This is a student blog post submitted by Thomas Cellilli, C’17. Thomas is a Biblical & Theological Studies major.
“You have an incredible opportunity to be a platform of change. That’s all I am. God is using me as His platform in here, but you can be a platform for the people on the outside.”
I shook his hand at least four times during our short conversation after the North Park Gospel Choir sang for and with the men of Stateville Correctional Center. He was sitting down, and I stood hunched over to hear his raspy voice through the roar of dialogues going on around us. He poured his heart out to me, and we laughed at our little connection—his middle name is the same as my first name, Thomas. We didn’t talk about why he was in prison, or how long he had previously waited on death-row. We simply looked each other in the eye as human being to human being—no walls or prison bars separating us—and basked in the joy of connectedness we have in Jesus Christ our Lord who turns our Thomas-doubt into belief. He encouraged me with this: “It doesn’t matter where you start, even if its doubting. It only matters where you end up.”
This was my second visit to Stateville Correctional Center with the Gospel Choir, and I have been infinitely blessed by the love and encouragement of the inmates to which we have ministered. North Park’s Gospel Choir has visited the prison three times to sing for the inmates: once with the Touring Ensemble and twice with the larger choir. The Gospel Choir’s relationship with Stateville is largely indebted to the continued work of Dr. Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom who has been teaching classes to undergrads, graduate students, and inmates inside of the prison. Her class, Peace, Justice, and Restoration, “explores the theological and ethical foundations of justice ministries…[and] probes the grounds of the claim that ‘justice is central to biblical religion.’”
Thanks to the efforts of the North Park faculty, the Gospel Choir has been allowed to interact and sing with the inmates on multiple occasions. I am no singer, nor do I claim to be, but singing praises to our God with those who are in prison has been one of the most powerful experiences in my Christian walk to this day. Both last semester and this semester, I was moved to tears on several occasions as God’s Presence filled the theater at Stateville while we proclaimed the miracles and wonders of our One God.
I implore my brothers and sisters in Christ who had seen firsthand what powerful works God is doing behind bars and those who have been moved by this witness to continue praying for the men of Stateville. Hebrews 13:3 commands us, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (ESV). Neither walls, nor bars, nor cells, fences, chains, nor isolation can divide the body of Christ. It is our job as brothers and sisters to use what platforms God has given us to speak out against injustice and pray for Heaven to come down to earth.