February 27, 2024 Show with Lowell Ivey on “A Former White Supremacist Prison Gang Member who Now Reaches Inmates with Christ’s Gospel of Sovereign Grace”

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Metanoia Prison Ministries and Lowell Ivey’s Testimony

I'm thrilled to have back an utterly fascinating guest who is returning to the program. His name is Lowell Ivey. He's director of Metanoia Prison Ministries, and we're going to be addressing a former white supremacist prison gang member who now reaches inmates with Christ's gospel of sovereign grace.

And we're going to be particularly focusing upon a confessionally reformed, ordinary means of grace approach to prison ministry. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Lowell Ivey. Good to be back, Chris. Thank you so much. Thank you, brother. And I want to urge our listeners, after this live show is over, to please look up other interviews I've conducted with Lowell Ivey on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Just go to our search engine at ironsharpensironradio .com, search engine at the top of the page, and type in his last name will be sufficient, I-V as in victory, E-Y, Lowell Ivey, and that will bring you to all of his previous interviews.

We've done several, at least in the past. Well, and of course, one of them will contain his utterly remarkable salvation testimony of how the Lord delivered him out from being a white supremacist and gang member in prison to becoming a born-again believer of Christ who has repented of his damnable sin of racism and has made him a new creature in Christ.

And he is an ordained Presbyterian pastor and now working with Metanoia Prison Ministries. But please tell our listeners about Metanoia Prison Ministries.

The Meaning and Mission of Metanoia Prison Ministries

Sure. Thanks, Chris. Well, Metanoia is a Greek word that means change of mind. It's often translated repentance in the Bible. And really that's where the name comes from. The name really a reflection of the heart of the mission of the organization, which is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ so that men and women behind bars might repent and come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And so Metanoia is a ministry that was founded originally back in the 90s. And in its current form, it was led by Mark Cassin for many, many years from 2006 on. And in 2009, it became a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America under the oversight of their Home Missions Agency, Mission to North America.

And so Metanoia is a ministry that's been around for a long time. And it has various aspects to it, most especially our correspondence ministry, where hundreds of inmates around the country are able to take Bible correspondence courses.

And we have corresponding disciples who grade those lessons and write a letter of encouragement to those behind bars.

Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to explore Metanoia Prison Ministries and find out more about this wonderful organization and its director, Lowell Ivey, go to metanoiaprisonministries .org. Metanoiaprisonministries .org.

And Metanoia is spelled M as in Michael, E, T as in Thomas, A, N as in Nancy. O-I-A. Metanoiaprisonministries .org. Well, why don't you let our listeners know how you became affiliated with Metanoia.

I know that at one point not long ago, you were the pastor of a Presbyterian church. Tell us about all the providential circumstances that led to this.

Well, years ago, I met the current director, the director at that time of Metanoia, Mark Cassin. I met him actually when I had just begun seminary and I was getting to know my wife, May, at that time before we got married.

And she and I were at a presentation he was doing at a church. And it seemed like Mark was just telling about my own experience. Everything that he said, I was nodding my head. And afterwards, he came up to me and he said, you know, I noticed you were nodding your head a lot and kept talking to May.

And I just was wondering, you know, what was going on in your mind. And I said, well, everything that you were saying was exactly what I experienced while I was in prison. And I was trying to help her to see that.

And so we got to know each other, I guess it would have been 2010 or 2011. And I've bumped into him a number of times along the way. I went on to study. I went to seminary at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina.

And I did a pastoral internship beginning in 2015 after I graduated. And in 2016, I was called to a church in Virginia Beach, Virginia Reformation Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

It was a church plant. I planted that church by the grace of God. And then we planted two other churches from that congregation. Again, I continued the relationship with Mark. We were friends. And he came at one point and presented the ministry at our church.

But I never imagined that I would be serving as director of Metanoia. For one thing, I loved pastoral ministry. I loved the congregation that I was serving. They loved me and my family. And I thought that I would just continue serving there until I could serve no longer.

But last year in July, Mark called me up. And he said that he was taking a new position with Mission to North America. And he wanted to know if I would be willing to think about serving at Metanoia as the next director.

