Covenant News

Bill Watts Honored for Prison Ministries Service

CHICAGO, IL (May 14, 2003) - Bill Watts, pastor of Gospel Way Covenant Church on Chicago's south side, was recently honored during an open house at Moody Bible Institute to celebrate his retirement from Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM) in Chicago.

Watts has been the director of PFM's Northern Illinois and Northern Indiana region since 1989, overseeing volunteer teams for eight upstate prisons and 22 downstate prisons in Illinois. Considering that some 18,000 prisoners are released from those prisons annually, Watts has had a big job to do. However, he has seen in his own life that advocacy can make a difference.

During military service in Crete, Greece, Watts was wrongly accused of being a Communist by a superior officer and struggled with how to handle the situation. After praying about the matter, he wrote to a family friend, who knew a congressman. The congressman helped orchestrate an investigation into the matter and Watts was cleared of the charges and immediately sent to a base in the U.S.

Watts worked 10 years through Rev. Jesse Jackson's Operation Push, aiding chaplain development in prisons. He also made connections with Chuck Colson, who heads PFM. He began working regionally for the organization in 1989 and has put his knowledge to use to help many inmates.

"I used to go to prisons with Jesse and I knew then that, with so many African Americans in prison, the church had to have some kind of prison ministry operation," Watts said. For a long time, Watts made regular visits to the Dixon prison and watched prison chaplain Henry Bouma organize what was called a "church without walls." A bible study in the Dixon prison had as many as 41 attendees and the mentoring that occurred in Dixon stands as a model for Watts as he envisions ideal prison ministry. He also has a model ex-offender in his own congregation as Danny Franklin, who once was in prison, now serves as a key leader at Gospel Way Covenant. Franklin has directed many of his efforts to helping prisoners and their families - he has regularly driven to prisons in Pontiac and Dwight, Illinois, bringing family members (many of them children) to visit their mothers and fathers.

Prison Fellowship Ministries, based in Reston, Virginia, was founded by Colson in 1976 after the aide to former President Richard Nixon spent time in prison. Throughout more than 25 years of ministry, PFM has become the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, crime victims and their families. It has 50,000 ministry volunteers and (through Prison Fellowship International) has national chapters in 88 countries.

For more information on PFM, contact Tom Platt at the national office, 703-478-0100. The PFM web site is www.pfm.org.

Editor's note: Watts is not the only Covenanter who has made an impact through prison ministry. In the coming weeks, this online Covenant news report will highlight other individuals and church ministries in North America and beyond.

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