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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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 27th day of February 2024.

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I'm thrilled to have back an utterly fascinating guest who is returning to the program.

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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.

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And we're going to be particularly focusing upon a confessionally reformed ordinary means of grace approach to prison ministry.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Lowell Ivey. Good to be back,

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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

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I've conducted with Lowell Ivey on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Just go to our search engine at ironsharpensironradio .com,

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search engine at the top of the page, and type in his last name will be sufficient,

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I -V as in victory, E -Y, Lowell Ivey. And that will bring you to all of his previous interviews.

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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

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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.

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And he is an ordained Presbyterian pastor and now working with Metanoia Prison Ministries.

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But please tell our listeners about Metanoia Prison Ministries. Sure. Thanks, Chris.

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Well, metanoia is a Greek word that means a change of mind.

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It's often translated repentance in the Bible. And really that's where the name comes from.

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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.

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And so metanoia is a ministry that was founded originally back in the 90s.

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And in its current form, it was led by Mark Cassin for many, many years from 2006 on.

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And in 2009, it became a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America under the oversight of their

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Home Missions Agency, Mission to North America. And so metanoia is a ministry that's been around for a long time.

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And it has various aspects to it, most especially our correspondence ministry, where hundreds of inmates around the country are able to take

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

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Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to explore Metanoia Prison Ministries and find out more about this wonderful organization and its director

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Lowell Ivey, go to metanoiaprisonministries .org. metanoiaprisonministries .org.

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And metanoia is spelled M as in Michael, E, T as in Thomas, A, N as in Nancy.

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O -I -A. metanoiaprisonministries .org. Well, why don't you let our listeners know how you became affiliated with Metanoia.

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I know that at one point not long ago, you were the pastor of a

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Presbyterian church. Tell us about all the providential circumstances that led to this.

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Well, years ago, I met the current director, the director at that time of Metanoia, Mark Cassin.

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I met him actually when I had just begun seminary and I was getting to know my wife,

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May, at that time before we got married. And she and I were at a presentation he was doing at a church.

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And it seemed like Mark was just telling about my own experience, everything that he said.

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I was nodding my head. And afterwards, he came up to me and he said, you know,

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I noticed you were nodding your head a lot and kept talking to May.

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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

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I experienced while I was in prison. And I was trying to help her to see that.

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And so we got to know each other. I guess it would have been 2010 or 2011.

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And I've bumped into him a number of times along the way. I went on to study.

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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.

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And in 2016, I was called to a church in Virginia Beach, Virginia Reformation Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It was a church plant. I planted that church by the grace of God.

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And then we planted two other churches from that congregation.

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Again, I continued the relationship with Mark. We were friends.

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And he came at one point and presented the ministry at our church.

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But I never imagined that I would be serving as director of Metanoia.

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For one thing, I loved pastoral ministry. I loved the congregation that I was serving. They loved me and my family.

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And I thought that I would just continue serving there until I could serve no longer.

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But last year in July, Mark called me up.

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And he said that he was taking a new position with Mission to North America.

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And he wanted to know if I would be willing to think about serving at Metanoia as the next director.

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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?

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And, oh, by the way, it'll involve 100 to 120 days of travel every year.

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And so I immediately thought, well, there's no way this is going to happen as soon as I talk to May.

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You know, she's going to say that this doesn't seem like something that would work for our family.

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And I thought that would probably help me to provide an answer to Mark pretty quickly.

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But actually, May was the first one to say to me that she thought that I should think about it, just given where the

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Lord had had led me and how he had been preparing me all these years.

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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.

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And people that I thought would tell me, you know, I shouldn't do this for whatever reason were telling me instead.

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I think you should think about it. And that helped me to see that the Lord seemed to be in this.

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And so we went through the interview process and was asked by the board to be their candidate.

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And I began serving in this role in January of this year.

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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.

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You wanted to discuss a confessionally reformed, ordinary means of grace approach to prison ministry.

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Why don't you define that for us? Oh, happy to do so.

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Well, as you know, and as I've shared on the program before, I spent 15 and a half years in prison.

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The Lord graciously set me free while I was in solitary confinement.

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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

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Lord used a radio program to shine the light of the gospel. I'm like,

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

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It was it was actually a show called Here Comes the Light. And I'm sure

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I'm sure that experience has happened to somebody by listening to your program, Chris. But this was called

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Here Comes the Light. It was really it was a radio program that just a few

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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.

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And probably 60 to 80 ,000 prisoners could on any given Sunday night hear that program.

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And so the Lord used that program to bring me to the knowledge of Christ.

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And so it was it was through that experience that, well, first of all,

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I knew that whatever had happened to me, God had done it. It wasn't me.

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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.

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As I began to study and learn and grow, and especially as I listened to another radio program,

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Renewing Your Mind with R .C. Sproul, I began to become self -consciously reformed in my thinking.

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And and I read and studied quite a bit while I was still in prison.

