Posted on 02/16/2005 9:47:04 AM PST by Gamecock
Proverbs 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps
CUMBERLAND, MARYLAND—Nineteen years ago in St. Louis, Lee Capper was preparing to graduate from Covenant Theological Seminary. Nicely perched at the top of his class he was eager to accept a quick and prestigious call—perhaps to an established church in a Florida suburb, to an assistant pastorate in a major downtown market, or to a new church plant—one stemming from a thriving congregation and ready to sprout in fertile new ground. Whatever his thoughts at the time, Capper dreamed of a life that bears little resemblance to the one he now lives as the sole pastor of Faith Presbyterian, a 75-member church in Cumberland, Maryland.
While Capper was taking his finals at Covenant Seminary, Gregory Torrence, an African-American man now in his mid 40s, languished behind bars in a Baltimore jail. One day he wandered into a Bible study and for some reason he still can’t describe the Scriptures resonated in a way they never had before. Torrence yearned to know more, and the one thing he had was an abundance of time. He came across a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, not a ready commodity in the Maryland State prison system, and read it cover to cover. He discovered books by the Puritan writers, and gulped them all down. Then he found contemporary writers like R.C. Sproul and Michael Horton. Gradually—without being able to put a name to what was happening—he embraced the tenets of Reformed theology. “I just knew these things were true,” Torrence says, “. . .that they were deep and serious. So much of what I’d heard before seemed shallow.” Inspired and challenged, Torrence dove into his Bible, books, and commentaries.
Meanwhile, Lee Capper adjusted to life in Cumberland, equipping his 40, then 60, then 75-member flock. The church moved from its original location in a converted synagogue, to a Seventh Day Adventist rental facility, and finally into its own building on Mustaphal Drive.
Torrence was moving too, from one prison to another, for no discernible reason. Ultimately, he arrived at the Western Correctional Institution (WCI), just outside Cumberland.
By this time Torrence knew the ropes of prison life. He pulled and pushed the right levers, working his way into the job he craved: chaplain’s clerk. Shortly afterward, with meticulously prepared documents, he petitioned the administration to start a Presbyterian Church. But the chaplain wasn’t interested, and the application was ignored.
In the meantime a pastor who had worked with Torrence contacted Lee Capper and asked him to disciple the inmate. Capper was hesitant, but agreed. “The first time I went in to visit Gregory he showed me the paperwork for starting a Presbyterian service,” Capper said. “I asked if we could begin with a Bible study, just to see how things might go. But prison regulations don’t allow that. To have a Bible study you have to have a worship service—it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.” Capper went to his Session.
“We didn’t initiate this,” explains Craig Felton, a Faith Presbyterian elder. “We didn’t go looking for it, and we never saw ourselves as prison-church planters.” Aside from doing Project Angel Tree, nobody at Faith Presbyterian had any experience with inmates at all. “But we had this request dropped in our laps, and we just kept asking ourselves, ”how do we not do this?’”
Capper continued to meet and pray with Torrence; Pittsburgh Presbytery, where Capper serves as stated clerk, began to pray, too. A couple of years passed, and then a new chaplain, Galen Beitzel, heard Torrence out. He reviewed the application and steered it through the Maryland prison bureaucracy. At the same time, Capper contacted the Director of Religious and Volunteer Services for the State Department of Corrections. Two weeks later the application was approved—and a prison mission church was born.
God’s providence is rarely so plain. And in Cumberland, Maryland, well out of the limelight, behind row after row of glistening razor wire, surrounded by armed guards, in a town that has seen better days—God brought together a prisoner with a pastor; and a church with a chaplain.
It’s a Thursday night, about 8:25. Members of the WCI Presbyterian Bible Study group begin to wander in. Shawn is first. A black ski cap is pulled tight over his head, and he wears a thick leather jacket that hides a large tattoo on his right arm. Ervin strolls in a few seconds behind. Then Michael and Mark. Within a few minutes twenty men have arrived. They’re all black, most have a history of drugs and violence, and few have finished high school. Lee Capper and a small group from Faith Presbyterian file in at 8:35, accompanied by a grim-faced prison guard. Capper shakes hands and mingles with the men. He and the others from Faith Presbyterian are about as inconspicuous here as they would be on Mars. There’s no trace of affinity, nor the slightest evidence that one group has anything in common with the other.
Gradually, Capper makes his way to the podium. He reminds the men that the group is taking a break from the regular study so they can ask questions about what they’ve been reading. In the back of the room a hand shoots up and Capper calls on Demitrius. He is frustrated, not by life in the prison yard or because he’s separated from his family, but by his inability to grasp the difference between Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. Capper grins—partially because he’s amused, and partially to buy time to come up with an answer. He gives a brief technical explanation. Then talks about the responsibility we all have to share the gospel. “We don’t know who God has chosen, “Capper explains, “we need to live the gospel before all men, and share it whenever we can.”
