Phil Ressler

This is not your typical weekly email. It is a bit longer than normal, but it is an incredibly encouraging testimony from Don Martens and his weekend in Joliet. So I commend it to your reading. Enjoy! Be encouraged!

To My Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings!

Kairos #9 at Stateville Correctional Center, Joliet, Illinois April 22-25, 2010

Our team of 31 volunteers is a group of men gathered from as far west as the Freeport area to southwest to Peoria and throughout Northeast Illinois. We were a mix of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and non-denominational. We have met six different Saturdays beginning back on February 13th to train for the Kairos event. Our meetings lasted from 9am to 2:30pm. On Thursday at noon we entered Stateville to begin the Kairos weekend for what we hoped would be 42 inmates. The way things worked out, we ended up having the 36 inmates spend the entire weekend in our “short course in Christianity”.

Thursday afternoon was pretty much an introductory day with some summary comments about what the inmates could expect and we did a time of self-introductions. This is always a very interesting time as I always like to watch body language and posturing of how a man introduces himself to the group. You have to remember that it is quite normal for those in prison to build “walls” around themselves in the nature of a façade to protect themselves and not convey a weakness…one all too quickly learns that prison is a rough place with fearful dynamics. Aside from introducing themselves, we also ask the men to say why they came asked to attend. Many are quite honest and indicate they heard about homemade cookies and wanted the time out of their cell. (You see at Stateville, the inmates are regularly locked up for 23 hours a day, seven days a week. Time out of the cell is ½ hour for lunch at 10am and ½ hour for dinner at 3:00pm. Breakfast is served in their cells at 3:30am. Because of the noise in the stacked cell gallery of 250 men, most don’t go to sleep till about midnight. There are two opportunities for showers in a week and two 1-1/2 hours of exercise yard time during the week. There are opportunities to attend a few classes and there are about 400 jobs available for a permanent population of approximately 1500 inmates. If not attending a class or at work, you are in your cell.) During introductions, you can tell that most of the inmates are experiencing apprehensions and anxieties about being there…not to mention we volunteers as well. We were with the men till 7pm at which time they were collected and returned to their cells. We would continue the program on Friday morning again at 8am. Our team of 31 stayed outside the prison at Grace United Methodist Church in Joliet. We slept on the floor and used blow-up mattresses that had been donated to Kairos by Aero-Bed in Woodstock, IL.

Friday morning is when we get the formal program going. The 36 inmates were divided into 7 different groups of 5 or 6 and joined with three volunteers from our team. This 8 or 9 man group would stay together as a unit throughout the course of the whole weekend. We give each group a name and condition them to identify themselves as the “Family of …’ The names we give for families are Paul, James, Peter, John, Mark, Luke, Matthew. I was part of the “Family of Paul”. We were 5 inmates and 3 team members. The inmates at my table, even though they have all been in Stateville for 10 to 26 years, did not know each other. Rick from Lord of Life was part of a different “Family” and I believe he had 6 inmates and 3 team.

The curriculum for the Kairos weekend is very intentional in it’s progression. At the same time that we are teaching, we are also addressing an inmate’s psyche and helping them to take down the walls that they have built around themselves for emotional and physical protection. The practice of our faith necessitates honesty and vulnerability in our relationships with one another. We need to help the inmates learn how to be a “family” and build a community of trust. We use Love to break down their walls…we practice agape love. This is where you my friends have helped tremendously…through your prayer, cookies, letters to inmates, posters, and cut-out hands. These instruments of God’s love are showered upon the inmates throughout the whole weekend. There are always full bowls of cookies at the table of each family as well as inmates are served their coffee at the table by our team members who are part of our “service group”. Things like this have never happened to these men while they have been incarcerated.

Interestingly on Friday afternoon, a man in my family (who entered prison at age 18, and has been in Stateville for 18 years) had already said this was the most amount of time he had spent out of his cell in 10 years.

A Kairos weekend is built around a series of talks that are prepared and presented by team members. After each talk, families are asked to discuss what was said in the talk. The team members in each family are present as facilitators. During Friday, we are to get the men to talk about what they “heard” in the talk. On Saturday, our emphasis changes and we guide the discussion into “How did what you heard make you feel?” Sunday is meant to be a day of witness and it is a day of hope. Throughout all the days we also take breaks to sing, fellowship, and eat cookies. There are also meditations given by our clergy team members. We eat our meals in the prison with the inmates, eating their regularly scheduled meals. The food really is the worst food I have been given to eat. A few meals were passable, some I only ate a portion, and with all, I got heartburn.