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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.

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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.

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And I felt that it was important that I go to those services because I thought it was a testimony to other prisoners.

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And and whatever whatever I thought was lacking in those services.

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Nevertheless, I knew that the Lord could use it to grow me and to strengthen me in Christ.

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However, the services were not reformed. The worship wasn't reformed. The preaching wasn't reformed.

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And it was very, very seldom that I ever encountered a reformed volunteer in the prison system.

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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.

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And and that began to help me see the need for distinctively and confessionally reformed prison ministry, even when

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I was still in prison. And that's not to say that I didn't appreciate the ministry that was going on.

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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

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Bible. And and so I was already beginning to see that while I was in prison and began to think that maybe the

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Lord was calling me into full time prison ministry when

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I was released. And so I was taking my college classes with the hope that when

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I got out of going to seminary and maybe come back into the prison as a seminary trained ordained minister.

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But but with the with the calling to minister in particular to prisoners,

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I knew that most pastors are not going to be able to minister to those in prison, especially on the

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Lord's Day, they're going to have a congregation of their own to minister to. And so I was

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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 church based way.

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But but but as but with that particular calling.

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And so that's what I originally planned to do. The Lord had different plans for me, at least at least for a while.

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And now I see the great wisdom in his plan. Over over time,

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I've I've developed my thinking more and more about about the need for for confessionally reformed.

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As you said, a means of grace approach to to prison ministry.

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And really at the heart of it, it's the idea that that prisoners need the very same things that you and I need.

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We need we need Christ. We need the gospel. We need the ordinary means of grace.

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And if I could summarize it by saying this, we need the church.

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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.

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Understandably so, because it's a complicated you know, there are complicated questions that arise.

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How is it possible for prisoners to have a connection to the church and and to the means of grace?

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And 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.

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

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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?

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I mean, what is being done specifically and how are the efforts in evangelism and training and discipleship different in a common non -reformed prison ministry?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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To say what God has said in his word on in terms of the whole counsel of God.

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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.

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Take, for instance, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It really is just an exposition of the gospel that we typically teach to our children.

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I have children. I have five children, one on the way. My children are ranging.

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They range in age from 10 down to almost three. And these young children are learning the

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Shorter Catechism. They're learning to memorize it, and they're learning to to understand what it means.

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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

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God is moving into who man is and the nature of sin or need for Christ.

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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.

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And when you look at that, you realize that here is a comprehensive, systematic teaching for for the whole

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Christian life, not only what I'm to believe, but how I'm to to live in response to the

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God who has called me out of darkness and sin. And so I really strongly believe that we don't want to withhold that from from prisoners.

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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.

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And and I think that the the more faithful we are in in teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God and 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

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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.

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Now, when you speak of the ordinary means of grace, that from my experience of being a reformed

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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.

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As many phrase it, word and sacrament and some others prefer the term ordinances.

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But I am I am wondering, does Metanoia Prison Ministries actually establish within the walls of these prison prisons a church?

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I mean, is it conducted like a church? Are those who have not been baptized given the ordinance of baptism?

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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?

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I could go. Oh, it's a great question. So. The answer is yes.

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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.

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Keep going, brother. OK, OK. So. With regard to establishing a church, our our goal is not to establish churches in prison.

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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.

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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.

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And so when when I look at Matthew 28, for example, Jesus says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Go, therefore, and make disciples. So we have the great commission, make disciples of all the nations. And then what does he say next?

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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.

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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

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Reformed Baptists or whether we're Presbyterians, is we consider baptism to be very, very important.

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And the reason we do is because we understand that not only is it a command of the risen

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Lord Jesus Christ, but it's a gracious provision that he gives to us.

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And so if someone is a disciple of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, then by virtue of the fact that that person is a disciple, we would say they need to be baptized.

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They 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.

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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.

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And so then the question becomes, well, if someone is a

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Christian and ought to be baptized, then what else goes along with that?

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Well, to be baptized means, in my understanding, to be brought into the visible church of the

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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.

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And so someone who is baptized, they're believing in the

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I'll say this. When I was in prison, I began to study not the

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Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism, but I actually started with the three forms of unity, learning the confessional standards.

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And the Belgian Confession in Article 28 says that every Christian is bound to join himself to the true church.

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And I read that, and I said to myself, how am I going to do this?

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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.

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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.

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I could write back and forth. Eventually, over time, my hope was that they would see that my profession of faith was genuine and even be willing to receive me into membership in the church.

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

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I got out. So the goal is to get the prison inmate who is attending services within the four walls of the church—I mean, the four walls of the prison—to become a member of a church that exists outside of the prison.

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And therefore, if that prison inmate is eventually released, that he would join that church physically.

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But he would become a member while still in prison? Am I understanding this correctly? In my opinion, that would be the ideal situation.

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Of course, it's not the ideal thing in terms of what church membership is and what church membership typically entails.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Absolutely. Okay. If anybody wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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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.