The next question comes from Charles. He’s been anxious, he confesses. He keeps pleading with God in prayer, over and over about the same thing. “Is my faith too weak?” he asks. Capper talks about prayer and the way God works in men’s lives. Clinton, Charles’s friend, adds his encouragement. Chauncey does the same.
More questions are asked and answered. Other hands fly up, but the guards have now arrived, and the time is up. Warm smiles and handshakes are swapped again. Each one reminds the other, “I’ll see you Sunday.” Twenty African-American men, most born and bred on inner city streets, make their way back to their cells. And a handful of white suburbanites—archetypes, some might think for the expression “frozen chosen”—head for their homes.
It is, according to Chaplain Beitzel, extraordinary, and it matters more than we’ll ever know. It’s different on the “inside,” Beitzel explains. “In prison it’s not hard to convince men that they’re sinners. What they don’t know, and what they often can’t believe, is that they can be forgiven. It’s hard for them to comprehend that God loves them, until people love them. And that’s one of the best things about the Presbyterian group. Pastor Lee and the others from Faith Presbyterian come when they say they’re going to come. They give these men respect and love. And it is because of that love, that the inmates can believe that God loves them, too.”
The grace of prison
When you hear street-hardened prisoners explain how Jesus softened their hearts, and when you see how a handful of middle-class men and women helped change the lives of violent men, you can’t help but think: shouldn’t someone have gotten involved with these men sooner? Warden Jon Galley rattles off the statistics, and with hard evidence he talks about schools that refuse to discipline, fatherless families that fail to produce responsible men, and churches that don’t practice what they preach. “The prison system is criticized regularly,” Galley says, “but by the time these men get here, it’s too late. They’re here because they’ve made bad choices, and because so many others have let them down.”
Galley is right, and the numbers prove it. But there’s another part of the story. When asked if society has failed him Charles explains, “I don’t know if anybody was trying to help me or not. It didn’t matter ‘cause I wouldn’t have listened.”
“I had to get arrested,” Lawrence added, “I’d never would’ve listened to anybody, not ‘til I got here.” For Shawn it’s the same. “If I hadn’t got arrested I’d be dead by now,” he says. “No doubt about it.” Arrest and imprisonment are, in the eyes of many of these men, acts of God’s grace—the only way they would have ever heard his voice. At WCI, when inmates first hear God’s irresistible call, they find a gifted pastor, a bold church, and a loving chaplain—who have come together to reveal God’s goodness in the least likely place imaginable.
A good work, 18 years in the making?
Lee Capper and his congregation didn’t chart this out on the five-year plan. They never cast a shrewd eye toward the prison, dreaming of the great thing they’d do there. This was not, as Craig Felton said, something they looked for. Consequently, no one at Faith Presbyterian talks about the big things a small church can do when the people set their minds to it. They’re more likely to talk about Gregory Torrence, a convict who was drawn by the Father and who lived faithfully in one prison after another, knowing that God is good and sovereign. They talk about Galen Beitzel, the chaplain who loves the men that most of us won’t go near. And they talk about the satisfaction they’ve known, venturing into the uncomfortable unknown, relying on God to show them the way.
But it’s easy to believe that the best part of this story is still ahead. “When I get out,” Gregory Torrence says, “I want to plant Presbyterian churches in inner cities—in the tough neighborhoods—like the one I grew up in.” Torrence believes he’s ready. He’s studied and worked hard. He’s as familiar with the Bible as any Ruling Elder. And for the past few years he’s been especially well trained. That’s because nineteenyears ago, Lee Capper, who graduated at the top of his Seminary class, went to a modest church in a small town that didn’t have much to offer. There, backed by a responsive congregation, he met and now mentors a convicted felon who hopes to take God’s Word and the Reformed faith to places it’s rarely been, and which are in desperate need.
Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (English Standard Version). Capper and Torrence, and the church and the chaplain, remind us that life is not about the works we plan but about discovering and doing those things—in the spotlight or behind-the-scenes—which God has prepared in advance, for the sake of his kingdom.
Amazing Grace! Sola Deo Gloria! What some meant for evil, God meant for good.
GRPL Ping
Very nice article. What struck me is that churches don't need "church growth" programs - they just need to be attentive to the soft, quiet call of God to take His Word and His grace to the places He will lead them or to the people He will bring to them.
Wonderful example of how God works and moves. May we keep these men in our prayers.
Lots of precident there. Didn't Paul and Silas start a congregation in a prison? i believe it was in a city called Phillipi.
the one thing he had was an abundance of time. He came across a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, not a ready commodity in the Maryland State prison system, and read it cover to cover.
"An abundance of time.". I guess. Wow. Not an easy read. Sounds like a remarkable man.
church growth
Church growth techniques mostly get you more boring white people.
---"Lee N. Field", boring white person.
Unlike Rick Warren, and the other seeler-friendlies, it is the Word of God, faithfully studied and taught, that transforms lives. No concessions; no tilting of the message toward the unbeliever.
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