The IFI Chronicles: Leaders

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“E” Unit had 242 beds that generally stayed full.  We may have had a few beds open a few days at a time, but generally, the Unit was full of men.

The weekly curriculum time looked like this:

Ø  Treatment/instruction from an IFI counselor: 2 hours daily (10 hours weekly)

Ø  Volunteer-led Evening Curriculum: 90 minutes 3 days a week (4.5 hour weekly)

Ø  Community Bible Study: 90 minutes (1.5 hours) weekly and mostly led by inmates

Ø  Friday Night Revival was 90 minutes (1.5 hours) weekly led by Volunteers

Ø  Sunday morning services were 90 minutes (1.5 hours) weekly led by IFI staff

Ø  Community Meeting was 45 minutes 5 days a week (3.75 hours Weekly)

Ø  Morning Devotions were 20 minutes 5 days a week (1.66 hours weekly) led by inmates.

 That is a grand total of 21.41 scheduled hours a week for “treatment.”

IFI members in curriculum mode would also have scheduled one-on-one times with their counselors throughout the week/month/quarter.  So let’s call the whole “time” in “treatment” as 24 hours a week.

That left 144 other hours a week free. Free to study, work-out, sleep, visit, play sports, and “do-time.”

Clearly, 144 hours in a prison setting would have an insurmountable affect on the hearts of the men.  IFI staff could not be the sole source of “knowledge” or “wisdom from on-high.”  We needed partners and co-laborers. We needed leaders.

I looked at the men as potential leaders in three different ways:

Criteria 1:  I looked at men who were already buying into what we were doing and who were already taking initiative.  That didn’t mean they were automatically put in a leadership position. Sometimes it was the opposite.  Some men craved leadership and wanted a position. They wanted to be up front and in front.  They wanted to teach and exercise their brains and mouths, not their hearts. Others were taking what they were learning and applying it right away.

Criteria 2: I looked for those who had potential.  This was my main criteria and the most subjective.  I would pray and try to perceive who the Lord was highlighting to me.  I picked some “risky” guys n an attempt to “coach-them-up.”  Sometimes it worked; sometimes it was a total flame-out.

Criteria 3: I would look for guys in groups who were closed to me.  I looked for guys who were Hispanic and spoke Spanish, especially guys going back to Mexico.  I looked for Gang Members who may be going back to California or Chicago or some other area.  I looked for a variety of religious persuasions. I looked for men who had knowledge or experience with Islam.  I looked for short term guys, long term guys and Lifers.

What I found was if I really stuck to my 2^nd criteria (looking for the Lord to highlight someone) I would get everyone in my 3^rd criteria.

I would hand-pick a group of 20 guys for leadership training. Then I would proceed to spill to them everything I was doing.  I would walk them through my thought process in certain situations and why I was doing what I was doing.  I did this at great risk, because I knew there was a potential to any of those guys running right back to the unit and spilling all of my “tactics.”  However, I never worried about that.

 

Another thing I would do was teach them specific skills in leadership.  We used an excellent curriculum called “Jesus on Leadership: Developing Servant Leaders” by Gene Wilkes.  It was an excellent balance of the practical and the theoretical.  It also emphasized servant hood as the main mechanism of leading.

 

I would then place resources, teachings, books, etc. into the hands of guys.  If I felt they were prophetic I would slide them a book about the prophetic. If I saw they were worship leaders, I would give them music.  If I saw they were teachers, I would give them assignments to teach.  If they were counselors, I would put them with other guys who needed to be listened to. If they were pray-ers, I would pray with them.

Most importantly I would pray for them, and I would pray for them in a very specific way and with a specific intent.  I would pray, with faith and with my positional authority, that their potential would be unleashed in their lives.  I expected the Holy Spirit to ramp His work up in their lives.  I waited to see them make exponential growth, and I did.

Our community began to really flourish as the day to day discipleship and the atmosphere of the unit were in the care of the inmates themselves and shepherded by the “elders” as they were called (a term I never used, but the men used for each other.)

 

chris

 

To learn more about Gene Wilkes and his Jesus on Leadership curriculum : Jesus on Leadership
(I prefer the book to th DVD Curriculum...)