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We'll be right back with Lowell Ivey right after these messages. Armored Republic exists to equip free men with tools of liberty to defend

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today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we're now back with our guest today, Lowell Ivey, who is the

39:32

Director of Metanoia Prison Ministries, and just out of curiosity,

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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.

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And if you could continue where you left off, please. Well, I'm happy to do that. I just don't want you to lose your thought either.

40:03

I won't, so go ahead. Okay, okay. Well, when

40:09

I was in prison, one of the prayers that I used to pray was

40:14

Psalm 142, verse 7. And it says,

40:21

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name. The righteous shall surround me, for you shall deal bountifully with me.

40:31

And there's something so beautiful about that verse, especially for someone in prison like myself.

40:39

I think I began to pray that prayer when I was still in solitary confinement. And every time

40:45

I would come up for parole, I would be praying that I might be released. And then the

40:52

Lord would see fit to allow me to stay in prison and I wouldn't be released.

40:58

And at the end of that time, and I'd come up for parole again,

41:04

I'd be able to look back and see the Lord's wisdom in keeping me in prison. But nevertheless,

41:10

I still prayed that I might be released primarily so that I could worship the

41:16

Lord together with His people in a way that would glorify Him. That's what I was longing for.

41:22

And I believe there are many, many, many true believers in the

41:28

Lord Jesus Christ, part of the body of Christ, who are praying that prayer or something very similar to it.

41:36

One example is a man named Clint. And I first heard about him about a year ago.

41:47

And then I was able to visit the church that has been ministering to him.

41:54

And he did something very similar to what I did. He wrote a letter to a church in Vandalia, Ohio.

42:01

He's serving prison time in Indiana right now, and he has about three or five years left to serve on his sentence.

42:10

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.

42:22

And they prayed about it, and they realized that the Lord was giving them an opportunity for ministry.

42:28

And so they reached out to him. They responded to his letter, and a relationship began to form by correspondence.

42:37

The pastor and at least one of the elders began to visit with him regularly, spending time with him, getting to know him.

42:48

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.

43:01

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.

43:13

So they talked about Clint in the Sunday school classes, and when they talked with people after worship, they would mention him.

43:23

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.

43:37

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.

43:52

And Clint was baptized, and he responded to the same membership vows that church members take.

44:02

Every week, he receives a copy, a written copy of the sermon, or in this case, the church has two worship services.

44:12

So he gets both sermons, and he reads those sermons on the

44:17

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.

44:28

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.

44:43

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.

44:54

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.

45:07

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.

45:29

So that's just one example. I could give you many, many more of churches that have really taken this seriously and begun to minister in a way that goes beyond mere evangelism and moves into discipleship.

45:47

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?

46:06

You have a way of asking a controversial question. Well, I'm just going by Matthew 18, 20, for where two or three have gathered together in my name,

46:19

I am there in their midst. I know that there are differences of opinion on this, and I believe

46:30

I may even have a difference of opinion with the congregation where I'm a member. But I have always been uneasy about the

46:39

Reformed prohibition, it seems, and of course, like I said, this is not across the board something that's universally held.

46:49

But there seems to be a prohibition amongst Reformed churches to permit the celebration of the

46:57

Lord's table outside of the regular corporate gathering of the church.

47:04

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

47:16

Lord's table to that person or if somebody's homebound. And it always struck me as odd because in the

47:22

Reformed faith, we allegedly hold that ordinance in very high esteem and believe it's very important.

47:30

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.

47:52

So that's one of the reasons I bring it up. I think it's a great, yeah, that is actually a great question.

48:01

And there are a number of complexities when it comes to prison ministry.

48:07

And so we already recognize when we talk about prison ministry, we are way out of the box.

48:14

I mean, we're just way out of the box and we need to be thinking in a way that is consistent with the truth of Scripture and yet creative.

48:31

We have to be creative in our solutions to the problems that are presented by incarceration.

48:37

One of the things that I will say without entering into the controversy too much, there is a controversy about whether or not we should be seeking to plant indigenous churches in prisons with their own officers and that sort of thing.

48:58

Or whether churches should be seeking to connect with prisoners and minister to them in an out of the box kind of way like what you're saying.

49:10

Now, I'm going to give myself away and say that I favor the latter. I favor the connectionalism approach.

49:19

And one of the reasons why I favor that is because it's not only good for the prisoner, it's good for the church.

49:27

If a church is simply, you know, kind of planting a church and then moving on, that long term relational connection with the body of Christ outside that prisoners need could be lost.

49:45

So that's just one problem that I see with it. And I think there are lots of creative ways that you can do exactly what you've mentioned.

49:56

You know, I talked about how that pastor and that elder went in and held a worship service and baptized

50:06

Clint. And the same thing can happen with regard to the

50:11

Lord's Supper. It doesn't have to be a large group of people. It can be, as you mentioned a moment ago, it could be just two or three gathered together.

