Indiana’s Emmanuel Church has launched a new initiative to help reach members of their community who don’t typically get to be a part of a church: They’ve established a “microcampus” inside the local Johnson County Jail.
The multisite megachurch’s jail campus launched this year and is part of the church’s effort to reach those within the correction system. Emmanuel Church has also established campuses in a local work-release center and a local recovery center, Theodora House.
And unlike some prison ministries, Emmanuel seeks to give inmates a true church experience, providing coffee, breakfast and Bible study materials along with community, teachings and worship.
As the church’s executive pastor Rachel Long explained to The Christian Post, part of the idea of the prison microcampus is to help inmates join a community behind bars so they have access to a support system when they are released.
“County jail in Indiana is different than federal or state prison,” Long explained to CP. “There aren’t a lot of rehabilitation factors to it. But we know that if we can get them to come to an Emmanuel campus afterward, we know that we can get them connected in addiction recovery, small groups and people who will walk with them as they either come to Christ or grow in Christ through the heart transformation.”