The talks in sequence of how they are given on Friday are titled, “Choices”, “You Are Not Alone”, “Friendship with God”, “The Church”, and “Opening the Door”. Friday is a day of “hearing” what is taught. Saturday’s talks are “Discovery”, “Action”, and “A Christian” (Rick from Lord of Life gave this talk and did an outstanding job!). The meditations given on Saturday also center upon forgiveness and confronting the “wall” of isolation each man has constructed to protect himself. Saturday is a day of “feeling” what is taught. Sunday’s talks are “Footprints in the Sand”, Tomorrow”, and “Lighting the Way” (this is the talk I presented).

On Friday and Saturday we are in the prison from 8am to 7pm. On Sunday we are there from 8am to 2:30pm. The days are long and emotionally draining. On Saturday afternoon at 2pm, the inmates were presented their bags of letters…many of you wrote letters…each man gets a bag with at least 30 letters…while the men are in their families given an opportunity to read through their mail, the team serenades them with our voices in song. It’s a pretty powerful time for many of these men…they never get mail from family or friends, let alone strangers who don’t even know them but in their letters are wishing them hope and urging them to surrender themselves to the love of Christ and claim him as Savior. A young brother at my table wanted me to tell you all…”tell them thank you for these letters, you don’t know how much these mean to me”. On some previous weekends I have seen other inmates melt into a mass of tears when they wanted to talk about how much the letters meant to them.

The curriculum we present in Kairos is really very remarkable at breaking the men down through love, opening them up, and planting the seeds of faith. Our goal is to plant Christian community and nurture it as it grows in the prison…knowing full well that it is the inmates who must do the nurturing and growing work themselves. We teach and train them to be in faith community.

On Sunday afternoon from 1pm to 2:30pm we have what we refer to as the “Closing”. This is when we ask each table family (inmates only…by this point, we are releasing them on their own as family) to discuss and answer three questions publicly to all assembled. (At this time, visitors from the outside are allowed to come in and be in attendance. If you would be interested in attending one of these in the future, please let me know…once again, the presence of Christians from the outside taking time to come and hear is a big affirmation of the men and the path they are embarking upon.) The questions are, “What did you come to Kairos expecting to learn?”, What did you find at Kairos?”, and “What do you intend on doing with what you found?”. After each “family” has given their response we have time for “open mic” and men can come up and share their personal witness. For me, this really is the point when I get satisfaction for all the effort. Just about every family said they intended to take what they had learned back to the cellhouse. Some said they felt life once again and could care about others…their fellow inmates. Thanks to God were prolific. The men who had “walls” around themselves on Thursday were now men with open arms hugging each other and us.

For the next six months, our team will return the first Saturday of every month and meet once again with this same group of men. We will train and nurture them in how to become smaller “sharing and prayer” accountability groups. This really is the core of what we do in Kairos! The weekend really is the point of getting the men ready to be in Christian community and creating the “want” to be in Christian community. The accountability groups are the “action” component to strengthening, growing, and transformational power of Christ’s presence in the prison.

I know this report has been somewhat long and maybe lacking some of the emotional thrust of some of the observations you have heard me make before. It was an exceptional weekend and once again I witnessed the living Christ quite obviously active. I have now done seven Kairos teams over the past few years. In some ways, I guess you can say I’ve matured…the mountain-tops are not as high as my first few times, but none the less just as powerful in a deep seated way. I do have an observation though that came to me about 4:30am this past Sunday morning prior to the talk I would give later that noon at the Kairos. I hope that it may give you a vision of why prison ministry is important.

As Jesus and the criminals hung upon the cross, the Jews made it necessary to remove them before the start of the Sabbath. Removal meant that they needed to be dead. The legs of the criminals were broken with a clubbing thus causing them to suffocate and die. When the Roman came to Jesus it appeared he was already dead so the Roman was instructed to pierce the side of Jesus with a spear. That hole in the side of Jesus became what the Romans thought was evidence of death…little did they realize, that the light of the resurrected Christ would defeat that death. So too, Thomas in his skepticism, was directed by Jesus to place his hand in the hole to verify that it was He, the Christ. Do you remember Thomas’s response to the challenge of the resurrected Jesus? “My Lord and My God!” …it wasn’t “oh my gosh, it’s really you Jesus”…it wasn’t just, “my Lord”…it was “My Lord and My God!”