50:19

It can be a pastor and one of the elders and an inmate or two.

50:26

And that's enough. That's enough for a legitimate worship service to be taking place.

50:33

And you can administer the Lord's Supper in that context. I think that it's important for us to retain our ecclesiology while we do prison ministry.

50:47

And I think this is one of the reasons why I performed prison ministry is going to be necessarily different from a broadly evangelical kind of prison ministry, because we understand the vital importance of our ecclesiology.

51:07

And we're seeking to minister without losing our doctrine of the church.

51:14

We're seeking to minister effectively in a way that it glorifies Christ without losing who we are ecclesiologically.

51:24

And so that's why I think it's really important for churches to be doing prison ministry, but to be doing it in a way that doesn't minimize the sacraments of baptism and the

51:41

Lord's Supper that doesn't change those sacraments. I'll give you an example of changing.

51:47

When I was in prison, this was actually the very same radio program.

51:54

The people who conducted that radio program had a very defective understanding of the sacraments.

52:04

They encouraged us to get a cup of water and to get a cracker off of our tray and to celebrate the

52:15

Lord's Supper by ourselves and ourself. And while I understand the sentiment behind that,

52:22

I don't think that what was being done was an actual celebration of the Lord's Supper.

52:28

I agree with you, and neither was or is those who felt comfort during the

52:36

COVID crisis to remain in their homes rather than going to a worship service and have their own private so -called communion service.

52:47

And tragically, after that abuse of government power where churches were shut down or pastors just fearful of the government, whatever the government might do to them, shut them down.

53:08

They started these Zoom services that in many cases, far too many cases that I am comfortable admitting, these things are still going on.

53:20

There are people that got so accustomed to this, they've never returned to the corporate gathering of the church.

53:27

You've given a great illustration of what happens when we change our ecclesiology to fit the circumstances.

53:36

In fact, could you pick up on ecclesiology when we return from our midway break? Sure. And don't go away, folks.

53:43

This is the longer break in the middle of the show. Please be patient with us. We'll be right back after these messages.

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Always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnson of Ironsharpensironradio. Before I return to my fascinating interview with Lowell Ivey, the director of Metanoia Prison Ministries, I have some important announcements to make.

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no matter where you live, and put, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Lowell Ivey.

01:12:11

We are discussing Metanoia prison ministries and more generally a reformed approach to prison ministry using the ordinary means of grace, a confessionally reformed approach.

01:12:28

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.

01:12:35

Only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private. And before I go to any listener questions, I want you to pick up on the ecclesiology issue that you started speaking about.

01:12:47

Well, sure. Glad to, Chris. I think the point that we were talking about, and you illustrated that point with how the church in some quarters responded to the

01:13:03

COVID crisis. We can't change who we are and who

01:13:11

God has called us to be as the church because of a change in circumstances.

01:13:18

And so if God has called us to do certain things and to administer sacraments in a certain way, then we can't take it upon ourselves to change that.

01:13:36

And so I mentioned to you how one thing that the radio program that I listened to when

01:13:46

I was in prison encouraged us to do was to get a cup of water and a cracker from your lunch tray and celebrate the sacrament of the

01:14:01

Lord's Supper in the privacy of your cell by yourself. Well, we recognize that that is not biblical.

01:14:11

And so as much as we want to encourage prisoners to worship the

01:14:18

Lord, we also want to encourage them to worship the Lord in the Lord's way. And so I strongly believe there are ways to do that.

01:14:31

And our ecclesiology does not change to fit the circumstances.

01:14:39

So I want prisoners to have a strong sense of their need for the church.

01:14:49

And I want them to have a good understanding of what the church is and what the church does and why the church does what it does in the way that it does.

01:14:59

And what does God's word say about all these things? And so I don't think we're doing prisoners any kind of service if we neglect ecclesiology.

01:15:12

Ecclesiology is so, so vital and so important because our whole life as Christians is lived together in the body of Christ.

01:15:23

We are the body of Christ and we're called to serve one another in the body of Christ.

01:15:30

And so being a Christian is not an isolated or individualistic activity where we're called to be part of a body.

01:15:43

And we want prisoners to understand that and to long for that, even when they don't yet have the fullest expression of that that they could possibly have.

01:15:55

And so my sense is that we teach a robust ecclesiology and we do things in the right way, in a way that fits with our ecclesiology.

01:16:14

And prisoners who are converted, who love the Lord, who want to follow Jesus will understand that they're going to have to wait for some things until they get out of prison, such as being together with all of God's people on the

01:16:33

Lord's Day. Somebody in solitary confinement is just going to have to wait for that, but he's going to long for it as he does.

01:16:39

And so I don't want to change our ecclesiology.

01:16:47

Rather, I want to teach it. I want prisoners to understand the importance of ecclesiology and to see themselves as part of the church.

