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Imagine if a gospel movement were to happen right in your backyard—one person after another choosing to follow Jesus, sharing him with others, and doing what he says. What would you see? What would change in hearts, marriages, families, and local businesses? What walls of hostility would crumble?
It would be pretty incredible, right?
But can gospel movements take off in a secular, post-Christian climate? We don’t hear a lot of stories of the good news rapidly multiplying in the West. But could it??
Novo staff member Jeremy would answer that with a resounding “Yes!” Because he’s seen it happen—more than once.
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … You Catch a Vision
Jeremy grew up in New Jersey as a pastor’s kid. As he tagged along with dad doing everyday life stuff, he learned important ministry lessons, like the people in front of and behind you in line at the grocery store might very well be hungry to meet Jesus. The man asking for help in front of the gas station could be the one to open an entire network to the gospel. People of peace (those ready to respond to the good news and share it with others) are hidden in plain sight everywhere.
As a young adult, Jeremy watched his dad’s prison ministry in Indiana. A movement of the gospel emerged, and hundreds (even thousands) of people’s lives were utterly transformed as a result (watch that story here).
Jeremy became convinced he wanted his life to be about movements as well. Because he’d seen one, he fully believed it could happen again. A dream grew in his heart to see one in his own backyard—specifically, in the Kansas state prison system.
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … You Persevere in Prayer
Where do movements begin? Jeremy knew from watching his dad at work that it had to start with a commitment to prayer. He began specifically praying a gospel fire would spread in the Kansas state correctional facilities.
On his way to pick up credentials showing he’d completed training to mentor people in the prison, Jeremy received a phone call. “I don’t care how close you are, turn your truck around and go home,” the prison chaplain said. “Starting today, the prison is in a full lockdown and no one is getting in.” It was 2020 and Covid had slammed the doors shut.
Jeremy continued to pray for movement, but kept hearing the words, “No permission.” He drove over to prayer-walk around the prison facility, like Joshua walking around Jericho, and felt strongly stopped in the Spirit from doing so. No permission. No permission to access the prison. No permission to even do a prayer walk! It might have been a good time to give up.
Jeremy kept praying. For two years.
Then, Jeremy got a call that the prison was open again. As he prayed on his 45-minute drive over to the facility, he heard a resounding proclamation: “Permission!”
Those two years had felt like a significant delay, but God had actually been at work the whole time. Jeremy would soon get to see how much his prayers had impacted the spiritual climate and prepared the ground for the movement he was longing for.
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … You Engage People of Peace
Every movement needs to progress from the spiritual to the material—from prayers to people. You need to find the people God has prepared to run with the good news. We call them People of Peace.
Jeremy discovered one of those people the very same day he picked up his prison badge.
A chaplain gave Jeremy a tour of the prison after he arrived, and when they got to the chow line, she called a specific prisoner over—we’ll call him Michael. “Come receive your blessing, Michael,” she said. Then she looked at Jeremy. Ready or not, the ball was in his court.
Michael was a massive man. Intimidated, but pausing to listen to Jesus, Jeremy got up on his tiptoes and whispered in Michael’s ear, “This is not your home. Your home is in heaven—the throne room of God, where at the voice of the angels, the doorposts shake. God has written your name in the Book of Life, and the cost for him to write your name there was the blood of his Son.”
Then Jeremy sensed God’s still, small voice say, “He holds the keys.”
Jeremy took that big man by the shoulders and repeated, “He holds the keys.”
Michael crumbled. He was clearly shaken to his core.
Jeremy was unaware that Michael was the prison’s top “shot caller,” the prisoner who calls the shots for the whole prison. In prison slang, that shot caller is the person who “holds the keys.” The Holy Spirit had given Jeremy a message that went straight to Michael’s heart. There was a new shot caller now.
It would be several months before Jeremy and Michael’s paths would cross again, but everything was different in Michael’s life from that moment on: He stopped forcing people to do everything for him (as the shot caller, his word had been everyone’s command). He stood patiently in the chow line with everybody else to get his own food. He got a job and proudly showed the chaplain calluses on his hands from hard work. He studied the Bible with others—becoming a committed follower of Jesus and letting him transform his life.
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … You Make Disciples
Making disciples who make more disciples is at the heart of gospel transformation. It’s important that the catalyst (in this case, Jeremy) be willing to take a backseat to the new disciples God is raising up.
Every week, Jeremy visited the prison to mentor two prisoners with whom he had a connection (not Michael). He led them through Discovery Bible Studies, which were easy for them to replicate to others in the prison. Jeremy discipled them, and they (unbeknownst to Jeremy) discipled Michael.
Jeremy knew these men on the inside would be the real change agents as he was only in a support role. When he met with his guys, he’d ask, “What’s going on in the movement?” He wanted to hear what God was up to. And one of the things they told him was that Michael had become a powerful force for Jesus in the prison.
Michael still held a place of power and influence among the inmates; but now with Jesus as his shot caller, instead of using this power for himself, he was leveraging it to help others. He got the idea to offer protection to new prisoners coming off the prison bus. Unlike the other gangs who required new recruits to do illegal things, Michael’s Christian group would tell the new guys, “Come with us, and we’ll protect you.” Nothing illegal involved.
Because of Michael’s protection, one-on-one discipleship and Bible studies were taking place in the yard—typically the most violent place in the prison. No one would bother the guys learning about Jesus in the yard because the biggest, toughest guy in the prison (Michael) was looking out for them.
