Bill Hybels, founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, is glad he didn’t pass away in his mid 50s. If he did, he would have had to explain to God why he never visited a prisoner.
The long-time megachurch pastor made this statement at his church on Sunday as thousands of attendees prepared to pack Christmas bags for inmates as they have done for the past four years. This year, every inmate in the state of Illinois will be receiving a Christmas gift bag.
“I follow God’s son, Jesus Christ, who was blindingly clear about how I should engage with prisoners,” said Hybels. “If I had passed away at 55 despite all that clear training and additionally because I’m a pastor, I would’ve had to explain to God that I didn’t pray for prisoners, that I had never visited one, I had never lifted a finger to help prisoners in any way.”
When Hybels, 65, began visiting prisons he said “the fist overwhelming sense” he got was that “this was one of the most hopeless environments on the planet.”
“Hope,” he said, “has to be brought inside by those from the outside.”
Bryan Stevenson, founder of Equal Justice Initiative in…
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