Senior Living

Last week 30 Lexington senior adults went with me into Broad River Correctional Facility in Columbia.

We led worship in their weekly chapel service.

Prison Chaplain Steve Hendricks helped to prepare our group for getting into the prison. The security is tight - as you would expect. It is similar to airport security except for the items that cannot go into the prison such as cell phones, money, or medicines.

Getting in is a small hassle compared to the large blessing that comes from visiting those who are in prison.

I believe that the prisoners are there because justice was served, and they were sentenced to pay for crimes they committed.

Is it possible some prisoners’ punishment outweighs their crime or others punishment too light for what they did? Perhaps.

Are some prisoners paroled who should not be and some held that should be paroled? Perhaps.

When you go into a prison, you have to just accept the adage “it is what it is.”

We went out of obedience to God’s mandate to visit the sick and those in prison, as unto Jesus (See Matthew 25).

I know of prisoners whose lives were dramatically changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ while incarcerated. And when a group like those senior adults go into a prison, it is incredibly encouraging to those believers seeking to serve the Lord where they are.

Each man lives as a number. Their daily existence without the Lord could be a fight for survival and keeping their sanity.

They need to know that people outside the prison have not forgotten them and are praying for them.

The senior adults who led in worship saw men truly worshiping our Lord and the barriers fell between us being “free” and them being “in bondage.”

Because in Christ, we are all free.