Today I was a patron Saint for the Protestants. Soledad Prison has been without a Protestant Chaplain for the past 6 months, and so their meetings at the various yards have been intermittent at best. The number of volunteers willing to conduct the services has been dwindling and is not well coordinated. The Catholic Chaplain Christine McBride has been trying to fill in but things are just falling through the cracks. The biggest issue is lack of brown cards for those who do volunteer their time to come 'preach'. A brown card allows entrance into the various yards with key privileges meaning the chapel can be opened and services can be held. I was issued one of the last brown cards and for some reason I am renewed each year after going through the requalification process. Those newer volunteers who qualify are not issued brown cards but are put on a one year gate pass which allows entrance into the prison but must be escorted by one holding a brown card. So...Today I met Andy Eden and Chris Mullen, two Prison Ministry Preachers, and escorted them to their meetings, at least that was the plan. Our morning meeting at South Yard did not happen because of a week long lockdown, so we had a nice visit in the cafeteria waiting for the next meeting, which did happen at Central Yard. I must say it was entertaining. Andy got up at the end and talked about Gideon after playing his guitar and singing a few songs. Two choirs sang and the whole congregation, about 200 inmates, of course were 'amening' all over the place. It was complete with drums, bass, and an electric keyboard. I was running from the front to the back of the chapel opening the large outer door to the corridor to let latecomers in, so I got my exercise. I was introduced and received a round of applause, just like in our church......not. I was coming back up to the podium and was asked to give a prayer on the tithing offerings, which is another interesting story in itself, but another time. We had lunch with Art and Doug and then went to North to conduct two scheduled meetings there. They did not happen because no release duckets were issued meaning no inmates could attend. Andy and Chris were disappointed as I was too. They had driven from Discovery Bay and Cupertino up in the South Bay area. I promised them I would try to help coordinate the Protestant efforts with Chaplain Christine which means that Art, Doug, and I will probably be 'Patron Sainting' for the Protestants more often in the future, at least until a new chaplain is found or the old one is exonerated.

What was interesting was the type of preaching going on today. There was a lot of noise made about salvation and accepting Christ in your life, and many Old Testament stories retold, but I couldn't help but think that our meetings differ in that we talk much about developing the atrtibutes of Christ so that we may become more like him. That is what we are trying to do, not just be guaranteed that we will be with him. Plus our Protestant, and other Christian, friends cannot teach anything about what the Lord is saying right now to us, because they do not believe in ongoing revelation. Everything is from 'The Good Book' or 'The Word of God', ie, the Bible. Certainly the echoes from the Book of Mormon ring true to our day, "A Bible, A Bible, we have a Bible and we need no more!!!" Not true, not true, not true. Thanks be to God for his Word today thru the living Prophets and modern scripture.