He said, you know, I can't promise you that. There'll be an interview process and so forth. But would you at least be willing to consider it? And, oh, by the way, it'll involve 100 to 120 days of travel every year.

And so I immediately thought, well, there's no way this is going to happen as soon as I talk to May. You know, she's going to say that this doesn't seem like something that would work for our family. And I thought that would probably help me to provide an answer to Mark pretty quickly.

But actually, May was the first one to say to me that she thought that I should think about it, just given where the Lord had had led me and how he had been preparing me all these years. And and so as I talked to others, as I talked to pastors in my presbytery, those that I would seek counsel from and then my own elders, it really was the same thing again and again.

People that I thought would tell me, you know, I shouldn't do this for whatever reason were telling me instead. I think you should think about it. And that helped me to see that the Lord seemed to be in this.

And so we went through the interview process and was asked by the board to be their candidate. And I began serving in this role in January of this year.

Praise God. Well, you specifically, as I've already mentioned, wanted to focus our attention today during our interview on a particular, a very specific approach to evangelism. You wanted to discuss a confessionally reformed, ordinary means of grace approach to prison ministry.

Why don't you define that for us? Oh, happy to do so. Well, as you know, and as I've shared on the program before, I spent 15 and a half years in prison. The Lord graciously set me free while I was in solitary confinement.

I spent 10 years of my 15 years in solitary confinement. And it was as I was scanning the radio dial one night that the Lord used a radio program to shine the light of the gospel.

I'm like, I was hoping it was my show, but I knew that from our previous discussions that it was.

It was it was actually a show called Here Comes the Light. And I'm sure I'm sure that experience has happened to somebody by listening to your program, Chris. But this was called Here Comes the Light.

It was it was really it was a radio program that just a few Christians had. They bought airtime on a country music station and aired that program in an area of Texas, Huntsville, Texas, which is the hub of the prison system in Texas.

And probably 60 to 80 ,000 prisoners could at any on any given Sunday night hear that program. And so the Lord used that program to bring me to the knowledge of Christ. And so it was it was through that experience that, well, first of all, I knew that whatever had happened to me, God had done it.

It wasn't me. I had I had done nothing. God had done everything. And I didn't know the term reformed, but I certainly knew that God was the one who had changed my heart and made me a new creature in Christ.

As I began to study and learn and grow, and especially as I listened to another radio program, Renewing Your Mind with R .C. Sproul, I began to become self-consciously reformed in my thinking. And and I read and studied quite a bit while I was still in prison.

And when I got out of solitary confinement, I went through a it was called the gang renunciation and disassociation program to renounce my gang membership. I was able to take college classes and I was also able at that point to be released back into general population and to go to the worship services on Sundays.

And I felt that it was important that I go to those services because I thought it was a testimony to other prisoners and and whatever whatever I thought was lacking in those services. Nevertheless, I knew that the Lord could use it to grow me and to strengthen me in Christ.

However, the services were not reformed. The worship wasn't reformed. The preaching wasn't reformed. And it was very, very seldom that I ever encountered a reformed volunteer in the prison system. You know, there would be many who would come in and and seek to minister to prisoners, but almost none of them were were reformed.

And and that began to help me see the need for distinctively and confessionally reformed prison ministry, even when I was still in prison. And that's not to say that I didn't appreciate the ministry that was going on.

There was quite a bit of wonderful prison ministry that was going on. But I did see that there was a need for something more, something that would unfold the gospel in a systematic way, in a confessional way, in a way that would help prisoners to make sense of the whole Bible.

And and so I was already beginning to see that while I was in prison and began to think that maybe the Lord was calling me into full time prison ministry when I was released. And so I was taking my college classes with the hope that when I got out, I would go to seminary and maybe come back into the prison as a seminary trained ordained minister.

But but with the with the calling to minister in particular to prisoners, I knew that most pastors are not going to be able to minister to those in prison, especially on the Lord's Day. They're going to have a congregation of their own to minister to.

And so I was I was seeing the need for those who would be seminary trained and ordained ministers to go into prisons and minister minister through the church in a in a church based way. But but but as but with that particular calling.

