what is a parish?

For us, it’s a local resurrection community.

Historically, “parish” refers to the neighborhood, the local unit of the wider “church” movement.

We believe the original Greek work for “church”—EKKLESIA—is best translated as movement.

So the One Parish One Prisoner goal isn’t to get returning citizens into worship buildings.

No, our goal is to mobilize a movementof faith communities engaged in personalized re-entry support—in every city across the land. If mass incarceration is the mass tombs of our society, where we bury our problems and community members, we see One Parish One Prisoner as a way to “practice resurrection” on a massive scale.

Jesus loved someone in the tombs, his friend Lazarus.

He called the local community to roll away the massive stone barriers, welcome Lazarus back into the land of the living, while removing the grave clothes. How could this not transform everybody involved? Local churches in America can rise to meet the urgent need for post-incarceration re-entry solutions.

We can become resurrection communities in an age of mass incarceration.