Family-Friendly WIBI Interviews Sara Groves
30. Dec, 2010 Categories: Concerts by Robyn Lyn 0 Comments
Family-Friendly WIBI & WCIC 91.5 and Hope Shows with Sara Groves
Family-Friendly Morning Show Hosts, Melody and Jeremiah, Interview Sara Groves About Hope Shows Prison Christmas Concert and FREE Live Recording of Event
Transcript from Thursday, December 23, 2010.
Listen to audio at www.melodyandjeremiah.com.
View photos from the event at http://www.hopeshows.com/nggallery/page-776/album-1/gallery-2/.
Jeremiah: You’ve got a brand new Christmas CD out that people can download and listen to … and WIBI, our friends with Hope Shows, Robyn Florian, and the women at the Lincoln (IL) correctional facility had a small role in this Christmas album being recorded.
Sara: Yes, a big role.
Jeremiah: I was hoping you’d be able to share a little bit about what that experience was like coming in to Illinois and doing a Christmas prison concert at a women’s prison.
Sara: We wouldn’t have gotten in there if it wasn’t for you guys and for Hope Shows. We did not do any of the heavy lifting. You guys cleared the way for us to go, and share our hearts, and do what we were already doing out on the road. I’ve done prison ministry with my grandparents, who have served in prison volunteer work for 40 years, and I’ve gotten through with a guitar before, or maybe a keyboard, but I’ve never gotten through with an entire tour. It was a special night.
You’re in there somewhere cheering, Jeremiah. I think you can hear yourself cheering in there somewhere.
Jeremiah: I thought I was imagining it when I listened to it, but if you think that’s me, I’ll own that. That’s awesome.
Sara: We were recording every night from that tour. We were actually intending to put together a live album of all the different nights from different cities, but when we listened to that recording – and you were there, you know it was a special night – Troy [Sara’s husband] just said, “I want everybody to hear this, this is really special.”
View photos from Sara Groves Concert @ LCC
We feel like the recording goes a long way to humanize these women in our prison population. The church is alive and well behind bars. There are, of course, women who are still bent on self destruction and self-destructive behaviors, but there are also women who are passionately serving Jesus … to get to minister to them is really cool. The Bible study group from the correctional center was in the back praying the whole time we were there as we were sharing.
It was just an incredible time to encourage the believers to share the Good News with those who hadn’t heard, and it came out in the recording, especially when we were lifting our voices together.
Jeremiah: First of all, to get your equipment in and out of the prison, everything had to be unpacked and inventoried and looked through – and when I say everything, I mean everything single thing had to be taken out – and they wouldn’t even let us get out of our vehicles at a certain point. We had to sit and wait through security, of course.
I was shocked, then, that you all were able to release the recording of this concert as a CD. How did that come together? How did that work out?
Volunteers from Neighbors to Nations Community Church, LCC Chapain, Cynthia Frontone, and Sara Groves
Sara: They [Lincoln Correctional Center and state prison staff] have been so gracious across the board. You just said it, but they bent over backwards. This was a lot of work for the warden, for the guards, for Hope Shows, and for the chaplain, Cynthia … it was just a lot of work for everybody, but I think that overall the message of the record is that these are women with hopes and dreams.
I hope this encourages other people to be a part of prison ministry and to think about the prisoner. We’ve had a lot of favor with this project, and I feel like God has been in it since the beginning.
On our Christmas tour, the theme of the night was that Jesus enters suffering that is not His own. We already had a family friend calling in from Chicago every single night of the tour who came to Christ through my grandparents’ prison ministry. He shared each night what it meant to have someone visit him in prison and to bring the Gospel to him at that time in his life.
So that was all in place before Robyn called us and said, “Would you bring this show into the prison?” She had no idea that this was the theme of our night, that this is what we were already talking about. It was such a neat experience … the whole thing felt like it was orchestrated from the beginning and we had a lot of favor and a lot of help from everybody at the prison.
Jeremiah: Sara, can I ask you to share the story you shared that night at the prison about your very first visit to a prison?
“We were a makeshift nativity that night, my mom, my dad and I.”
~ Sara
Sara: The man that called in each night to share, his name is John Thompson, and he was a new believer that year in 1972. It was his first Christmas as a Christian and my great grandma was reading the Christmas story. My grandparents were there, they were doing a special Christmas Eve service for about 200 men and, as John tells it, right on cue – right as Baby Jesus is born in the story – I started to cry at the back of the room (my mother had smuggled me in under her coat, which would not happen today ).
I was three months old, and John and I met first there. He shares the story every night [during the concert], and he loves to get to the part where he says, “And that baby was Sara Groves.” We were a makeshift nativity that night, my mom, my dad and I. John loves to tell that story, and he and my grandparents and I have kept in touch over these many years because of that story. We felt connected right from the beginning.
Melody: One of the things I love about this project is that prison ministry has been a part of your entire life, but I think for so many people that, although they feel led to do this, it feels a little intimidating. What would you say to someone who may feel led to be involved in prison ministry?
Visit "Present Hope for Prison Ministry" for a variety of opportunities to care for inmates, former inmates and their families.
Sara: It isn’t easy. You need to find the volunteer groups that are going in and you have to work with a lot of different systems, but it is so worthwhile. What I’ve done is such small fragment compared to what my grandparents did. They went inside for 40 years, two times a week, so faithfully. They made themselves a part of the everyday lives of the men across those years.
Prison ministry is so valuable. I think Jeremiah could testify to this too, but I talked to many women [at LCC] who were getting out in a really short amount of time. One woman was getting out that Friday. Most inmates are not in for life, they’re in for a time, and then they are our neighbors again. There’s such a desperate need for mentoring, and there’s such a desire for mentorship when they’re incarcerated.
“These are moms and sisters and daughters and people with a past and with a very real future.”
~ Melody
[At LCC] there was a church serving there, and one of the things they were doing was cake decorating classes so the [LCC] women could learn a trade. The church does different types of classes based on the women’s abilities in the church. These women are sharing out of their expertise, out of their gifts, and they were sharing these gifts with the [LCC] women, who probably didn’t have a lot of input from their mothers or another mentor. The dividends of this are just incredible.
I would encourage anyone considering prison ministry. It takes a little work to get into a volunteer program at a prison but your service will be so appreciated. I think, as always, when we go in with open hands to serve, God uses that.
Jeremiah: Please share with our listening family and friends how they can go about getting your CD. You can download the project for free and make a contribution toward future prison shows.
Sara: [The contributions] go to Hope Shows. When it says, “Tip the Artist,” any of that goes to Hope Shows. You can go to our website, www.saragroves.com and download the full record for FREE!
Melody: It’s definitely worth it, the music is incredible. … You can hear it in the recording, when you listen to the music, that is really is all of these women coming together for this incredible night of music. It’s so easy for us to go, “Oh, those are those people who are behind bars,” instead of realizing these are moms and sisters and daughters and people with a past and with a very real future.
Sara: … and hopes and dreams. You hear that when they’re singing, “Oh come let us adore Him.” It’s such a neat moment.
Jeremiah: It was so impactful at the end of the night, as they were orderly dismissing the women, we made it a point to thank every single one of the women who came personally. They just adored getting a hug or a handshake, and were genuinely appreciative, Sara, that you and your band came to do that concert. I’ll never forget it.
I know that you made an impact on their lives, something that God will be able to use for years to come. Thanks for doing it. Thank you for releasing the music so that people can hear it. And thanks for spending time with us today, it’s been awesome.
Sara: We wouldn’t have been able to do it without your station and the support of your listeners, so thank you all.
