combination of side-splitting satirical humor on prison life from his own experiences and heart-tugging words of encouragement and hope from the Scriptures. He ministers on a level that inmates can instantly identify as "real." "I don't want to hurt your feelings, huh-huh," Bumphus chuckles, then tells his listeners how well he knows their games--from firsthand experience. "You want to blame it on the white man for your being in here, but you made the decisions that got you here, not them," Bumphus tells the Lakeside group. "You want to say you were born this way--but I have never seen one baby come out of the womb holding a pistol, saying, 'Stick 'em up!'" Laughter swells through the chapel, and without offending anyone Bumphus drives home a key point. After the service, several inmates come forward to meet Bumphus and his team, exchanging hugs and handshakes and thanking them for caring enough to visit. Many have tears in their eyes. "Please come back," several request. Being black and former inmates enables Bumphus and Sealey to draw black inmates who otherwise would never set foot in a prison chapel to hear about "white men's religion," the evangelists told Charisma. That's important. About 50 percent of America's 1.6 million inmates are black; 14 percent are Hispanic; and 36 percent are white. Black males have an 18 percent chance of serving jail time at some point in their lives; white males have only a 3 percent chance, statistics from the Lindesmith Center confirm. Centuries of prejudice and racism etch deep scars of hopelessness on the hearts of minority inmates, many of whom resign themselves to a cycle of crime and prison time. But Bumphus and Sealey attack their hopelessness by ensuring them that God is no respecter of persons and that anyone who chooses to serve Him will be blessed with inner peace, eternal life and--maybe--an early release from prison. "We present ourselves as examples of what God will do, not might do, when you turn your life over to Him," Bumphus says. "We can come in as black people and relate to them how God can lift you up no matter what color [you] are," Sealey adds. "We really stress that." Corrections officers ask Bumphus and his ministry team--fellow evangelist Sealey, Kevyn Cameron and Anthony Gregory--to place their metal objects in a bowl and pass through a metal detector. Shiny tile floors and sterile grey-painted walls make this prison lobby look military. But the consolation of being outside the walls soon changes to caution. Conversations dwindle. Following a hand search by the prison guards, Bumphus and team are herded through iron-barred doors and hallways to an exit door that leads to the inner prison campus. Michigan City's chapel is a large, old building whose bricks have long lost their luster. The adjacent campus grounds and dormitories now are bolstered by new guard towers installed after a guard was killed in retaliation for the execution of a black inmate. Behind the chapel is the execution building where lethal injections are Indiana's prescription for justice in capital cases. Behind the execution building sits the death-row barracks. The prison chaplain escorts Bumphus' team inside the chapel, where several inmates are gathering for the evening service. Rushing to welcome Bumphus are convicted murderers, bank robbers, burglars, drug dealers and addicts. Some Bumphus recognizes as inmates he knew while serving time there years ago. Others he knows from prior ministry visits. Distant, lost stares occupy the faces of some inmates who wait inside the chapel for the service to start. Others laugh with fellow inmates. Some of these men face life sentences and hold no hope of returning to free society; others will leave prison in a matter of days or weeks. Their fates do not determine their demeanor. Bumphus is looking for the hardest men--the ones that only the Holy Spirit can change. "When I was in a gang, the gang had a leader," Bumphus says. "If you could take the leader, you could take over the gang. That works in prison ministry, too. If you can reach them [the hard core], the others see that. Often, they follow." And don't let the hard-core inmates fool you--they do have pliable souls, despite some of their soulless faces, Bumphus notes. "I call them 'penitentiary faces.' I've walked into prison chapels and looked down from the pulpit into these hard, tough faces and thought, Ain't nobody gettin' saved tonight! But I have found that the ones with penitentiary faces are often the ones who first to receive Jesus." More than 100 inmates, many toting Bibles, have filed into the chapel for the service. Many already are saved and provide a strong backbone for the church inside prison. They spy out newcomers at services and watch to see who raises a hand at altar calls. On this night, an all-inmate choir dressed in teal robes sways as it leads the congregation into worship, its members smiling at each other. Some shed tears of joy. After Sealey delivers two emotional songs and a testimony, Bumphus unleashes the Word, dividing his delivery so that newborn believers receive milk and old-timers receive meat. This is God's grace in concert. The presence of the Holy Spirit is strong. Were it not for prison rules that prevent inmates from gathering at the altar, the service could stretch into the night. As it