Stateville Correctional Center is a “hole of death” in Northern Illinois. It represents a place of darkness and sin. Death is the penalty for the wages of sin. When the redeemed and transformed lives in Christ of inmates in Stateville cast their light beyond the walls of Stateville to the population beyond…just like the hole in the side of Christ that once confirmed death…now will become the confirmation of resurrection…so that a doubting world can only stand in awe of what happened in Stateville and say…”My Lord and My God!”.

Thank you to you all. Rick and I took you into the prison with us and your prayers easy carried us through a most remarkable weekend. May the Christ light continue to gain heat in His children in Stateville.

Don Martens

April 26, 2010

And now these three remain. Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how I react to it. Would you agree or disagree with that statement?

Before there was Tiger Woods, there was Jack Nicklaus. And before there was Jack Nicklaus, there was Arnold Palmer. Palmer was considered the greatest golfer of his generation. His followers were affectionately known as Arnie’s army. He won hundreds of tournaments, with hundreds of trophies. Yet, the only trophy in his office is the cup from the 1955 Canadian Open, the first professional tournament he won. To go along with the trophy is a plaque which reads:

Although he was not a Christian, you might have heard about Victor Frankl. Frankl was a prisoner in a Nazi prison camp during World War II. He was horribly mistreated, but his attitude made him an inspiration to millions of people who would hear his story. The Nazi’s took away everything you could possibly imagine, but through it all he would not let go of his freedom to choose how he would respond to his captors. He is quoted as saying: “The one thing you cannot take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

We can’t always choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to them. In the 1 Corinthians 13:13, we are called to put on the virtues of faith, hope, and love. When our faith is in Jesus, we have hope, that enables us to respond in love. We can choose joy because we know we have a God who is bigger than any circumstance we face, and who already holds the victory. So when others are walking with their faces downcast, we can still walk with a smile on our face.

Have a great rest of the week. This weekend I will be sharing a message on discerning the voice of Jesus. Our text will be John 10:27. Hope to see you on Sunday at 8:30 or 10am.

The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. Proverbs 13:14

Learning has always been something exciting for me. I think I am even more excited to learn today than I ever was as a student in school. I find myself ever more curious about this world God has given us.

We all have room to grow and to learn. It doesn’t matter how old we are. Success or failure is birthed out of our attitude towards learning. The moment we stop learning is the moment we stop growing and our ability to make a difference is greatly diminished? The moment we stop learning is the moment we get stuck where we are at.

Maybe you know someone who has stopped learning. Words used to identify people who have stopped learning are words like stubborn and know-it-all. These are not words we want to be identified by.

So are you teachable? Are you learning? Are you growing? No matter how you answered those questions, I would encourage you towards the following.

#1 Renew your commitment to learn. This might mean learning a new skill. It might be learning to play a musical instrument, learning to a program on the computer, or learning to communicate better with your spouse. There are always new challenges to master that will help to keep you humble. Open a book. Take a class at the community college. Sign up for a Bible Study at Church. Sign up for dancing lessons. The possibilities are endless.

#2 Renew your commitment to relearn. This is similar to the first, but this is more about mastering the skills we already have. Open yourself up to relearn in an area you already consider yourself an expert. It is said that the average job will require learning 20% new knowledge every year. So if you never learn anything new, you would be 100% less effective in 5 years. It is said the knowledge in the tech industry doubles every 18 months. The moral of the story is we constantly need to be learning. If you find yourself easily threatened by other’s achievement, chances are your pride is closing the door on new possibilities, then you are stuck thinking you already know everything you need to know.

Don’t take anything for granted. As long as we are on this earth we still have not arrived.

The big story in the news has been the eruption of the volcano in Iceland. It has disrupted air traffic around the globe. For all of our modern advances we still are at the mercy of God and his creation.

Check out these incredible pics of the volcano: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skarpi/

It looks like creation all over.

People who despise advice are asking for trouble; those who respect a command will succeed. Proverbs 13:13

Do you seek wisdom or sympathy? Sympathy is often much easier received than wisdom. Wisdom is not always what we want to hear, but we will soak up the sympathy. Sympathy tickles our ears and fits our fancy.

In 2 Timothy 4:3 it says a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Do you have someone who will speak truth into your life even if the truth is not really what you want to hear? Sometimes we need a word of encouragement, but sometimes we need a word of conviction.

Lord, help me listen to those who would speak truth into my life. I pray you would put others filled with your wisdom to guide me along your path. I pray Lord you would put people in my life to tell me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear. And give me ears to listen. Amen.

