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This Megachurch’s Newest Campus Is in a Maximum Security Prison

This Megachurch’s Newest Campus Is in a Maximum Security Prison

Last week, Pastor Robert Morris told the 30,000 members of Dallas’ Gateway Church that they were opening a new site at Coffield Unit in Anderson County, a maximum security prison.

“At Gateway Church, we’re all about people because God is all about people,” Morris told Fox News following the public announcement. “Many of the men and women inside prison have been forgotten by society, but we want them to know we love them and God loves them, and they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.”

You can watch a video of the announcement to the congregation here, along with some testimonies from the people who attend Gateway’s Coffield Campus.

Gateway Church is the largest church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, boasting six locations and a whopping 27 services. Its newest location, the Coffield Campus, kicked things off with 650 attendees. The church functions like anywhere else, with inmates volunteering to staff the services, form a worship team and keep things running smoothly on Sundays. The church’s campus pastor is himself an ex-offender named  Stephen Wilson.

“We want the people in the prisons to have a church while they’re in and when they get out, so they can be integrated back into society,” Gateway pastor Jimmy Evans told FaithWire. “People in prison need a church, and we want to be a church family—literally.”

“Gateway has really impacted my life because a lot of us do not have visits, and you guys coming in here and sharing your love to us has really impacted our life,” one of the inmates in the video says.

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