01:16:58

And then I want the church to not to neglect those who are in prison simply because they can't be with them on the

01:17:06

Lord's Day. But I want them to, in whatever way they possibly can, form meaningful relationships with those in prison.

01:17:16

And that's exactly what Metanoia Prison Ministries is seeking to do. Praise God.

01:17:22

Well, I want to say something before I forget it. I have been trying to find the whereabouts of a brother in Christ who was in prison in the 1990s, early 2000s.

01:17:43

And I'm almost certain his name was Ira, and he became a pen pal with me, for lack of a better term.

01:17:53

When I was working for WMCA Radio in New York, 570

01:17:59

AM, I had created at the time while I was working there as an account executive selling airtime.

01:18:07

This is before I had my own show. I had created a show called The Voice of Sovereign Grace that was a

01:18:15

Reformed program airing every night at 10 PM. And it featured every night a different Reformed pastor and one of that pastor's sermons.

01:18:29

And Joel Beakey, for instance, even got his start in radio through The Voice of Sovereign Grace.

01:18:37

Wow. And so I maintained this program for quite a number of years.

01:18:44

And a listener to that program, and I think his name was

01:18:49

Ira, began corresponding with me, and I began mailing him.

01:18:56

I remember every time I mailed him Bibles and books, I'd mail him two of each because he had a cellmate that he would give the second copy to.

01:19:08

And this was back in the day. I don't know if they still allow it because I've heard from other people in prison ministries more recently that they don't allow you to ship books and Bibles to prison.

01:19:18

But at that time, I could to Sing Sing, which is where this prison aid started, in Ossining, New York.

01:19:27

Then he was transferred to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora or Danamora, New York.

01:19:38

And then he was transferred to Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York. And if you're listening to this program by some amazing act of providence of God, I would love to hear from you again, brother, if what

01:19:54

I am saying is starting to ring bells. And if anybody listening knows of a Christian inmate that started in Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, and went from there to Clinton Correctional Facility and then went from there to Mohawk Correctional Facility, please let me know if you are aware of their whereabouts.

01:20:16

But anyway, let me go to some listener questions.

01:20:24

We have Sean in Roosevelt, Long Island, New York.

01:20:31

And Sean says, in the beginning of the program, Chris Arnzen introduced you as a former white supremacist.

01:20:38

When you are involved in prison ministry today, do you get warm reactions from black inmates and other minorities who see that you've repented from that?

01:20:52

Or are they distrusting of you from the get go because of that? That's a really good question.

01:21:02

I would say that when I minister to those in prison,

01:21:09

I am seeking to be as real and authentic with them as I can possibly be.

01:21:15

And so I do tell them who

01:21:21

I once was, what I once believed, and how the Lord delivered me from that and set me free from the sin of racism and changed me and gave me a heart to see that He's a

01:21:36

God who loves all kinds and categories of people. Not only because He's the creator of all kinds and categories of people, but because the blood of Jesus Christ has been shed for all kinds of people.

01:21:50

And in heaven, you know, I think often of the book of Revelation, where before the throne, we find every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping the

01:22:04

Lord. And so when I am real and authentic with those in prison, no matter what their race is, they see that authenticity, they respond to it.

01:22:20

And if they're believers in the Lord Jesus, there's a spiritual kinship that goes far deeper than ethnicity or race or even family connections.

01:22:37

Okay, Sean, thanks for the excellent question. Oh, by the way,

01:22:44

I wanted to ask you to your knowledge, is the decision based warden by warden or prison by prison, whether or not you can mail

01:22:58

Christian books and Bibles to a prison? Because as I said earlier, I used to do it regularly with this prison inmate with whom

01:23:06

I started a correspondence, or actually he started it. But then when

01:23:12

I interviewed Hannah Overton, I don't know if you're familiar with Hannah. She runs a prison ministry called

01:23:19

Sindale Ministries. Many may recognize her name because she was tragically arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to,

01:23:34

I believe it was a life sentence for murdering a foster child.

01:23:40

When it turned out that the child's death was due to a rare medical condition called hypernatremia.

01:23:52

But she is now released, but she actually began Bible studies and so forth while in prison in Texas.

01:24:01

And if anybody wants to find out more about her ministry, it's SindaleMinistries .com, S -Y -N -D -E -O

01:24:09

Ministries .com. Lovely lady. At the time that I interviewed her, she was not theologically reformed.

01:24:15

I don't know if she is today. She was from a Calvary Chapel background, but a wonderful Christian sister. But she told me during that interview that they prohibited,

01:24:25

I think, anything, but specifically she said books and Bibles.

01:24:30

She couldn't mail them to a prisoner. Is that something that was unusual to her situation, or do you know of anything different?

01:24:40

Well, there are a wide variety of rules and restrictions, and it does depend on the prison system.

01:24:49

And sometimes it even depends on the facility, the warden and the administration of a particular facility.

