The Journey to Successful and Sustainable Re-entry Begins Here
Men who have been imprisoned face tremendous challenges as they try to reintegrate back into society.
Returning citizens need advocates, guides, and encouraging re-entry coaches to walk alongside them upon release from prison and as they re-enter, transitioning to live out their faith in freedom.
CrossWalk Center bridges critical social services and ministry between prison life and freedom - Seamless Re-entry Discipleship from the Inside Out.
We offer hope and a future apart from broken prison life to whole-hearted intentional living as the unique individuals God originally created and intended them to be.
The Regional Realities of Re-entry. Every day, five days a week, 245 days a year, at around 2 pm, 50 or more of the 16,300 plus individuals released annually from Texas Department of Criminal Justice prisons, arrive by bus at Houston's Midtown bus terminal.
Isolated from society and our rapidly changing world for a number of years, most ex-offenders lack the basic knowledge of what to do after release. They do not know who to trust or who to turn to for help.
They do not know how to access, much less how to find and navigate, all the regional service providers and ministries that could assist and enable them to transition and reintegrate successfully back into Houston communities and neighborhoods.
Logistically, Houston is a challenging city for anyone to navigate. The city is not only initially overwhelming and frightening to get around in, but it can be nearly impossible because these men return to Houston with little or no money, no job prospects, and basically no means of financial support - just the $50 to $100 issued by the state upon release. It becomes more difficult when they have no identification, no means of transportation, and often no family willing to help them, nor a safe home.
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welcoming • serving • coaching • mentoring • giving hope for the future
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.
- Matthew 25:35-36
Words shape how we see people. So we choose ours carefully.
We do not say client. We say disciple, because the men and women who walk through our doors are not cases to be managed. They are people being transformed.
We do not say facility. We say discipleship home, because a house where somebody learns to live free should feel like a home.
We do not say ex-offender. We say returning citizen, brother, sister, neighbor.
You are not your crime. You are not your record. You are not your worst day. ...
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We are officially inviting you to skip our gala!
The Empty Chair No Show Gala is on Thursday, October 8, and there is nothing to attend. No ballroom, no plated dinner, no babysitter, no outfit to choose. Instead, we are asking you to send what a ticket would have cost straight to the work of seamless re-entry discipleship.
Here is why the chair. Every discipleship home at CrossWalk has a dinner table, and at that table there is always a seat waiting for someone who has not arrived yet. Your gift is what sets that place before they get here.
Skip the gala. Help pull out one more chair. It takes about a minute.
Text NOSHOW26 to 53-555 ...
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Most people meet CrossWalk Center at the end of the story. We start at the beginning.
We are a Houston re-entry discipleship ministry walking with men and women from inside prison walls all the way home. Our mission is Seamless Re-entry Discipleship from the Inside Out, and both halves of that phrase matter. We start inside the walls, long before release day. And we start inside the heart, where real change begins.
That is why we do not call the people we serve clients. We call them disciples. They are known by name here, not by number.
Learn more about the work at crosswalkcenter.org. ...
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Today, America celebrates freedom. Fireworks, flags, family, and the story of a nation set free.
At CrossWalk Center, we celebrate a freedom that runs even deeper. The men and women we walk alongside know what it means to live behind walls, and they know what it means to walk out of them. But the freedom that changes everything isn't the day the gate opens. It's the day the heart does.
"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
John 8:36
Release is a date. Freedom is a Person. That's why our disciples aren't just coming home. They're coming home free, walking into a fuller, greater, richer life, never returning to prison.
Happy Independence Day from all of us at CrossWalk Center. May you know the freedom that no chain, no record, and no past can take away. ...
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