Did you see it last night? The big fireball in the sky? I was driving home from Lord of Life shortly before 10pm and must have pulled into the garage just minutes before the flash in the sky was seen. I missed it, but when I came to Bible Study this morning and the men were talking about it. I didn’t know what they were talking about at first. Then they explained it to me.

I found it interesting how my morning devotion in the One Year Bible on this particular day took me to the end of Luke 17. In this chapter Jesus talks about the coming Kingdom of God. He says, “For the Son of Man in his day will be like lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.” I just happened to read this verse the morning after this event took place. Wow!

Considering the recent earthquake in Northern Illinois and now the flash in the sky at night, I do not consider these events to be coincidences. God often makes his presence know in what is called theophanies. These are revelations of God through abnormal occurrences in nature.

When we look throughout the world, some crazy things are happening. We have volcanic ash from Iceland shutting down airports in Europe. Earthquakes in China, Chile, Haiti, Indonesia, and many other places. It brings to mind the question, “Is Jesus coming back?”

The answer to that question is “yes!” Of course he is coming back. It might be today. It might not. It might be one year from now, 100 years from now, 1000 years from now or even longer. Jesus says, “No one knows the day or the hour.” (Mark 13:32) Certainly we can interpret the signs of the times. We know we are closer to his return now than we have ever been before. But ultimately our role is not to predict, but to simply be ready.

These signs provide us several opportunities and challenges.

1) They provide us the opportunity to know that God is God and that God is in his place. They serve as a reminder he is still there. There is absolutely no human explanation for the earthquake that took place in Northern Illinois. There is no known fault line in the area. At this point there doesn’t seem to be an complete explanation for the fireball in the sky. While there may be no known human explanation, we have a divine explanation. It was put there by God!

2) These signs challenge us to be ready and to be prepared. That earthquake happened in an instant. The flash in the sky happened in an instant. There was no time to prepare. So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. These are reminders, no matter where we are in life, to be right with God. None of us know our day or hour. If we continue to keep Jesus at arms length we may find it too late and ourselves on the outside looking in.

3) It reminds us of the urgency of the mission. God created you for such a time as this. Life is short. We only have so many opportunities. Last year about this time, we challenged everyone at Lord of Life to take the One Month to Live Challenge. A year as now passed since that challenge. You are still here. But that doesn’t undermine the message. What would you do differently if you had only one month to live? Some of the things that seem important to you now would not be all that important anymore. These signs are a reminder to continue to live with that same urgency and purpose. It might mean hugging your child a little tighter and a little bit longer, because you don’t know how many more of those opportunities you will have. It might mean going on that mission trip you have been putting off for all sorts of different reasons (excuses). It might mean just simply walking across the room to share your faith with a co-worker or friend.

4) Finally, it reminds us that life is fragile. There is nothing permanent on or about his earth. Everything we see will one day come to an end. But there is one thing that remains and that is Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He has given you something that you can hold on to and that is the cross. These signs remind us that earth is not our home. We are just sojourners here. Heaven is our home and it was what we were created for.

Hope you have a great week. This weekend I will will be sharing my message from John 21:1-14 and will be talking about overcoming frustration. In that story we have some frustrated fishermen, but Jesus helps them overcome that frustration. If you are frustrated or know of someone who is frustrated, the place to be is at Lord of Life on Sunday at 8:30 or 10am. Hope to see you there.

Is Jesus #1 in your life? I hope not! Yes, you heard me right. Jesus doesn’t want to be number one, he wants to be the only one.

When God gives Moses the 10 Commandments he says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) Now it might be easy to misinterpret that verse. He says you shall have no other gods before me, but what about after him?

The next verse clears up the matter. “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the from of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Exodus 20:4) Did you catch that? You shall not make an idol in the form of anything!

Imagine being getting married and the groom stands up to share his vows with his wife and he says, “Darling, I will love with all I have got. I will love you as my number one. I will put you before Sally, Mary, and Esther. They will be two, three, and four, but you will be my number one.” If the groom stood up to say that, he wouldn’t be standing very long.

Jesus doesn’t want to be our number one, he wants to be our only one!

We are quick to say “Yes, yes! Lord Jesus, you are my Lord. You are my everything.”

But then we get in our car. We turn on K-Love. We are singing along with Chris Tomlin and David Crowder at the top of our voice. We feel the passion in our heart for Jesus. What a great day he has given us.