is, Bumphus ends his service by asking inmates who want to receive Jesus to raise their hands. More than 20 men lift their hands toward heaven. Several others raise their hands to rededicate their lives to Christ. The old-timers gauge their harvest work for the coming week. Almost as quickly, the service ends with prayer, and the inmates line up to follow guards back to their cells. Prisons are the mirrors that reflect the true state of any society, and in America, Bumphus believes politicians and voters are missing the boat on how to fight crime. First, habitual offender laws don't work. Known as "three-strikes" and "two-strikes" measures that guarantee repeat offenders long-term sentences if they're convicted for a second or third felony, habitual offender laws do not stop immorality, Bumphus says. Most of the criminals today, Bumphus notes, committed their crimes because of a drug addiction. They robbed or burglarized so they could buy cocaine or heroin. Bumphus, a former heroin addict, knows addiction traits well. "With heroin, you have severe migraine headaches that don't stop until you get more heroin into your system," he says. "And crack is even worse: It causes a severe, manic-type depression that produces suicidal feelings." Indiana has had habitual offender laws in place since 1977, yet violent crime has increased there more than 200 percent since then, Bumphus says. The state just approved spending $344 million to build new prison facilities after spending millions to build a new prison only two years ago. The state also approved building a 300-bed juvenile facility. "They slash chaplains' budgets and spend little or no money on drug treatment, then they can't figure out why their shiny, new prisons fill up so fast," Bumphus complains. Meanwhile, David Wilkerson's Teen Challenge ministry has an 85-percent success rate of rehabilitating substance abusers through nongovernment-supported Christian ministry, Bumphus says, adding, "That lets us know what does work and what doesn't work." Because of his own experience, Bumphus is also burdened for inmates who find faith while incarcerated and then go free. He knows that although many will sober up in prison, learn a job skill or earn a high school diploma, even born-again inmates will fall if they don't get help from Christians when they're released. Says Bumphus: "The inmate comes out of prison with absolutely no money. The state might give him $50, or at the most, $100. So he comes out of four years in jail with $100. And with that money, he's got to make it. He needs a place to stay, clothing, food. If he doesn't get help, he is going to do something wrong to get what he needs." When Bumphus was released from prison he was a Spirit-filled Christian. But he had nowhere to go. "Even though I knew the Word, I was seriously thinking about doing something wrong because I needed food in my stomach," Bumphus says. "But a week after I got out, I met a Christian guy I knew earlier. He took me to his church, got me a place to stay and clothes to wear. Six months later, I met my wife. This guy's help is what saved me from going back to prison." Bumphus has obtained a 20-bed housing facility in Indianapolis to open Jesus House--an addition to his ministry. It will offer Christian ex-offenders a place to stay, some financial help, biblical spiritual training and job search assistance during an average 60-day stay. Says Bumphus: "Every guy coming out of prison deserves a chance. He has paid his debt to society--that's what society says. Why does he have to continue to pay?" Bumphus and team have no plans to slow their travels to prisons across the country. They continue to lead inmates to Christ in America's toughest institutions--places such as Cook County Jail in Chicago and Parchman Farm, Mississippi's huge state prison. Prisons in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, New York and North Carolina are regular stops for Bumphus. His impact continues to expand. Homosexuals are saved in his meetings, and militant members of the Nation of Islam refute their religion to embrace Christ after Bumphus stops in. The successes speak for themselves: In February, Bumphus ministered to 982 prisoners, and 149 of them professed faith in Christ for the first time. In May, 125 gave their lives to Jesus at Bumphus' meetings. Bumphus knows the source of his success. It is the same Jesus who walked into his cell nearly 20 years ago and commissioned him to help men like himself. "I love to preach, but Jesus told me to share my testimony, and He would save inmates and set them free through that," Bumphus admits. "I've tried to preach, and no one would get saved. But when I just do what Jesus said to do--share my testimony--inmates are saved. It is a simple matter of obedience." God's Ministers Behind Bars Charles W. Colson A former adviser to President Richard Nixon, Charles Colson served seven months in prison for his role in the Watergate cover-up. Soon after his release in 1975, Colson and three friends launched Prison Fellowship Ministries in a small, rented Washington, D.C., office. In 20 years Colson has visited more than 600 prisons in 40 countries and has built a prison volunteer network of more than 50,000 people. The ministry now operates in 75 countries. Prison Fellowship last March launched InnerChange, a two-year