01:24:58

In general, what is typically possible is you're able to send materials through third -party distributors, such as a

01:25:15

Christian ministry or a Christian publisher might be able to send softback books or Bibles.

01:25:22

Ligonier, for example, has a partnership with Metanoia.

01:25:29

And Ligonier not only provides some Bible courses that our students are able to use for our correspondence ministry, but they also provide softbound copies of the

01:25:47

Reformation Study Bible. And so it is possible, especially if it comes through a publisher or a third -party distributor, it's usually not possible to send books or Bibles directly to a prisoner.

01:26:06

You really do need to check with the facility to know exactly what the restrictions are.

01:26:12

And what we're finding, too, and this has in some ways affected our correspondence ministry, we're finding that a lot of prison systems are going toward a digitization of the mail system.

01:26:29

And so they're actually allowing prisoners to have tablets and access to mail and media via tablet.

01:26:40

And so that's, in some cases, that is shutting down the actual distribution of printed materials.

01:26:54

Again, it differs from state to state and not all states are going to this kind of system. But we're in a time of transition in the prison system.

01:27:05

I, for one, would have never imagined that they would begin allowing prisoners to have access to tablets, text messaging, and email, and even video calls and things like that.

01:27:22

But that actually is happening. And there are companies that are making a lot of money by charging fees for all of that.

01:27:32

And so it's not free. And a lot of times the cost is borne by the prisoners and their families.

01:27:40

Yeah. In fact, I remember how troubled I was. I have this vivid memory of trying to get a couple of brand -new, gorgeous, leather -bound study

01:27:53

Bibles to this particular prison that I mentioned. I can't remember which of those three prisons he was in at the time in upstate

01:28:02

New York. But I was trying to desperately get them to him by Christmas, so I overnighted to him at a very large expense these two

01:28:14

Bibles, one for him and one for his cellmate. I overnighted them the day before Christmas Eve.

01:28:22

And I remember speaking to a woman at one of these prisons where I was shipping the books who was in charge of that kind of thing.

01:28:34

And she actually rebuked me, saying, what are you doing wasting your time sending people in here

01:28:42

Christmas gifts? Why don't you deal with your own family and bless them?

01:28:47

I was shocked that a person who was employed at a prison would have that heartless reaction to what

01:28:56

I was doing. She was shocked that I was doing it, and shocked in a negative way. And what has been, in your experience, the kinds of responses and reactions that you have gotten from those who are employed in prisons to what you're doing?

01:29:17

Well, as with anything else, there's a variety of responses, ranging from thankfulness to, as you pointed out, heartlessness.

01:29:32

And really, that just reminds us that sin is in the heart of all of us, and that there's also a spiritual battle that's taking place.

01:29:47

And Satan does not want his kingdom to be overthrown by the kingdom of the

01:29:54

Lord Jesus Christ coming in the hearts of those that were Satan's captives.

01:30:03

But we also know that no matter what the disposition of the prison employees are, or the rules and the regulations, we know that Christ's kingdom cannot be held back by the walls and the bars and the razor wire.

01:30:22

I think it's such a wonderful thing to remind ourselves of that one of the things that is said of the

01:30:36

Lord Jesus is that he would come to set the captives free. Some are in Isaiah 42, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

01:30:51

And so he is able to overcome whatever obstacles there might be in the hearts of men and in the rules and regulations of the prison system.

01:31:04

We've got a listener question from Toronto, Canada. Benji asks,

01:31:11

I have heard from Christians I know who are in prison that it is a very rare thing to find a biblically sound chaplain and worship service in a prison these days.

01:31:25

They seem to, according to what I've been told, almost completely overrun by leftists and apostates.

01:31:32

Is this true? It's hard to over,

01:31:38

I don't want to overgeneralize. Obviously, there, as with the last question, there is a broad range.

01:31:49

And so I think some, some prisons are going to be better than than others.

01:31:55

And some prison systems even are going to be better than others. Just for example, one of the facilities that we minister in, and we have a one -on -one mentoring ministry at this facility, is

01:32:11

Walker State Prison in northwest Georgia. And Walker State Prison is a faith and character -based prison.

01:32:21

It's the only faith and character -based prison in the whole state of Georgia. I've never even heard of that concept at all.

01:32:30

Oh, it's really amazing. It's like no other prison that I've ever been in in my life.

01:32:36

I sat down across from the warden just a few weeks ago, and she is, she's, she's, in one sense, she's an iron lady.

01:32:48

But, but in another sense, she's got a heart that is so clearly softened for, for these men that she is called to oversee.

01:33:03

And you can see it, and you can see it also in the way that she interacted with, with us in our ministry.

01:33:10

She told me how thankful she was for metanoia and for the work that we're doing in the lives of the men that she oversees.

01:33:20

And I saw her and the staff treating each prisoner with dignity and respect.

01:33:28

And this is a prison, as I said, faith and character -based prison, unlike any other prison that I've ever seen.