And so that's what I originally planned to do. The Lord had different plans for me, at least at least for a while. And now I see the great wisdom in his plan over over time of I've developed my thinking more and more about about the need for for confessionally reformed.

As you said, a means of grace approach to to prison ministry. And really, at the heart of it, it's the idea that that prisoners need the very same things that you and I need. We need we need Christ. We need the gospel.

We need the ordinary means of grace. And if I could summarize it by saying this, we need the church. Prisoners need the church just as you and I need the church. And and that a lot of times is an emphasis that it's lost in prison ministry, understandably so, because it's a complicated, you know, there are complicated questions that arise.

How is it possible for prisoners to have a connection to the church and and to the means of grace that I'm thinking of things like church membership? How is that even possible? And so those are difficult questions, but they're questions that I think there are biblical answers to.

And I think that as reformed people, we're perhaps in a very good place to to help to answer those questions and to minister effectively in prison in a way that brings all of the means of grace to the prisoner.

Reformed Prison Ministry Versus Common Approaches

Now, could you please, with some detail, compare that kind of prison ministry that you believe is missing those important elements that you just mentioned? I mean, what what what is being done specifically and how are the efforts in evangelism and training and discipleship different in a common non-reformed prison ministry?

That's a great question. And I just want to reiterate what I said a moment ago, that there's a lot of very good prison ministry that's being done. That's that's being done by people who would not necessarily identify themselves as as reformed, or perhaps they would they would be less than confessionally reformed, maybe soteriologically reformed, but not necessarily adhering to one of the confessions of the Reformation.

And and so I just want to emphasize that I think that the gospel is being preached by many who would not identify themselves as as reformed. However, I'll say also that I believe the the reformed expression of Christianity is is the most robust and most biblical expression of Christianity, because a confessional approach or a reformed approach to to Christianity is simply seeking to.

Say what God has said in his word on. In terms of the whole counsel of God, and so that's why we have confessions, and I think the confessions and the catechisms help us to to unfold the gospel in in a full orbed way.

Take, for instance, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It really is just an exposition of the gospel that we typically teach to our children. I have children. I have five children, one on the way. My my my children are ranging.

They range in age from 10 down to almost three. And these young children are learning. The shorter catechism, they're learning to memorize it, and they're learning to to to understand what it means. And really what it is is it's an exposition, beginning with creation, beginning with actually beginning with our purpose and beginning with God's creation of us and then moving into who God is moving into who man is and the nature of sin, our need for Christ.

And then the covenant, how how we're to relate to God and to one another in the church. And the means of grace, sacraments and prayer. And when you look at that, you realize that here is a comprehensive, systematic teaching for for the whole Christian life, not only what I'm to believe, but how I'm to to live in response to the God who has called me out of darkness and sin.

And so I I really strongly believe that we don't want to withhold that from from prisoners. In fact, it's it's something that that my hope is, is that it will help them to to grow in the knowledge of Christ and their sanctification.

And and I think that the more faithful we are in in teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God and the more that that is being absorbed and received by those who are being instructed, the more likely it is that that they will that they will grow and become mature Christians who, when released from prison, will will be a lot farther down the road in terms of their growth than they might otherwise be.

Now, when you speak of the ordinary means of grace, that from my experience of being a reformed Christian, I'm a reformed Baptist, as opposed to being a Presbyterian, as you are. But we both believe in those concepts that include the ordinary means of grace that has included the ordinances of the church, as many phrase it word and sacrament.

And some others prefer the term ordinances, but I am I am wondering, does metanoia prison ministries actually establish within the walls of these prison prisons a church? I mean, is it conducted like a church?

Are those who have not been baptized given the ordinance of baptism? Are those who have been baptized given the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, etc.? Is it conducted like a church with discipline, with raising up elders and deacons and on and on I could go?

Oh, it's a great question.

So. The answer is yes, and some of what you said, I would say yes to and some of which some of what you said, I'll say no to. Keep going, brother. OK, OK. So. With regard to establishing a church, our goal is not to establish churches in prison.

