Onesimus Workbook

Introduction

Welcome to the Onesimus Workshop!

The purpose of the Onesimus Workshop is to orient churches to the process of welcoming former prisoners into the life of their church for building up the body of Christ. Our vision is to equip you with the beginning steps toward effectively incorporating former prisoners into your church community. We cannot equip you with everything you will need along the way – you will have to learn that through experience and dependence on the Holy Spirit. But we do hope to get you started down this exciting journey. We believe that revival can come to the churches of America through seminary-trained, eager, and talented men and women who have endured the hardships of prison life. They are ready to come back to communities where they were once a liability, in order to bring the redemption they have experienced through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When World Impact began in 1971, teaching children’s Bible clubs in the inner city, we did not have prisoners on our minds. But as our ministry grew, and we started working with adults, planting churches, and providing leadership training, God led us into equipping the incarcerated. Now, we have over 1,400 current students inside the walls, and several hundred more who have been released with seminary education. We have been eager to help them get plugged into churches upon release, but we discovered that it is difficult for them to make the transition from prison to civilian life. This led us to an examination of how to train churches to welcome former prisoners into their communities. That is the basis for the Onesimus Workshop.

We want to see your church strengthened by incorporating members who use their gifts as redeemed ambassadors of Christ.

The name “Onesimus” comes from the book of Philemon. Paul wrote Philemon as a letter about Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave whom Paul had taken in and found to be an asset in ministry. He wrote that “formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me” (Philem. 11, NIV). Like the prisoners of today,

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