Conclusion

After our book study had ended and after taking a few weeks off from any sort of prison ministry, I organized a Christmas service for the members of Joseph Harp Community Church. Myself, along with ten other volunteers brought coffee, Krispy Kreme Donuts, and a pre-recorded worship service from our church to enjoy with roughly 250 members of their church. We worshiped together, prayed together, and ate too many donuts together. During our fellowship time, when all inmates were free to roam around the visiting room and converse with whomever, the Life Together book study was far from my mind. So taken aback I was when several inmates came to me and mentioned how much they have enjoyed their morning and evening worship times together and how many of them had found “confession partners.” In fact, many of them were waiting to read Life Together for themselves. A few inmates had enjoyed learning about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as his four biographies were well into circulation. The head pastor of Joseph Harp Community Church, a gentlemen named Pastor Darrin Elliot, gave me a hug and eventually asked if they were able to get a few copies of Life Together so that their church as a whole could study it and implement the practical application points. My four friends had apparently represented Bonhoeffer’s work well.

A small part of me was a bit emotional, thinking about the life of Bonhoeffer and the sacrifices that he had made. Here I was in a prison, isolated within a wildlife preserve in Oklahoma, surrounded by a group of convicted felons whose lives were being rehabilitated and whose community was growing stronger, all because of a young martyr who died years ago on the other side of the planet. One could only hope that treasures in Heaven are still divvied out when one’s impact outlasts one’s years on earth.

I met with Fredrick, Larry Jacob, and Matthew. I gave them their requested Christmas presents: each a (soft cover) copy of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison. We hugged one another, and during one of the dreariest times of year for the inmate, agreed that Bonhoeffer’s Life Together was certainly helping the moral of the church on the yard, as they were learning the privileged position that they were in to do life together.

While many of the results are yet to be seen, and while the positive results so far are anecdotal, we all five agreed that Life Together works well within the prison community and this book, along with some accompanying classes, would be a great preemptive strike, helping to lay some spiritual groundwork in future prisons that we plan on launching campuses within. It may not always be clean and is certainly not a copy and paste system, but thus far it was serving as a useful tool to help these Christian inmates embrace their situation, embrace their community, embrace a stronger sense of identity, and thus help them to do their time well.