The church is ready for this cultural moment. We just need to live in a manner worthy of our calling.

THE FAMILY IS THEOLOGICAL

In the beginning, God created human beings in his own image. Not just individually. Collectively. Father, mother, child as distinct persons, as one cohesive entity: the family. A living reflection of a God who exists in eternal relationship as three persons in one.

The family is not a cultural institution. It is a theological one. And when the family fractures, it obscures the image of God in the world.

The church, of all institutions, should feel that. Not as a social problem. As a theological rupture.

THE REALITY NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

According to USA Today, nearly one in two Americans has had an immediate family member spend time behind bars. Not one in twenty. Not one in ten. One in two.

That is your congregation. That is my congregation. That is every congregation.

These families, these temporary widows and orphans of incarceration, sit in your pews every Sunday without raising their hand. They are not asking for help. They are waiting for someone to notice.

In his book Restoring All Things, John Stonestreet, President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, asks four questions that we should ask ourselves as we seek to engage the culture.

• What is good in our culture that we can promote, protect, and celebrate?

• What is missing that we can creatively contribute?

• What is evil that we can stop?

• And what is broken that we can restore?

Pam and I are not able to read that last one without feeling the weight of it: What is broken in our culture that we can restore?

Incarcerated families, these temporary widows and orphans, are broken. Their care structures are broken. Their support systems are broken. Their communities are broken. Their dignity as created image-bearers of God desperately longs for restoration. And the church is the only institution on earth with both the mandate and the resources to do something about it.

WHAT WE ARE DOING

From 2012 to 2016, I was incarcerated. During that time, the church showed up for Pam and our family in ways neither of us could have imagined. A neighbor started washing Pam's car on Saturday mornings because he was already washing his own. A dear friend handled every tax filing for years and stopped charging us. Someone booked hotel rooms with their points so Pam didn't have to sleep somewhere terrible on visitation weekend.

When I came home, Pam and I kept saying the same thing: we had an exceptional support structure. That should not be the exception. That’s what inspired us to start Qavah Ministries.

Qavah (קָוָה) is one of 25 Hebrew words for wait. It means to wait actively with anticipation, hopefully watching for God to act. It is sometimes translated as hope, look for, trust, or expect. Literally, it means to collect or bind together.

Today, Qavah Ministries does two things. We walk directly with families affected by incarceration, the temporary widows and orphans waiting for someone to come home. And we speak to churches, because one conversation about the families already in their community tends to change how they see everything.

Our vision is not complicated. We want to preserve what incarceration threatens to destroy. We want to equip the church to care for these families so faithfully, so practically, so personally, that when a father walks back through the door, there is still a home to walk into, to a family waiting expectantly for him to arrive.

That is restoration. That is the fourth chapter of God’s story about humanity.

That is what the Kingdom of God looks like when there is hope in the waiting.