Rather, our goal is to connect the church outside to the body of Christ inside or to those who are being called out of darkness and into light. And so what we want is we want there to be a covenantal connection, a relational connection between those who are outside and those who are inside.

And so when I look at Matthew 28, for example, Jesus says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples. So we have the Great Commission, make disciples of all the nations.

And then what does he say next? Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

Amen. And one of the things that I think is important for us, whether we're Reformed Baptists or whether we're Presbyterians, is we consider baptism to be very, very important. And the reason we do is because we understand that not only is it a command of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, but it's a gracious provision that he gives to us.

And so if someone is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, then by virtue of the fact that that person is a disciple, we would say they need to be baptized. They love the Lord Jesus. They've repented of their sins.

They've trusted in him and him alone, nothing of themselves. And they want to follow him all the days of their lives in this world. Well, then the very next thing that is called for then is that sign or that mark that's given to mark out those who are disciples from those who are not disciples of Jesus.

And so then the question becomes, well, if someone is a Christian and ought to be baptized, then what else goes along with that? Well, to be baptized means, in my understanding, to be brought into the visible church of the Lord Jesus.

It's really the thing that sets us apart. And so if you're brought into the church, whenever in the church that I served, whenever we would baptize someone, we would also accompany that with vows. And so someone who is baptized, they're believing in the Lord Jesus, they're making a promise before God and his people to follow him by his grace, knowing that they're not going to be able to keep that promise in their own strength.

But they're going to follow the Lord Jesus, and they're promising to do so, and they're promising to do so not only as an individual, but in the context of the church. And I think that's very important as we think about what it means to be reformed and what it means to be a reformed believer, even in prison.

I'll say this. When I was in prison, I began to study not the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism, but I actually started with the three forms of unity, learning the confessional standards. And the Belgian Confession in Article 28 says that every Christian is bound to join himself to the true church.

And I read that, and I said to myself, how am I going to do this? I'm going to join the true church. I'm in prison, and so I don't have any ability to leave prison and go and to find a church and to join a church.

So I began writing letters to churches, and my hope was that I'd find a church that would begin to begin a relationship with me. I could write back and forth. Eventually, over time, my hope was that they would see that my confession of faith was genuine and even be willing to receive me into membership in the church.

And I would have a church family that already knew about me, ready to receive me when I got out.

Church Membership and Sacraments for Prisoners

So the goal is to get the prison inmate who is attending services within the four walls of the prison to become a member of a church that exists outside of the prison, and therefore, if that prison inmate is eventually released, that he would join that church physically, but he would become a member while still in prison.

Am I understanding this correctly?

In my opinion, that would be the ideal situation. Of course, it's not the ideal thing in terms of what church membership is and what church membership typically entails. Maybe the closest parallel would be a college student who is a member of a church, goes to college, and maybe they're attending another church somewhere else in the college town, but they retain their membership in the church that they're from because they're planning to go back home.

So maybe there's a parallel there. But the idea in my mind is that there would be a connection between the church on the outside and the prisoner on the inside, and that the prisoner on the inside would know that he's cared for and loved, that there would be ministry that was taking place.

It's not exactly the same. It can't be the same. But there are ways for the church to be engaged and involved in the life of a prisoner, and I can give you some examples of that of churches that I know that have done this well.

In fact, could you do that when we return from the first commercial break?

Absolutely. Glad to.

Okay. If anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We'll be right back with Lowell Ivey right after these messages.

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Go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we're now back with our guest today, Lowell Ivey, who is the director of Metanoia Prison Ministries. And just out of curiosity, Lowell, from everything that you've said so far, wait a minute, you were going to add to what you were saying.

I think you were giving us examples of exactly what you were fleshing out here as far as the ordinary means of grace being used in a confessionally reformed sense in a prison ministry. And if you could continue where you left off, please.

Examples of Churches Ministering Well to Prisoners

Well, I'm happy to do that. I just don't want you to lose your thought either. I won't. So go ahead. Okay. Okay. Well, when I was in prison, one of the prayers that I used to pray was Psalm 142, verse 7.

