TUMI partners with ministries who want to train their Christian leaders, including men and women in prisons and jails. We would like to offer TUMI’s training to every inmate who desires to be more effective in ministry. In order to do that, we need to connect with Christian ministries who are currently working with the incarcerated, so those partners can deliver our resources to the inmates. TUMI provides a host of resources for discipleship and leadership training, but our premier resource is the Capstone Curriculum, a seminary-level curriculum that equips inmates inside the walls as well as the outside when they return to society.
“We are not scholars, we are disciples,” one TUMI graduate said. Our students said they have seen complete transformation in themselves and in those they minister to on the yard, as they become the effective Christian leaders God has called them to be. They have also said that when they enter a room as a trained Christian leader they should change the “atmosphere” in that room. That is what they are doing in prisons across America. The correctional officers, the prison staff, and the other inmates all see the effect that these TUMI students have when they rise to the occasion of being all that they can be.
One of our students is teaching other inmates to read using the book of 1 John as his curriculum. He is teaching a valuable skill while sharing the Gospel and making an impact on his fellow inmates who do not know the Lord. Outside the prison, these TUMI students that have been trained are able to go back to their neighborhoods and proclaim the Gospel with boldness and confidence since they have been equipped to lead and minister. There are over 200 returning citizens who are impacting our inner cities with the gospel, with hundreds more to come.
Over the years, there have been thousands of people sharing the gospel and teaching basic Bible studies to inmates. But virtually nothing has been done to provide deep, theological training in the Word that equips leaders inside prisons. So while the milk of the Word has been given, the meat of the Word has not been broadly available. TUMI’s focus on the Word—and our belief in the inmates to be effective church leaders—has made a powerful difference in the life of the Church on the inside. This is a work of Jesus, the only One who can bring about prison reform. He can do it by changing lives and bringing love and hope to those that society has thrown away. He alone can affect recidivism rates by using his body of believers inside the walls to bring about lasting change to His children’s lives that have been working on the wrong side of the battle before they know Christ.
Trained, effective leaders can share God’s love and advance the Kingdom on the inside like no one else. They are constantly under scrutiny by other inmates for their faith. With TUMI training they can always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks them to give the reason for the hope that is in them. Hope is a precious commodity in prison. Jesus can bring that hope through TUMI students that are effectively representing the kingdom in their own mission field on the inside.
Cathy Allsman is TUMI's Incarcerational Ministries Specialist