blessing Service
Absolutely necessary: Presenting your newly-launched ONE PARISH ONE PRISONER team to the congregation. March up your parish team members, share your incarcerated friend’s picture and first name (no further details) and show your community what’s going on.
Share the convictions of church leadership that led the way, have your team members share what’s happened so far in their spiritual journey—challenges, hesitations, hopes, etc.
Promise that there will be more updates from the team, regularly, as the journey continues.
Commit to pray, ask questions, build community trust and embrace.
AND give us a poke when it happens!
ALVIN@UNDERGROUNDMINISTRIES.ORG
EXAMPLES BELOW.
BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - Tacoma, WA
OPOP COMMISSIONING (Blessing starts at 51:45)
Our congregation through our mission has entered into a covenant relationship with Underground Ministries of the Skagit Valley and their One Parish One Prisoner program. The goal is to assist with reentry of one prisoner so that the incarcerated one can find new life on the outside and not go back—breaking the chain of recidivism. We, the Presbytery of Olympia, are fortunate to have a church inside the Washington Correctional Institution for Women just north of us, Hagar’s Community Church. We have been assigned a prisoner who has been active in the new worshiping community since the beginning who will be released in Tacoma in April of 2023. We have begun our relationship by each of us writing two letters a month to our prisoner and she writes back.
We have pledged to meet with one another for an hour and a half each month. In those meetings we share information and insights from our letters that we have received. We work through learning modulus provided by OPOP (One Parish One Prisoner). We pray with one another and we pray for our prisoner. Eventually we will visit our prisoner, and at one point we will mobilize our connections and our resources to assist in the reentry of this woman we are growing to love.
Would you please join me in prayer as we commission each one of these, our participants.
God of the wealthy and impoverished, of the free and the incarcerated, we ask you to bless the efforts of each one who has been called to enter this journey with our prisoner. Allay any fears and doubts. Open each one to the lessons to be learned about true justice reconciliation and forgiveness. We see many hurdles ahead. And yet we know that you go before us, unlocking doors and hearts. We commit our own team to this effort and ask for willing hearts and minds to learn with them and to pray for them and our prisoner whom you know as your beloved daughter. We seek to follow Christ and love Christ as we love this one in prison. We offer ourselves to you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
We want to thank each one of you for your courage and willingness to walk this journey.
God Bless You.
-Pastor Joyce / Bethany Presbyterian Church of Tacoma
Westminster Presbyterian Church - Olympia, Wa
Now we are commissioning our One Parish One Prisoner team together in worship this morning. We know that God has a heart for the prisoner, God has a heart for incarcerated people. In Matthew 25, Jesus exhorts his followers to visit those who are in prison. In Luke 4, the passage we will read today in worship, when Jesus’s ministry begins he shares a passage pronouncing freedom to the prisoners, captives will be released, the year of Jubilee, that’s the vision we have of Shalom, of The Kingdom of God, right? And two weeks ago we had a kickoff meeting, an orientation, for this team whom I’ll bring up in just a minute. And Alvin Shim, who is our contact at Underground Ministries, led us through a really wonderful orientation. And the scriptural story that he appealed to was the story of Lazarus being resurrected.
So from John 11, right? When Lazarus was believed to be dead and all are mourning, and Jesus comes back, and his friend Lazarus is raised from the dead, his friend has come back because Lazarus is dear to his heart.
And the stone in front of the tomb is rolled away, and that is sort of the first impediment into the community and then Lazarus can come out.
But then, Alvin points out that there is still this linen, the linens of death that are wrapped around Lazarus that need to be unwoven in order for Lazarus to really re-enter the community, to really move toward the flourishing that God dreams of.
And so this One Parish One Prisoner team is functioning as the hands of this church, this body, to be in relationship with someone, an incarcerated individual, and not only to write to this person as she is preparing for release, but then to be part of that moving of the stone and that unraveling of the linens once that person returns to her life here in Thurston County.
So at this time I would invite forward those who are a part of this team so they can gather up front and we can bless them in this ministry. We have Terry, Keith, Susan, Barb and Nancy.
So congregation, see your team. These men and women have answered the call to be in true kinship with someone who is currently incarcerated at the Washington Correctional Center for Women. They will be writing this woman letters and getting to know her and her family and they will be helping to guide us to offer this woman whatever welcome and support she may need as she transitions back to a full life here in Thurston County. So I would like to introduce you to that woman, this is Candice. Candice and her two sons. So I don’t have much to tell you about Candice right now because we are going to be getting to know one another through our letters. And this team will tell you more about Candice as she gives us permission to, as we get to know her. And this team will let us know what ways we can be of good support to Candice. And we are really grateful to the training that Underground Ministries gives this team to help them in that role.
So I would like to offer them a blessing as their work begins, but I want it to be a repeat after me blessing because I want them to hear it in your voices, so will you repeat after me?
Dear God, we thank you for those who have said yes to your call.
We thank you for the way you have prepared them.
Give them courage. Grow their compassion.
Lead them into ever deepening relationship. That they, and we, might be transformed.
We pray for Candice and her family, surround her with your presence.
Cast a vision before her of hope.
Amen
Well again, in the spirit of celebration, let’s give this team a round of applause. Nancy says it’s gonna be fun and I truly believe that God has led forward the right people for this ministry on behalf of Westminster at this time. So I am really excited and we will tell you more as things unfold.
-Pastor Therin / Westminster Presbyterian Church, Olympia
Good morning,
My name is Andrea Mendoza and I am here to represent the St. John the Baptist One Parish One Prisoner Team. Over the last several months, our parish has been discerning entering into a relationship of mutual transformation with an individual currently incarcerated.
It is my joy to share with you that St. John the Baptist has been matched with an individual who we will be walking with in the months to come.
I would like to introduce you to our friend Chaz whose picture is up on the screen. Chaz writes
“I’m a father of three and a family person. I’m trying to become stable out in the community and to rebuild my relationships with my kids. I want to be successful enough to get my youngest daughter out of foster care to live with me. I want a stable job, stable housing so I can be a better father. I need better people in my life. I’m worried about getting out without support, without other people that will be good influences in my life. Reaching out to others for help is part of that, knowing and being able to talk to other people can improve my chances for success.”
As our team grows in relationship with Chaz, we will share more with this community about his journey and different ways you can support him. Our ask today is simply that you hold Chaz, his daughters, and this One Parish One Prisoner team in your prayers.
Thank you.
- Andrea Mendoza, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church
Lord, we are so grateful for these dear brothers and sisters who have said yes to the call. To not just serve those at the margins, but as Father Greg Boyle said, “to truly be in Kinship.” We thank you for bringing this team together. We pray for the way you have worked in their lives for years before the moment they said yes.
Lord, that you have been working in their hearts, working in their lives, connecting this ministry with pieces of their stories that we couldn’t even anticipate would happen.
Lord, the way you work is so powerful and we are overwhelmed with gratitude because of that. I ask that you continue to surround this group of people with your presence, with your grace, with your love, with your mercy. Remind them often that you are with them in this as they are learning and growing and being in relationship with your beloved daughter, Chrystina. Thank you for her, thank you for her life, and I ask the same things for her; that you would surround her with your presence; that she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is indeed your beloved daughter. Thank you for the ways that these friends are also going to remind her of that.
Lord, we give you this team, we give you this whole discipleship journey that we are going to be on for two years. We ask this all in the precious name of your son, Jesus.
Amen.
-Pastor Marisa / Bethany Presbyterian Church, Seattle