In Matthew 25:39-40, God mandates His church to serve the lost, the broken, and the hurting. Numerous ministries fulfill that mission in today’s fallen world – including answering the challenging call of serving those who are incarcerated, many for unthinkable crimes against the innocent … even children.
Prisoners For Christ Outreach Ministries (PFC), headquartered in Woodinville, Washington, is one organization that is taking the light of Christ into the darkness of prisons.
Making a deal with God
In an interview with The Stand, PFC founder Greg Von Tobel explained that he grew up in a devout Catholic home; however, his faith was nothing personal.
Then in 1982, he and his wife were at the hospital for the birth of their first child. The doctor entered the waiting room and delivered what Von Tobel called a “spiritual two-by-four” – his wife and their unborn child would likely not survive the night. Von Tobel offered God a deal: “If you save them, I will seek You with all my heart, mind, and soul.”
God allowed her and the baby to live, and the new father responded the way so many do after pleas of desperation: He went on with his life.
Some months later, the Von Tobels became friends with a couple who had recently gone through evangelism training; the couple’s zeal for Jesus spilled over into the friendship. Through many meetings, these new friends worked through all the Von Tobels’ questions and eventually led them both to saving faith in Jesus.
A couple of years into Von Tobel’s faith journey, God called him to volunteer in prison ministry, which led him to found PFC in 1989. In 1990, he left his career as a stockbroker and walked into full-time prison ministry, taking a giant step toward fulfilling his desperate promise to God.
Standing in the gap
Fast forward to the year 2000, and PFC had expanded into numerous prisons in Washington state; they were seeing inmates’ lives forever changed through the power of Christ.
Then came the Bush/Gore presidential race of 2000. In his book Staving Off Disaster, Von Tobel credits that election with eternally changing his spiritual life.
On Election Day, November 7, 2000, Von Tobel was at a prison three hours from home and completely out of touch with the news (thanks to a broken radio). Returning home late that night, he learned that the presidential race was still undecided. In fervent prayer, he clearly heard God say, “Will you stand in the gap for this country?” After hearing the question three times, he agreed to pray and fast until the election results were finalized. Von Tobel had previously fasted a total of only five days over 18 years; nevertheless, he determined he could go without a couple of meals. Little did he know that the fast he expected to last one day would be extended to 36 days. In the end, he decided to complete a 40-day fast.
Since that initial, unexpected fast, Von Tobel has participated in numerous fasts of varying lengths and with a multitude of specific purposes.
“Our prayer is that revival would break out and that more people would learn the power of fasting,” he said.
And as Von Tobel has discovered, that “power” affects more than just the individual involved: “Fasting has allowed [PFC] to increase our footprint all around the world.”
Taking Christ to the nations
In the same year as the unexpected fast, Von Tobel received a phone call from a pastor-friend whose church had recently brought a Russian minister, Pastor Yuri, to the United States for a visit. In preparation to return to his homeland the next day, Yuri mentioned his burden for the inmates in Russian prisons. That comment prompted the call to Von Tobel and a hastily arranged meeting between the two men. Expecting to simply encourage this Russian pastor and share resources, Von Tobel was unprepared for Yuri’s insistence that he must come to Russia to train church leaders for prison ministry. That meeting was the initiation of PFC’s global outreach.
For three years, PFC made trips to Russia. Then, in 2004, Von Tobel was invited on a mission trip to an orphanage in Kenya. He was fully occupied with ministry in America and Russia, but he reluctantly agreed under one condition – that he be allowed entrance into some prisons. He felt reasonably “safe” from entering this new frontier. After all, if there were any prisons in Africa, they would surely be inaccessible to him. It took less than four days to learn that his stipulation had been met.
“I finally realized that every country on the face of the earth had prisons,” he shared in Staving Off Disaster. “If there are prisons, then there are men, there are women, and there are children who desperately need to hear the gospel.”
What began as a ministry to prisoners in one U.S. state is now reaching around the globe with a broad offering of teaching, training, and discipleship resources.
PFC takes six to eight short-term international mission trips every year and has representatives in about 25 countries, even in a few countries that are “closed” to the gospel.
In open countries, some prison officials are also believers, and PFC is allowed to have what Von Tobel described as “a mini Billy Graham crusade.” American PFC representatives are welcomed by prison officials in closed countries, but they are not allowed access to the prisoners; however, local volunteers are allowed to meet with the Christian prisoners to encourage and disciple them.
But PFC has also witnessed miraculous open doors in closed countries, like the time an entire prison population gathered to hear the gospel of Christ preached … from the overhang of a local pagan temple.
“Our prayer,” said Von Tobel, “has always been that we would go to those places that most people don’t want to go to in order to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the inmates … in hopes that they would find their salvation through Christ and Christ alone.”
How to support PFC
▶ Make a financial contribution.
▶ Pray for PFC’s International Bible Institutes and church plants inside prisons.
▶ Become a prison chaplain.
▶ Review/grade inmates’ Bible study course answers.
To learn more and download a 2023 Impact Report, visit prisonersforchrist.org.
(Digital Editor's Note: This article was published first in the July 2024 print edition of The Stand. Click HERE for a free six-month subscription to The Stand magazine.)
