From sighs to songs

LITTLE ROCK — It's Sunday night, and more than 100 men in prison yellow are swinging to some Christian jailhouse rock.

As the praise band thunders, the men clap, sway and sing along. Some close their eyes and stretch their hands heavenward.

When the service ends, the band members return home while the worshippers march in single file from the gym back to their cells at the minimum-security Central Arkansas Community Corrections Center in Little Rock.

Inmate Zachary Prather, 24, says the music's Christian message lingers long after the band departs.

"A lot of people are finding a foundation in religion that they weren't able to have before," said Prather, who was convicted of possessing stolen property. "This offers hope."

About a decade ago, volunteers from Pulaski Heights and Asbury United Methodist churches in Little Rock began offering Bible studies on the first and fourth Sunday of each month at the state Department of Community Correction facility. Thenabout four years ago, musicians from Asbury and First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Little Rock volunteered to open the fourth-Sunday study with a Christian concert.

The Central Arkansas unit typically houses about 180 men, all convicted of nonviolent crimes such as drug possession or passing hot checks.

Many of the inmates also struggle with alcohol or drug addictions. Most will be free soon - the typical sentence is about nine months.

"What we try to do is say God loves you and you're somebody," the Rev. Joe Wilkerson, a retired Methodist minister who now oversees the ministry, said. "We want them to gohome and show they are a new person in Christ."

Now nearly 20 people, including two from Fellowship Bible Church in North Little Rock, volunteer with the prison ministry.

The ministry has expanded beyond Bible studies. There's an inmate choir now that sings, occasionally, at area churches.

Ministry supporters pay for DVD rentals for occasional movie nightsat the unit. They also pay for each convict to get a snack basket at Christmas and a new set of clothes upon release.

Wilkerson said he typically tries to get each man a new pair of jeans, khaki slacks, a knit golf shirt and dress shirt. He'll also buy a pair of sneakers and belt when needed. Last year, the ministry spent about $7,500 on clothes.

The prison band recently played a benefit concert at First Christian Church that raised $2,511 for the ministry.

"If one man's life is changed, it's worth it," Wilkerson said. "But we've seen a lot of lives changed."

Since he began volunteering in the unit in 2001, Wilkerson has baptized about 75 men, including one just 15 days ago.

Wilkerson called Darrell Ford, 51, to the front of the gym where the band had just finished a 30-minute concert.

Ford knelt at a small, portable white railing, and the band members and other prison ministry volunteers laid their hands on his head. Wilkerson then dipped his own hands in a water bowl and made a sign of the cross on Ford's forehead.

"Darrell, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," Wilkerson said. "Darrell, may the Holy Spirit work within you, that having been bornthrough the water and the Spirit, you may live as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen."

Ford, who hails from Hot Springs, said afterward that he has always believed in God but his lifestyle never showed it. Methamphetamine cooking landed him in the corrections system. He said baptism would "help me get right with God."

"I felt good," he said. "I felt like something had been lifted off of me. Having all these people around me made me think everything is going to be all right."

For band members, such baptisms are why they rehearse two hours every Sunday and return to the unit month after month, including sometimes leading a candlelight worship service for the inmates on Christmas Eve.

The band includes eight musicians and a sound man. They play instruments ranging from a saxophone and guitar to the mandolin and harmonica.

Their playlist includes conventional church worship anthems such as "Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord." Band member Carl Cross, who sells securities by day, also writes some of the group's songs. He created one of the group's most popular numbers when he set to music the devotional poem "The Cross in My Pocket," which was written by Cross' grandmother Verna Thomas of McGehee.

The band also frequently puts Christian lyrics to secular rock hits so that Ray Charles' "Unchain My Heart" becomes "Lord, Change My Heart" and Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" transforms from a memorial for his son to a meditation on the Son.

"All we're doing is 'Sister Acting' a bunch of songs that might get the guysto stand up and get into it," Cross said, referring the popular movie about Motown-singing nuns.

"We're trying to think of songs that will make the men there go back to their cells and say to their friends, 'Man, you should have been here tonight.'"

John Stevens has gone from being a beneficiary of the prison ministry to one of its most outspoken supporters. He's among a few former inmates who have gone on to join one of the participating churches.

"The guys' enthusiasm and the way they approach people in that institution, that's what affected me," said Stevens, now a member of Asbury United Methodist Church. "They weren't judgmental."

That's different from the hellfire and damnation he has heard other prison ministers preach, he said.

"If you're in an institution like that," he said, "you probably realize that your past indiscretions are what got you there. You need someone to pump up your self-esteem, and that's what they do. They tell you [that] you can do almost anything if you walk the line."

Ralph Shull, a retired University of Arkansas at Little Rock economics professor, helped start the prison ministry 11 years ago and typically opens each Bible study session.

His hope is that the Little Rock program will inspire more church groups to visit Department of Community Correction facilities across the state.

"They're going to get out," he says. "What kind of shape do you want them to be in when they go out there ?"