01:33:37

The statewide recidivism rate in Georgia is about 60 percent, 60 to 70 percent.

01:33:43

Recidivism meaning, you know, those who get out, they're going to, they're going to come back again. 60 to 70 percent are coming back again.

01:33:51

At Walker State Prison, it's less than 3 percent. Wow. So there's a vast difference between one prison and another prison, one prison system and another prison system.

01:34:08

Wow. Praise God. By the way, before I forget, I'd also like to refer our listeners to the

01:34:17

Iron Sharpens Iron radio archive and type in the search engine prison.

01:34:24

And you will get a number of interviews come up that I have conducted with both those on the outside of prison conducting prison ministries, also former inmates who are now on the outside.

01:34:46

And also one with a man who's spending a life sentence who

01:34:52

I actually conducted the interview while he was in and still is in prison,

01:34:59

Paul Trask. He was a former reorganized

01:35:04

Latter -day Saint. The Mormon split off used to be called the

01:35:14

RLDS, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Now it's called the

01:35:20

Communion of Christ, I believe, or the Community of Christ. But he was involved in a split off of the

01:35:28

RLDS that was far more cultic, and he was involved in a murder of one of the members that was done by the order of the leader of this cult.

01:35:42

And there have been documentaries on TV about the specific incidents. But you might find that truly fascinating.

01:35:48

Paul Trask is his name. You could type in T -R -A -S -K. And he's written a book about it, and it's called

01:35:58

Faith Gone Astray, Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders. And you'll be happy to hear this,

01:36:06

Lowell. Not only did he become a Christian, which is the most important thing, he became Reformed in prison as well, largely through reading

01:36:13

Dr. R .C. Sproul and other Reformed giants of the faith. But I just thought

01:36:20

I'd throw that out there since we are talking about prison ministries today. And let's see, we have

01:36:32

Ferdinand in Duval, Washington wants to know, do you have any advice of getting your own local church involved in a prison ministry?

01:36:47

Sorry about my fumbling there. Oh, that's a wonderful question.

01:36:54

Thank you so much for asking that, Ferdinand. I think there are a lot of things that we need to think about when we think about getting our own church involved.

01:37:04

First of all, we have to recognize that not every church is near a prison.

01:37:11

And so not every church is going to have a prison ministry in the sense of going into a prison.

01:37:20

But every church can be praying for prisoners and those who minister to them.

01:37:27

And I think a ministry like ours, like Metanoia, is really very oriented towards helping churches to understand how they can become involved in prison ministry.

01:37:46

In fact, our mission is not just to minister to prisoners, but it's to minister to churches.

01:37:52

And you see that even on our website. We have a mission of engaging, educating, and equipping the body of Christ for the discipleship, mentoring, and reintegration of prisoners.

01:38:07

And so what we're seeking to do is not just minister to prisoners, but minister also to the church.

01:38:13

And many churches are going to have this very same question. I have a heart for evangelism and discipleship, but I don't even know where to begin, especially with regard to prison ministry.

01:38:26

Well, that's where we come in. We help churches to think through those issues.

01:38:34

And we also, we're not a parachurch ministry. We're actually a ministry of the church, of the

01:38:43

Presbyterian Church in America. We're not exclusively ministering in a

01:38:50

Presbyterian context. In fact, most prisoners are not

01:38:57

Presbyterians. But we are a ministry of the church, and I think that's important.

01:39:05

We seek to establish ministries in prisons that we can then bring local churches into.

01:39:16

So we seek to establish a ministry and bring volunteers and even pastors and elders from local churches into what we're doing.

01:39:27

And we're doing it as the church, but we're also wanting local churches to be involved in what we're doing.

01:39:36

And there are basically three aspects, three main aspects to what we do, aside from the preaching of the word, which is the main thing that happens, preaching and teaching of the word.

01:39:48

But we also have the correspondence ministry, and this is something that any church and any member of any church can be involved in.

01:39:58

We have Bible correspondence courses from a reformed perspective that get sent to the prisoner, and they do the lessons.

01:40:10

Then they send the lesson back to our home office in Chattanooga. And there's no direct contact with the inmates.

01:40:21

Those lessons are then sent to our corresponding disciples who grade the lessons.

01:40:26

They have an answer key, and they also write a letter of encouragement. And sometimes whole families are involved in this.

01:40:35

For example, with my own family, I will be reading the letters and grading the lessons together with my children and bringing them into what

01:40:50

I'm doing as I minister to an inmate. And so the correspondence ministry is something that anybody can do.

01:40:59

Oftentimes, elderly folks who may feel like they don't really have an area of service or ministry in the church anymore.

01:41:10

This is something that they can pick up and do, and they can be praying for their students and seeking to have an impact on that person's life.

01:41:22

And they do. And then also what we hear so often is that the students have an impact on the lives of those who are writing to them and grading their lessons.