Christian support program that begins behind bars and extends to released inmates and their families. Jester II--the nation's first all-Christian prison in Houston--is the first test site for InnerChange. Only 4 percent of inmates in a similar South American program returned to prison on repeat offenses. Jester II accepts inmates from the Houston area, where churches provide mentors and Christian-based counseling. Bill Street Jr. A former life insurance salesman, Bill Street Jr. was found guilty in 1978 of two felony charges that each carried a life sentence. Expecting to receive a minimum of two 60-year terms, Street was surprised when the judge sentenced him to only five years. While serving his time, Street committed his life to Christ after reading a magazine distributed by the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship. Just 11 months and 21 days later, Street was released from prison. He formed Mid-America Prison Ministries in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the early 1980s and published How to Get Out of Prison and Stay Out, a book for inmates that has been distributed in 650 prisons. Street trains inmates to reach other inmates with the gospel, and he has sponsored evangelistic meetings in 132 prisons in the United States. Frank Constantino Frank Constantino's career as a professional thief netted him $11 million before he was caught and sentenced to 22 years in prison. In 1969 he accepted Christ as Savior while serving time in Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade, Florida. After his release in 1972, Constantino experienced the difficulties any ex-offender faces when attempting to re-enter society. Now a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, Constantino opened The Bridge in Orlando, Florida, to provide food, shelter, counseling, jobs and Christian fellowship to paroled and work-release prisoners. He also founded Bridges of America, a substance-abuse treatment organization that ministers to more than 5,000 offenders in 55 locations. Constantino is the president of the Coalition of Prison Evangelists, a network that encourages prison ministers to work together. Mike Barber This retired All Pro NFL star spent most of his career with the Houston Oilers, then formed Mike Barber Ministries 10 years ago as an outreach to inmates. He provides Christian TV programs to as many as 400,000 inmates via satellite linkup. His goal is to place a satellite dish in every U.S. prison by 2000. "We are seeing more hungry souls behind bars than ever before," Barber says. "America is adding 1,100 prison beds per day and filling them full, making prisons the fastest growing industry in the country." Chaplain Ray Raymond G. Hoekstra, known today as "Chaplain Ray," was 19 years old when he was led to Christ by Ronald Bayles, an ex-convict. Since then Chaplain Ray has provided millions of Bibles and Bible study books free of charge to inmates and prison chaplains. As founder of International Prison Ministry in Dallas, he has ministered in prisons full time for 35 years. In 1990 he began an unexpected outreach to prisoners in Russia after a Russian general came to his hotel-room door and said, "I hear you turn criminals into Christians in America. Can you show me how you do this?" The general took Chaplain Ray to a nearby prison where he conducted services and delivered Bibles to every prisoner. Since then, Chaplain Ray has placed more than 1 million Bibles in Russian prisons. At age 84, he has no plans for retirement. Steve Walker In August 1990 Steve Walker became prison chaplain of Bullock County Correctional Facility in Alabama, 40 miles southeast of Montgomery. Since Walker and his wife, Esther, began visiting the Pensacola revival in August 1996, they have seen signs of revival in the prison. Selected in March to coordinate all prison chaplain programs in Alabama, Walker began a prayer emphasis in Bullock prison last January. After 11 days of prayer, prison officials allowed him to hold services for 21 days straight. There were more than 100 decisions for Christ made during that time, and since then Walker says prisoners are praying three days a week and asking God to spread revival throughout Alabama's prison system. "I am called as a missionary," Walker told Charisma. "I want to see these men find the Lord and go back into society and become positive role models. We believe that revival fire will come." Kenneth Copeland Televangelist Kenneth Copeland launched a prison outreach in 1983 and today provides a support network for others involved in prison ministry. He donates hundreds of thousands of Bibles, Christian books, tapes and videos to prison evangelists, chaplains and inmates. Based in Fort Worth, Texas, Copeland is working to uplink prisons nationwide to a satellite television network that would provide strictly Christian programming. Jim Bakker Former televangelist Jim Bakker served nearly five years in prison for crimes associated with the PTL scandal. He was released from prison in 1994 and freed from parole restrictions last April. Today Bakker has initiated a return to prison--this time to win inmates to Christ. Training inmates to spread the gospel to their cell mates inside is the key to raising up a strong church inside prisons, Bakker believes. "Only about 10 percent of prisoners ever go