Then that driver pulls out in front of us. He cuts us off. We slam on our brakes. We think to ourselves, “That !@#$%! Who does he think he is? Doesn’t he know I am in a hurry? What is his problem?”

Do you see what happened? We allowed the situation to occupy our mind and our thoughts. In that moment Jesus’ lordship in our life is replaced by the situation. We have allowed the situation to determine our attitude rather than Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t want to be your number one, he wants to be your only one. Give him the lordship of every situation! Don’t let the devil determine your attitude. As the Bible say, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. (Ephesians 4:26-27)

Say, “Jesus is my Lord and he loves me. I will not let anything or anyone else determine my attitude.”

The answer is yes. We need both right doctrine and right living. There are numerous examples in the Bible where the church battles heresy. Yet, when we look at the Bible it has so much more to say about right living than it does about right doctrine.

In Titus 2 the Apostle Paul writes, “You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.” Paul acknowledges doctrine is important. It is the first thing he mentions in this chapter. But as we go on to read the rest of the chapter he takes an interesting turn. Listen to what he says in verse two:

“Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.”

What Paul is doing here is connecting right doctrine with right living. They go hand in hand. He goes on to address older women, younger women, and younger men. then we come to verse 11 where he says:

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It is teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age . . .”

We spend a lot of time protecting doctrine in the church, but I wonder if we are spending our time wisely. Do we have a bigger issue with false teaching or a bigger issue with moral failing? Yes, there are certainly false teachers out there, but I know many more Christians that struggle with moral failings than I know Christians who struggle with false teachings.

As a pastor of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, I am glad to be a part of a church body that is so well grounded in its theology. But right doctrine does not guarantee right living. Better teaching does not mean better living. If better doctrine meant an end to conflict, then we would have done away with conflict long ago.

When we are called to Christ, we need to know he wants more than just our minds, he wants our hearts too.

Work hard and become a leader, be lazy and become a slave. Proverbs 12:24

This verse was part of my morning devotions today. I read it a couple of times. The part that struck me was the first two words “work hard.” I asked the question of myself, “What does it mean to work hard?” It might not be what we think of at first.

Work hard does not necessarily mean physical labor. Work hard does not necessarily mean putting in long hours. Yet, these are likely the first things that pop into our head.

This is what “work hard” means for me. First it means to avoid distraction. It is easy to be distracted from our work and from what we really need to be doing. How many busy days have you looked back upon and asked, “what did I accomplish?” Working hard means to be focused. It means that any given moment we are doing what is important. This is not necessarily the thing that feels urgent.

A second thing it means for me is to go the extra step. This is closely related to avoiding distraction. We often want to go the extra step, but don’t have time to do so, because we were not successful in avoiding distraction. It’s not just washing the car, but taking the little extra care to polish. It is the polish that stands out. It is that extra little shine that makes it stand out. We can apply this to all the opportunities where we serve. Do we put the extra little polish on the places we serve?

This leads to a third thing. Working hard is about serving. Jesus would say that whoever wants to be great, must become a servant. He would say of himself that he came not to be served, but to serve. The big twist here is that a leader is a servant. A leader is working hard, not for themselves, but for others. Working hard is about putting others first. This is hard to do. Because we want to stand at the front of the line.

So what do you think? What does it mean to you to work hard?

It’s official. They are boys. No doubt about if you know what I mean. The ultrasound yesterday made it clear. We had been thinking they would be boys for some time now. I had a theory and it would seem my theory proved true.

Way back before we even had children Barbara had said that if we ever had a boy she wanted to name him Thomas. Her dad had been named Thomas and had died when she was younger. This was a way that she wanted to honor the memory of her father and I thought that would be great.

When Abby came along, we simply set the name Thomas aside and held on to it to see what would happen. Then we found out she was having Twins. We didn’t know if they were boys or girls, but we knew that we might have the opportunity to use the name Thomas.

Well one day we were talking about names for the babies. And something struck me that I seemed to remember about “Doubting Thomas” in the Bible. I went to John 20:24 which is actually part of the text I will be using this Sunday in my message. In this verse Thomas is identified. The text also says he was called Didymus.

Doing a little research you will discover that the name Didymus from the Greek means twin and that the name Thomas is based on the Hebrew word for twin.

It was in that moment I was convinced these twins would be boys (they are identical). I knew that one of these babies was simply living up to the name he had already been given – Thomas the twin.

Yesterday, it was revealed to us that indeed it is true. We’ve got boys on the way!