For NBF, aftercare is the spiritual support someone needs upon release from corrections, or as they are coming out of addiction.
We need Titus 2 Brothers and Sisters. We also need leaders willing to launch new groups and provide Children's ministry at NBFW meetings.
Based on Titus 2:1-8, these are Christian men and women who attend and participate in Discipleship Groups. Primarily, they focus on building relationships, and become "passive mentors." These men and women do the work of modeling how to follow Christ.
NBFW is New Beginnings For Women. This is branch of the ministry is for the women who love a New Brother: mothers, wives, girlfriends, etc. It also provides aftercare support for women coming our of corrections or addiction.
God's success rate is 100%! Every man who gets connected and stays connected, stays out of jail and out of his lifestyle of addiction and sin. In the past 12 years we have worked on this mission field, this has been true for countless men. It is God's work, and He does it well.
7.3 million Americans are in prison, or on parole or probation.–that is one in 31 adults. The Body of Christ cannot ignore these statistics, or the vast mission field in our own backyard.
I just want to encourage you to do one thing today: ask God.
Ask Him for anything and everything. Ask Him for whatever it is you desire or need. Ask Him for the thing you would never admit to wanting, but long for desperately in your heart. Just ask Him. Go ahead!
Honestly, I feel really strongly about this. I really believe we ask too little of God, and try too hard to make things happen for ourselves. I’m not opposed to us trying to make things happen for ourselves, and sometimes that’s the way to do it, even as we pray for the Lord’s help in our doing.
However, too often we just don’t think God cares about our problems. We don’t think we deserve His help.
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Th 2:7–12 ESV)
I was listening to a conversation this afternoon about Madonna’s recent headline where she exposed a seventeen year-old girl at one of her concerts. The girl is reported as saying…
“Seriously, why would I sue Madonna for the best moment of my life?,” (the girl) told The Courier Mail. “It was the best night.”
While children’s safety from sexual predators in church is always on the forefront of my mind, having a grandchild has made this issue very personal for me once again. So, I thought I would remind us all of some very important questions. This is a revised version of an article I wrote about two years ago.
There is a good chance you attend church with a sexual predator who is targeting the children who attend church with you. That does not mean you should be suspicious of every man or woman who walks through the door on Sunday morning, but it does mean you should question the safety protocol your church has established to protect their youngest congregants.
"On September 2, Prison Fellowship chairman Charles Colson faced a situation that mirrors what the church as a whole faces. People of several faiths, many of whom were attending the Parliament of the World's Religions, gathered at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago to hear an address on religious liberty. What do evangelicals have to say in a pluralistic setting? How do we talk about the cultural role of religion with those who worship other gods? As the winner of the 1993 Templeton Prise for Progress in Religion, Mr. Colson had earned the right to stand on the platform. What follows is . . . what he said when he got there." -- Taken from Moody magazine, November 8, 1993, page 31. Editor's Note (from the printed version of this message circulated by Prison Fellowship):
In March 1993 Charles W. Colson was named the recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Established in 1972 by financier Sir John Marks Templeton, this prestigious award is given annually to a person who has shown "extraordinary originality in advancing humankinds's understanding of God."
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