01:41:37

And so there's a relational aspect to this that I think is very, very important. The other thing that we seek to do is we seek to establish mentoring ministries in areas where there is a prison and where there are churches nearby that are supporting churches.

01:41:56

And so those churches will seek to send volunteers into the prison.

01:42:03

And we do all of the coordinating of those ministries.

01:42:11

And so the church is able to simply send volunteers in and we coordinate that mentoring ministry where people have a one -on -one discipleship relationship over a long, sometimes a very long period of time, sometimes years at a time.

01:42:31

And sometimes that ends up in a relationship that even continues on the outside when that inmate is released.

01:42:40

Okay, we have to go to our final break right now, but we can pick up where you left off if you'd like. Don't go away, folks.

01:42:45

We'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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Welcome back, folks. I just want to remind you that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &

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01:52:57

and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. We're now back with Lowell Ivey. Before I have you pick up on the mentoring aspect that you were speaking about earlier,

01:53:06

I was wondering if you were giving me a subtle insult, being a Reformed Baptist, because you said that hardly any prison inmates are

01:53:15

Presbyterian. What are you trying to convey by that? I'm only kidding. Oh, what? Did I say that?

01:53:22

You said hardly any of the prison inmates are Presbyterian, so I'm assuming they might be Baptists.

01:53:27

Could that be? Well, if they are Baptists, I think very few of them are

01:53:33

Reformed Baptists. I'll tell you what, there are so many who truly love and know the

01:53:43

Lord. Amen. Well, pick up where you left off on the mentoring unless you finish that aspect. Well, you know, it's just another way that our ministry seeks to connect prisoners with the visible church.

01:53:59

And that connection being a meaningful connection. A lot of these men and women do not have anyone, family members, even writing them or visiting them.

01:54:16

And so you can imagine what it means to have a brother or sister in Christ, to invest two nights a month of their life in this kind of ministry, this one -on -one personal ministry.

01:54:31

It means so much. And so this is what Metanoia seeks to do.

01:54:38

It seeks to bridge that divide between prisoners and the church on the outside.

01:54:45

And we have time for one last question from Gail in Terrell, Texas.

01:54:52

Gail wants to know, are there any prison ministries that are subject to fines, violations, and other punishments from the leftist government?

01:55:04

Because the church, as you well know, is rightfully a very exclusive organization.

01:55:09

And I'm assuming that the worship services in these prisons have very serious restrictions when it comes to the leadership amongst prisoners who may be active homosexuals, transsexuals, or members of other religions.

01:55:29

I appreciate the question. You know, in our experience as a ministry, what we found is that the

01:55:34

Lord has opened doors, even where you might not think that those doors could possibly be opened.

01:55:41

And I gave the example of Walker State Prison in Georgia, where we have a faith and character -based prison, that even the warden and the correctional officers are on board with ministries like ours coming in.

01:56:00

We have regional directors in various regions throughout the United States. One of those being

01:56:07

California, where you would imagine that it might be very difficult for us to minister.

01:56:13

And there are restrictions and things that we have to adhere to and try to work with.

01:56:21

But for the most part, in this country anyway, we can be very thankful that there's still a great deal of liberty in being able to minister to prisoners.

01:56:34

And I'm thankful for that. Yeah, I can remember when I interviewed a former member of the

01:56:39

Latin Kings gang in prison, he had mentioned that he was actually barred from the worship service in the prison that he was in because he was protesting to the chaplain that transvestites and members of the

01:56:58

Nation of Islam were speaking and in part of the choir and that kind of thing.

01:57:05

I see. So is that kind of a common thing? I need to go back and listen to that interview.

01:57:12

You know, one of the things that I did run into when I was in prison was that the

01:57:20

Protestant services, it was a generalized Protestant service that really did not make a distinction between Reformed worship and everything else.

01:57:35

And so it was difficult for us in the sense that we were seeking to have a distinctively

01:57:45

Reformed kind of worship. And we were denied because what we were told was, well, you have

01:57:54

Protestant services. What more could you want? Whereas the Church of Christ denomination, they had a distinctive service that was separate from Protestant services.

01:58:11

You know, one of the realities that we have to face with prison ministry is that prisoners are not free.

01:58:19

And that doesn't mean that they have no freedoms, but it does mean that there are a lot of restrictions.

01:58:26

And we have to honor those in authority insofar as we're able to without denying the faith.

01:58:36

Well, it has been an honor and a joy to have you back on the program, Lowell, and I look forward to you returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:58:47

And I believe your website is metanoiaprisonministries .org, correct?

01:58:54

Yes. Thank you so much for mentioning that. And if you want to send me an email or even give me a call, my contact information is there on the website.

01:59:04

And that is spelled N as in Michael, E, T as in Thomas, A -N as in Nancy, O -I -A, prisonfellowship .org.

01:59:15

I look forward to your return. As I said, brother, I thank everybody who listened. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater