{"id":714,"date":"2019-06-21T13:39:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=714"},"modified":"2019-06-21T13:39:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:39:24","slug":"church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Church Brings Worship Services to County Jail, Inmates Get Baptized and Publically Declare Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-716\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-716\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2019\/06\/baptism.png\" alt=\"First Church\/Facebook\" width=\"700\" height=\"391\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">First Church\/Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An Illinois church is bring their church service to local inmates and it\u2019s transforming its local county jail system.<\/p>\n<p>The church services have only been taking place for three months at the Jasper County jail; however, employees and inmates are already seeing some really positive change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a quieter atmosphere,\u201d Jasper County Sheriff Patrick Williamson told WLFI-TV. \u201cIn times past, you would hear banging, kicking, yelling, screaming, but now it\u2019s very quiet. They get along well, they treat staff better, so we have less incidents. It just complements the other things going on in our jail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John Hill, pastor of First Church had been working with Williamson on an addiction recovery house program for men. Once this program took off, he thought to create an even bigger ministry program at the same jail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur church was really excited just to build bridges with these families, help them connect with our community, help them with employment, and just show them that we care,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe miracle of that is something to behold,\u201d said Williamson.<\/p>\n<p>In a shared Facebook video, one of the inmates is shown leading worship with his fellow inmates. During worship, he sang \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffrcod%2Fvideos%2F822548798113323%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=380\" width=\"380\" height=\"476\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn another Facebook video, five men and four women were baptized by First Church.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffrcod%2Fvideos%2F2645452385485417%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that Jesus is the only hope in the world,\u201d the pastor said. \u201cI think we live in a society that is so quick to condemn people, but Jesus was so quick to give people second chances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t tell me this isn\u2019t the power of God!<\/p>\n<h3>We want to know what you think.<\/h3>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/survey.fm\/61B5089BFA852F94\">Take Our Survey<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Illinois church is bring their church service to local inmates and it\u2019s transforming its local county jail system. The church services have only been taking place for three months at the Jasper County jail; however, employees and inmates are already seeing some really positive change. \u201cWe have a quieter atmosphere,\u201d Jasper County Sheriff Patrick&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[389,143,322,391,390,392],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptism","tag-baptism","tag-church","tag-inmates","tag-inmates-baptized","tag-local-church","tag-power-of-god"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Church Brings Worship Services to County Jail, Inmates Get Baptized and Publically Declare Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church Brings Worship Services to County Jail, Inmates Get Baptized and Publically Declare Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Illinois church is bring their church service to local inmates and it\u2019s transforming its local county jail system. The church services have only been taking place for three months at the Jasper County jail; however, employees and inmates are already seeing some really positive change. \u201cWe have a quieter atmosphere,\u201d Jasper County Sheriff Patrick&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-21T17:39:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lesli White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/files\/2019\/06\/baptism.png\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Church Brings Worship Services to County Jail, Inmates Get Baptized and Publically Declare Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Church Brings Worship Services to County Jail, Inmates Get Baptized and Publically Declare Faith","og_description":"An Illinois church is bring their church service to local inmates and it\u2019s transforming its local county jail system. The church services have only been taking place for three months at the Jasper County jail; however, employees and inmates are already seeing some really positive change. \u201cWe have a quieter atmosphere,\u201d Jasper County Sheriff Patrick&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2019\/06\/church-brings-worship-services-county-jail-inmates-get-baptized-publically-declare-faith.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2019-06-21T17:39:24+00:00","author":"Lesli 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