I understand the call for an ordinary and normative ordination.
So I’m right to assume that these sections allow for a man to be called and ordained a minister for the sole purpose of chaplain work in a prison ministry without being called to any preaching and teaching duties within the Church?
Yes, that is correct…if his prison ministry involves preaching and teaching the word regularly, and the Presbytery is confident that the prison will not forbid him to teach the doctrines of Scripture, summarized in the WCF.
Thank you for the clarification.
Would a session ever consider authorizing such a man to administer the sacraments in such a setting?
Yes, I was commissioned by my CREC church for this work, but much of what a modern chaplaincy in a pluralistic society often requires goes well outside of what Scripture prescribes for the ministry, as well as some parts that I would say go actively against it, such as arranging for the “religious needs” of other faiths.
The presbytery, not the session, would oversee his work.
My inclination is to say he should not be administering the sacraments unless they are connected with a local body…because the sacraments are for the church. In the same way it would be wrong for a church doctor (professor) to administer the sacraments to students in a classroom.
Thank you for the clarification.
The above BCO excerpt was referenced by Andrew Dionne in a previous reply. I have a further question here:
How is shepherding and soul care provided for men and women who are converted while incarcerated? Can they become members of a church before they are released? If so, how do they participate in the sacraments?
Have any of you brothers who are pastors/elders had to navigate this kind of situation?
I’ve done chaplain work (volunteer, under a paid head chaplain) in a jail here, but I don’t have a lot of experience still.
We did not serve the Lord’s Supper, though there were some men I believed to be true believers. They also were not members of our church. I do not know if they were members anywhere else prior to or during their incarceration. I’m afraid that being in jail prevents many of the basics of church membership.
My gut reaction is that a man who was already a church member when he went to jail would quite possibly remain a member, but that a man who converted in jail would need to join a church after being released.
So if a man is converted while doing hard time in a maximum security prison, there is no way for him to participate in the sacraments until he is released? Even if he is doing 10, 15 or 20 years? Surely the Lord would have a way for him to participate in the means of grace?
I really think this would depend on the prison he is in. Would they allow the leadership of a local church and some of the members to constitute the church in the facility as a witness to his membership vows and as fellow participants in the Lord’s Supper? Maybe some facilities would, but only if they allow inmates to be in same space with visitors. If so, the Lord’s Supper could take place in same manner as when it is taken to shut-ins (not private, pastor administering, sub-set of the church gathered to participate too).
It seems to me that max security prisons would not allow such close contact.
I was unable to even bring paper into the county jail I went to, let alone the elements of the Lord’s Supper. But I’m sure this varies.
I suspect even the lowest security facility would have problems.
When I was the Youth Pastor at a non-denominational church in Tell City, Indiana we would go to Branchville Correctional facility which is a few miles up the road from the town I was in.
They allowed for some of the prison population to engage in a revival meeting we helped to conduct. They would allow baptisms but we never administered the Lords supper.
There is a church in Evansville that Live streams their service to the prison and I think they count it as one of their campus churches.
I and the Chaplain before me (also reformed, who was a member of PcA and CREC churches throughout his tenure) essentially established the policy that baptism and the Lord supper needed to wait until they were out of our care and under the care of a local church. In our current Jail system, religious needs are all “inmate driven“, And extremely Individualistically focused. We made an exception for Roman Catholics who requested the Eucharist, They could receive it individually from a local priest, and I was often thinking on how this would work for protestants. Unfortunately, the nature of our population, and the general state of much of the church that I hardly ever received a request for communion from somebody who was already part of a local church from a protestant. The combination of low ecclesiology and low importance placed on the sacraments means that many of the people I deal with had not been baptized or thought of membership in the church as important, and so in their hour of need, they don’t already have those established bonds. I have viewed the bulk of our ministry in the jail as evangelism/discipleship, but to a population in limbo, emphasizing the importance of the local church, discipleship, and the ordinances/sacraments, while preaching to a population that is temporarily cut off from them. It’s a real challenge, and I am sure we’ve made many mistakes, but I pray it bears fruit.
But that policy has often been challenged by inmates and officers who have very little concept of the importance of actually being grafted into the church.