{"id":540,"date":"2019-02-14T17:31:17","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T22:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=540"},"modified":"2019-02-14T17:31:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T22:31:17","slug":"god-loves-texas-megachurch-opens-campus-maximum-security-prison-saves-500-inmates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/02\/god-loves-texas-megachurch-opens-campus-maximum-security-prison-saves-500-inmates.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018God Loves Them\u2019: Texas Megachurch Opens Campus in Maximum-Security Prison, Saves 500 Inmates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gateway Church in Dallas found a new location for the newest campus, and it&#8217;s nothing that you would expect. Pastor Robert Morris went to Coffield Unit in Texas, which is the largest prison in the state to open the new branch of his church.<\/p>\n<p>He announced it to his congregation saying, \u201cWe have a new campus. And you\u2019re gonna be really surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morris also announced that Stephen Wilson, himself a former inmate, who has been ministering in prisons for several years, will be the official Gateway Coffield campus pastor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My first meeting to launch a Gateway Prison Campus happened seven years ago,&#8221; Wilson said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been praying for this for seven years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The prison houses over 4,000 criminal offenders. Over 650 inmates attended the megachurch\u2019s first service. As the audience rose to give a standing ovation, Morris turned to the screen and said, &#8220;We welcome you guys!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since it&#8217;s inception, the new church campus has seen 500 salvations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At Gateway Church, we&#8217;re all about people because God is all about people,&#8221; Morris, told Fox News. &#8220;Many of the men and women inside prison have been forgotten by society, but we want them to know we love them and God loves them, and they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Inmates regularly receive materials from the Gateway Church, including a church magazine, devotionals, and books, including Morris&#8217; best-seller, <em>The Blessed Life<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The church reports the prison campus will be staffed entirely by inmate volunteers, who will fill the same positions that can be found in any other church worship service. Inmates will serve as greeters, ushers, operate multimedia equipment, and also on the worship team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGateway has really impacted my life because a lot of us do not have visits, and you guys coming in here and sharing y\u2019alls love to us has really impacted our life,\u201d one of the inmates explained.<\/p>\n<p>Gateway currently holds 27 weekend services across six locations, and is the largest church located within the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lMr6YNWlGuE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gateway Church in Dallas found a new location for the newest campus, and it&#8217;s nothing that you would expect. Pastor Robert Morris went to Coffield Unit in Texas, which is the largest prison in the state to open the new branch of his church. He announced it to his congregation saying, \u201cWe have a new&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[321,322,320,319],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gateway-church","tag-inmates","tag-mega-church","tag-texas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u2018God Loves Them\u2019: Texas Megachurch Opens Campus in Maximum-Security Prison, Saves 500 Inmates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over 650 inmates attended the first service in November, and since then over 500 men have dedicated their lives to Jesus.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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