Calvin Bryant is actively involved in prison ministry in the Jacksonville, Florida, region. He has a deep faith in Christ and a strong desire to share the Gospel with those who are incarcerated. He leads a team of men from various denominations who regularly visit prisons and jails to minister and share hope with inmates.
It is not easy, but is rewarding.
“Those who have been faithfully following the Lord, it's amazing that they can be in such a dark place and you can see the light of Christ and a smile on their face despite the sin and darkness that surrounds them.”
K-LOVE's Richard: When you walk into a prison, can you sense the change of atmosphere, maybe even spiritually or sense spiritual warfare going on?
Calvin: “Yeah, I mean Ephesians six clearly says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and all sorts of spiritual wickedness in high places, but it also reminds us that we're to put on the whole armor of God. And so yes, there's no question you're walking into an environment where there's a heaviness and a darkness. There's a lot of oppression, a lot of addiction, a lot of depression, a lot of hopelessness.
The officers obviously struggle as well because they have to work in that environment. However, it's in that environment that I think we need to remember the words of Jesus when he said, 'I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.' There's men in darkness, they're behind those gates ... and as ministers of the gospel, Jesus has called us to kick open the gates...and to walk into that darkness and proclaim the gospel of Jesus to those who are lost. And we see it and it's awesome and we see lives touched and changed. And so if you ever want to see whether the Bible's true and whether this gospel is real, you go into an environment like that, man, and you see it every single time.”
Our full podcast interview - click
Sharing Jesus in solitary confinement area
Calvin: “It can be very loud in there, especially when you get into the steel door, solitary confinement areas, lots of echoing very hard to hear the inmates speaking through the door. And so when we go into our different blocks, typically we're on our own and God kind of takes what we do and blesses it from there.”
Richard: Tell me about speaking to someone through a door. Kind of paint a picture of what that looks like.
Calvin: “Yeah, so just think of almost like a large high school hallway. No windows, no pretty pictures, no nothing, but it's just lined with large heavy metal doors. And behind each one of those doors is a small cell. That door has a small, usually it's a foggy, scratched up little plastic window or glass plastic plexiglass window, and it's very difficult to hear. So typically we have to lean to the side of the door where the hinges meet the wall and we talk through the crack that's there.”
But Calvin and his team know that inside one of those dreary cells is a human being whose life and outlook can be powerfully changed through a relationship with Christ. And that keeps the team coming back, and back.
“So one of the messages that I teach is our identity in Christ and for a lot of men who are in solitary confinement for a long time, those prison walls, those cell walls start to close in on them. And I remind them when they come to Christ to don't let these prison walls define you as a man, that you are the man that God has created you to be and to do what God has called you to do. And though you might be locked inside these prison walls, you can be free in Christ. And so the message of our identity in Christ, who we are as children of God, who we are as men, created in God's image to worship him and to serve him, and to just glorify him with our lives, that message is real and it's true, and it gives them hope and it gives them life, and you see it when you talk to them. Those who have been faithfully following the Lord, it's amazing that they can be in such a dark place and you can see the light of Christ and a smile on their face despite the sin and darkness that surrounds them,” shares Calvin.
Richard: At the end of the day, after you have shared Christ at a prison or a jail and you’re driving home, what is in your heart? What's going on in there?
Calvin: "That's an awesome question because the team kind of rallies back together. It takes us an hour to drive up to the prison. We minister for two to three hours, then an hour drive back. So the drive back is celebration and testimonies, and we've got guys like Ron Alman and Chris Brown and Augusto and Charlie, and we all huddle up in our car and as we're driving, we just shared great testimonies of this is what God did. 'And this is a gentleman that I met, he heard the gospel and I've been talking to him for three weeks and he's finally made a decision to surrender his life to Christ,' and it's kind of like a football team. After they win the big game. We go up a little tired, a little stressed out from working all day, and then on the way back, we're all full of God's life and sharing battle stories and our war stories and victories of what the Lord has done, and it's awesome!”
We invite you to hear our complete firsthand interview with Calvin Bryant - just below - where he shares a bona fide miracle that took place as a result of his prayer with a prisoner whose father was very ill.
If you would like to know more about this specialized ministry, or would like to know how to pray for needs:
Calvin on X (formerly Twitter)