to chapel," Bakker says. "If we are going to reach the other 90 percent, it is going to come through the ministry of inmates to themselves." Bakker opposes removing recreation privileges, education programs and other activities from prisons to impose harsher punishment on inmates. He told CNN's Larry King in June: "We should not keep hurting the hurting." --Billy Bruce Would Jesus Pull the Switch? Anita Bumphus has led two death-row inmates to Christ. And she has doubts about the dealth penalty. Death-row inmates have souls, too, however laden they may be with the guilt that sometimes earns them a shortcut to eternity. The debate rages today among Christians about the inmates' fates: Does God grant governments the authority to kill people for their crimes? Anita Bumphus, wife of prison evangelist William Bumphus, has wrestled with this issue for 17 years--ever since she began witnessing to two death-row inmates, Gregory Resnover and Tommie Smith. Members of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, the men were sentenced to die for the 1980 shooting death of Indianapolis police sergeant Jack Ohrberg. The officer had come to Smith's house to serve an arrest warrant on Resnover for the earlier slaying of a security guard. Ohrberg was shot and killed as he tried to kick down a door. Smith maintained his innocence, saying he did not know Ohrberg was a policeman and claiming he shot him in self-defense. He felt he should not have been sentenced to death. "I got Gregory's and Tommie's names from the newspaper or from television, and I started to write to Gregory right after he was locked up," Anita told Charisma. "I was surprised when he wrote back. So I started to visit Gregory and Tommie on death row." At first Resnover was cold to Anita's message of salvation. Later she dreamt that her husband visited Resnover and led him to Christ. Her husband did not visit the men, but her dream came true in a different way. "I went up to see him right after I had that dream, and I asked Gregory if he would receive Jesus. He said: 'I've tried everything else. I might as well try Jesus.' And he prayed the prayer with me. I was so happy," Anita said. But the battle for Resnover's soul wasn't over. He began to slip in and out of his Muslim identity, signing his letters with his Muslim name. Anita always responded with loving reminders that "Jesus is the answer." In 1992, Resnover stopped writing, and Anita never knew for sure the state of his soul when he was executed two years later. "It really hurt because when you pray for a person and witness to them, those are definitely the ones you don't want to see executed. It was like losing a family member," she says. In 1994 Resnover became the last person to die in the electric chair in Indiana. The state switched to lethal injection executions in 1995. Smith became the first person to die by lethal injection in Indiana in 1996. Both men were executed at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. This sad story has a happy ending, however. Anita learned last April that her efforts to reach these men for Christ were not in vain. Indiana State Prison Chaplain William Babb confirmed to Charisma that Resnover traded in his Koran for a Bible shortly before his execution, and that Smith, too, had committed his life to Jesus before his final day. "Both of these men, as far as I am concerned, were saved when they left this earth," Babb says. "When I met Tommie, my talk was totally about the Lord Jesus Christ. His talk was the same way. The night he was executed, we had prayer with him. He told me: 'Of all people, you shouldn't worry. You know I am going to make a transition in a few moments. I'm going to a better place.'" Babb believes the death penalty is a protection for society, but he thinks the justice system isn't always fair. "We have inmates here who have killed, were freed from prison, then went out and killed again," Babb says. "One thing's for sure--no one who has ever been executed has come back to kill again. But I don't know why a man who has killed five people gets off death row when a man who has killed one is executed." Anita remains undecided about capital punishment. She knows it can be a deterrent to crime, but a real-life experience taught her that the system sometimes discriminates against blacks. Her brother was killed at age 35 by an estranged white girlfriend, and the woman was not charged in the case. Anita's husband is adamantly opposed to the death penalty. He believes even the most hardened criminals deserve the chance to hear the only message that can change their lives--and save their souls. "Jesus would never pull the switch on anyone," William Bumphus says. "Moses was a murderer with two witnesses, and the apostle Paul said he [himself] was worse than a murderer. But God did not kill them. He used them mightily." --Billy Bruce -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the Author: Billy Bruce is news editor for Charisma. For more information about Jesus Inside Prison Ministry, write William Bumphus, P.O. Box 88489, Indianapolis, IN 46208; or e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail us: Send us your comments, feedback or a letter to the editor. � 1996 Strang Communications -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.charismamag.com/stories/cs197101.htm
