The Power of Baptism Behind Bars

Being baptized into the Christian church has made a significant difference in the life of Bill  (not his real name), an inmate at the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, Mich.

Earlier this year, Bill embraced baptism for what it is and has always been since the days of Christ — an initiation into a new fellowship with God. He took receiving the sacrament very seriously and has lived his life differently ever since.

“He was very new in Christ, but the baptism made a total change in his worldview. Those waters were like a rebirth for him,” says Andy Hanson, pastor of the congregation that has an inside leadership team composed of prisoner representatives.

Before being baptized, Bill was an antisocial and angry man who wanted to have nothing whatsoever to do with God. But then he started showing up at the weekly service and then asked to be baptized, making him the first prisoner Hanson was able to baptize.

Hanson, who baptized another man during that spring service, says he is well aware that inmates, while in prison, can turn to a form of jailhouse religion that doesn’t last.  But for Bill the aftermath of his baptism seems solid and real — a true sign of his new life as part of the community of Christian believers.

“I give him the benefit of the doubt. After he was baptized, I’ve seen him approach tough issues he comes up against as a Christian and have seen him act with a view toward reconciliation and justice,” says Hanson, who has been pastor at Celebration CRC for nearly a year.

After the two baptisms this spring, Hanson organized another class preparing prisoners to take part in the sacrament. He taught them about Christianity out of the Bible and with the help of such resources as the Heidelberg Catechism.

They addressed such questions as “What is the Trinity?”and  “What does baptism signify?”

In a recent service at the correctional facility, Hanson baptized four more men who had gone through baptismal instruction. As far as he can tell, he has conducted the first Protestant baptisms within the setting of a church at Bellamy Creek.

As is true for any congregation, baptisms are crucial and an important part of what constitutes a vital Christian community.

The men who were recently baptized will become members, even as they remain behind bars, of Church of the Servant, the Grand Rapids congregation of which Celebration is a daughter church.

“Church of the Servant will keep these men in their prayers and help these men as they walk a Christian life,” says Hanson.

Started late in 2008, Celebration Fellowship is a partnership involving members of churches in the Grand Rapids area who visit, worship, and assist in the ongoing development of the inmate church at the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility. Rev. Rich Rienstra played a key role in helping the church come into being.

The prison church members are active in worship as they serve by being ushers, readers, praying, assisting in communion, helping with music, setting up and taking down worship areas and in offering donations for an outside mission.

With support from Christian Reformed Home Missions and approval from the Michigan Department of Corrections, the Grand Rapids churches created Celebration Fellowship congregation — the first of its kind in the Michigan prison system.

Each week, prisoners who are members of Celebration Fellowship gather for an hour of Bible study in groups, followed by prayer and a worship service.

Like any other church, they praise God through song and prayer, celebrate communion, and now hold baptisms.

Before organizing this year’s baptisms, Hanson says, he had to work with prison officials to determine how to best conduct the sacrament. Some of the men wanted to be baptized by immersion, but that couldn’t happen since the prison would not allow Hanson to bring a tub into the prison for baptism.

Eventually, prison officials told him that he could use a storage container filled with about three feet of water. He then was able to use a thermos bottle “to drench the men” for baptism.

One of the men who was recently baptized has learned that he has a lump the size of a golf ball on one of his lungs. The prognosis is unclear. But Hanson hopes the man’s baptism into the community of Christ will help him to cope.

“He is in Christ and whatever happens I hope and pray he will be able to handle it with grace,” says Hanson.