That wasn’t all. Michael started organizing “callouts,” religious meetings prisoners could sign up to attend. These weren’t ordinary callouts. They were all calls, where inmates of all faith backgrounds were invited: Baptists. Wiccans. Muslims. Native Americans. Eventually Michael was running six callouts a week, because they were filled to max capacity. Week after week, prisoners came, heard the good news, and encountered Jesus.
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … You Invest in Emerging Leaders
Twice a year, Jeremy was able to help facilitate a four-day intensive for 20 or so prisoners alongside other Christian volunteers. As he prayed in preparation, he heard, “Mentor the mentors.”
On day one of the intensive, Michael and his right-hand man (who ran the DBSs in the yard) entered the meeting room together. It was the first time Jeremy had seen Michael since he’d spoken the blessing over him. As soon as he saw them he knew exactly what his assignment from God was supposed to be. Both men were wearing badges that said, “Mentor”! It turned out Michael had organized a mentoring program where he and four other believers were mentoring men in the jail. Now Jeremy would get to mentor the mentors, starting with three of the five men who were with him in the intensive.
He continued to invest in those five mentors, meeting with each of them individually. One of the tools he wanted to pass on to them was an understanding of APEST, a ministry paradigm from Eph. 4:11-12 that describes five gifts God bestows on people for the work of ministry—Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, and Teachers. At Novo, we’ve discovered that for movements to thrive, you need a mix of people with all five gifts represented. Guess what Jeremy discovered about these mentors when he dug into this paradigm with them? They had five men with five different gifts—one apostle, one prophet, one evangelist, one shepherd, and one teacher. The Holy Spirit was already on it!
Gospel Movements Are Possible If … Missional Churches Form
When you have disciples making disciples, and leaders emerging, the next piece is seeing new expressions of church. These can be small and organic, like expanded DBSs—but they are places where fellowship, worship, obedience to Jesus, and mission are all taking place.
In the Kansas state prison where Jeremy has invested, there is now a church by prisoners, for prisoners. Michael, his mentors, and other leaders, have organized a ministry of 24/7 prayer and one-on-one encouragement for the most vulnerable prisoners in the isolation wing, and they’ve taken up offerings to help prisoners with specific needs. Some of the leaders are even working on earning ministry degrees from TUMI (The Urban Ministry Institute) so they can become certified pastors inside the prison. All of these developments were initiated by the inmates (and the Holy Spirit), not Jeremy.
The four-day intensives shed an interesting light on how much has changed in the prison as a result of the good news being shared. During Jeremy’s first intensive visit, many prisoners in attendance weren’t even followers of Jesus. At the most recent one, most of the prisoners were leaders in the church.
These new believers are on a mission to reach as many prisoners with the good news as possible. Just look at Michael’s crew: Their bus recruitment, all calls, and mentoring program were having a big impact on people’s lives, but God had even more for them to do. When the prison warden saw the level of influence the mentor program had, and witnessed the impact of their drug recovery all calls, he approached Michael: “I want you guys to work for me.” The warden hired the five mentors to work full-time in the toughest wing of the prison—the section where all the drug addicts were placed. Their job was drug prevention, and they were essentially getting paid to walk freely throughout that entire wing of the prison, discipling people toward Jesus. It was an unheard of amount of freedom for prisoners to have on the inside.
Things had gone from “No permission” in the prison to “Full access” in just a couple of years!
Gospel Movements Are Possible … And This Is What They Look Like in Real Life
In Jeremy’s experience, one of the clear signs that a gospel movement is taking place is reconciliation across divides. Jeremy knew it was happening as soon as he heard about Michael’s all calls. But nothing compared to what took place last Easter morning.
That day, dozens of prisoners were baptized in the prison, including Michael. Michael and another shot caller—who had been sworn enemies even before prison—baptized each other.
It was a real life display of the radical, reconciling truth of the gospel described in Ephesians 2: “He himself [Jesus] is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).
Three weeks later, after witnessing the level of reconciliation during this event, more than a dozen correctional officers also got baptized, right there in the prison. Jeremy had never heard of such a thing happening in a prison, ever.
Gospel Movements Are Possible … In Your Backyard
Jeremy’s experience is a sign that movements of the gospel are possible anywhere if God is at work, and if we have the vision to pray, persevere, and step out in courage to engage with the people God highlights. Movements take work and commitment, but the level of transformation that occurs when the good news breaks in makes it 100% worth it!
We are all invited to be part of something much bigger than ourselves. God wants to partner with us to transform the world. And the good news is, we don’t have to be extraordinary to see him work through us. We just have to be willing and faithful to say “yes” where God leads.
What might God want to do in your own life, neighborhood, or community? As you reflect on Jeremy’s story, ask yourself (maybe with a prayer journal in hand):
What would it look like for me to be part of a gospel movement?
What prayers would I pray? What places or people would I pray for?
Where and who would I invest in?
And how could I empower others to step into their own leadership and discipleship roles along the way?
ABOUT THIS STORY
Jeremy Alessi lives in Wichita, KS. He’s a member of Novo’s Catalyze Team, which focuses on finding people of peace and developing them as catalysts for the gospel in their communities. Prior to the events in this story, he began a work release program for inmates that had a powerful impact (you can read that story here). In conjunction with his prison work, Jeremy supports prisoners after their release, helping them start life on “the outside” on a solid footing and continuing their discipleship. He has also partnered with God to see powerful transformations and hope in the local homeless community.