And it says, bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name. The righteous shall surround me, for you shall deal bountifully with me. And there's something so beautiful about that verse, especially for someone in prison like myself.

I think I began to pray that prayer when I was still in solitary confinement. And every time I would come up for parole, I would be praying that I might be released. And then the Lord would see fit to allow me to stay in prison and I wouldn't be released.

And at the end of that time, and I come up for parole again, I'd be able to look back and see the Lord's wisdom in keeping me in prison. But nevertheless, I still prayed that I might be released primarily so that I could worship the Lord together with His people in a way that would glorify Him.

That's what I was longing for. And I believe there are many, many, many true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, part of the body of Christ, who are praying that prayer or something very similar to it.

One example is a man named Clint. And I first heard about him about a year ago. And then I was able to visit the church that has been ministering to him. And he did something very similar to what I did.

He wrote a letter to a church in Vandalia, Ohio. He's serving prison time in Indiana right now. And he has about three or five years left to serve on his sentence. And he wrote a letter. And the pastor took it to the other elders in the church and asked what he should do with the letter.

And they prayed about it and they realized that the Lord was giving them an opportunity for ministry. And so they reached out to him. They responded to his letter and a relationship began to form by correspondence.

The pastor and at least one of the elders began to visit with him regularly, spending time with him, getting to know him. And eventually they would become convinced that he was a true believer and that he had what we sometimes will call a credible profession of faith.

And at that point, they began to ask themselves, well, what do we do with this? Along the way, they were also sharing their experience with the congregation. So they talked about Clint in the Sunday school classes.

And when they talked with people after worship, they would mention him. He was talked about in the prayer meeting and they prayed for him. They were sending him things to read. And the church was getting to know him.

And then, well, it was just last week that the pastor and one of the elders traveled to Indiana and actually held a worship service in the prison. And Clint was baptized and he responded to the same membership vows that church members take.

Every week he receives a copy, a written copy of the sermon, or in this case, the church has two worship services. So he gets both sermons and he reads those sermons on the Lord's Day. He gets a copy of the Sunday school handout.

And so he's actually getting the same word ministry that the rest of the congregation is getting. And then the pastor takes the time to talk to him about the sermon every week. The pastor and the elders connect with him by phone.

And sometimes they even go and visit with him in prison. And the goal is that when he gets out, that he will come up in front of the congregation on one of the first Sundays that he's there. And he'll profess his faith again before the congregation.

He's already a member of the church and nothing will change about that, but he'll be able to do it in person. And another wonderful thing about this is that in this case, the ministry of that congregation to this man has been so meaningful to his family that his mother and his sister have started worshiping in the church.

And that congregation is now ministering to them as well. So that's just one example. I could give you many, many more churches that have that have really taken this seriously and begun to minister in a way that goes beyond mere evangelism and moves into discipleship.

Ecclesiology, the Lord’s Supper, and the Limits of Prison Worship

Well, the question I was going to ask you before, do you believe that it would in any way be inherently improper for a prison ministry to actually establish a full blown church in prison? Controversial question.

I'm just going by I'm just going by Matthew 1820 for where two or three have gathered together in my name. I am there in their midst. And, yeah, that would I know that there are differences of opinion on this.

And I believe I may even have a difference of opinion with the congregation where I'm a member. But I have always been uneasy about the reformed prohibition, it seems. And of course, like I said, this is not across the board, something that's universally held.

But there seems to be a prohibition amongst reformed churches to permit the celebration of the Lord's table outside of the regular corporate gathering of the church. In other words, they would never in some congregations, they would never send out two or three or four or more members of the church to a nursing home to bring the Lord's table to that person or somebody's home bound.

And it always struck me as odd because in the reformed faith. We allegedly hold that ordinance in very high esteem and believe it's very important. And it seems that there would, in my opinion, I've always been scratching my head why somebody through no fault of their own in a nursing home or in a hospital or in confined to their own home, why they would be deprived of that ordinance.

So that's one of the reasons I bring it up.

I think it's a great. Yeah, that's a that is actually a great question. And there are a number of complexities when it comes to prison ministry. And so we already recognize when we talk about prison ministry, we are way out of the box.