In my role as a CFP, I’ve been introduced to some awesome people and organizations across the country and the world. Today’s guest, Pastor Chris Hoke, is one of those people. Chris is the co-founder of Underground Ministries, which serves to mobilize faith communities and businesses in the Pacific Northwest by connecting them to men and women being released from prison.
This movement takes faith organizations and connects them with an individual that’s being released from prison. It helps them build a network outside of the prison system, which can help them overcome the significant barriers to reentry into society. It brings churches back to the primary purpose: to serve as places of healing and personal resurrection.
In this episode of Upthinking Finance, Chris shares how he became a gang pastor, the challenges Underground Ministries faces, and how to approach charitable giving through a new lens.
Chris grew up in a home where he was in church three times a week. The only story that made sense to him was doing the “Jesus stuff.” Chris wound up in the PNW working with theologians among undocumented migrant workers picking cucumbers and strawberries in fields. He found himself engaging in theological study in a small jail.
There were young men Chris’s age who were funny, open about their anger, and asked brilliant questions. They just happened to be in prison. He’d talk until late into the night, interacting with men he’d never been exposed to in church. These men had lived through incredible abuse and unspeakable traumas.
But when they were released from prison, they’d end up in the streets, lost in homelessness, addiction, and gang violence. Or, they’d end up back in prison. That’s where Chris’s work began. He became their pastor. He knew that needed to find a way to help these men (and women) transition back into society.
America has a problem with mass incarceration, 8x as much as the second or third place incarceration per capita in the developed world. America embraces a culture of disposability. We don’t fix broken things, we throw them away. Chris points out that we treat humans like garbage. It's easier to throw away a broken person into the landfill system. Prisons are a human dumpster.
He shares that there are amazing human beings in prisons. “[Prison] is an incredible waste of humanity yet it's an incredible discovery of new friends and the magic of healing and the discovery that God is in the healing business.”
Chris often finds himself surprised when he speaks with people in churches or at conferences and they share their “giving philosophy” with him. It’s usually something like “We don’t like to create dependence so we only give in cycles once every few years.” Chris finds this appalling. It’s not how relationships work. It’s certainly not how good investing works.
If everyone gave...
