Beauty For Ashes Ministry

We just finished up an incredible visit from Ed Tandy McGlasson.  Over the past two days, we saw hundreds of lives impacted by Ed’s powerful message. 

On the first night of Ed’s visit, he took his message to the IFI cell house in the Maximum Security Unit at Lansing Prison.  This is the first time that Beauty for Ashes has put on a service in the IFI cell house.  As soon as the program started, the presence of the Holy Spirit was overwhelming.  Our stage was the bottom floor of the cell house.  Looking up and seeing three stories of cells was a powerful reminder of where we were.  As soon as Ed started his message on receiving a new name from our Heavenly father, you could hear a pin drop.  It’s been our experience that father issues cut deep and this night was no exception.

 Toward the end of the service, we had many men make a decision for Christ, no matter how many times we witness people coming to the Lord, it’s always powerful and always moving.  To end the evening, Ed asked how many men had not received their earthly father’s blessing and had not been called out into manhood?  At least two thirds of this large group of men stood up.  After they stood up, Ed gave them all the Father’s Blessing and called them into manhood.  It was so powerful to witness the Holy Spirit move through the cell house, by this time there were dozens of other men hanging over the railings of their cells, listening to Ed’s message and accepting the father’s blessing.  At this point, our team moved into the crowd and started praying for these newly anointed men in Christ.  What a powerful powerful night.

On the second night of Ed’s visit, he took his message to the general population of the East Unit at Lansing Prison, several hundred men attended.  Again, at the end of the night, Ed asked if there was anyone present who had not yet accepted Christ or who had claimed to be a Christian but felt that they were Christian “posers”, once again a group of men walked to the front of the hall and stood in front of Ed.  Ed led them through the salvation prayer, after which there were a whole lot of hugs and high fives, and a huge round of applause for the assembled group.  At the end of this night, Ed had all of the men who had not been called into manhood by their Earthly fathers to assemble at the back of the hall, on this night at least ninety percent of the men in the room gathered at the back of the hall.  He then had the remaining men form two lines at the center of the room, calling it the “Blessing Wall”.  Then after Ed gave the men the Father’s Blessing, each man filed past the Blessing Wall having each member of the Blessing Wall shake their hand and tell them “you are now a man of God”.  It was so overwhelming to see grown men, so called “hardened criminals” break down and cry after being called out.  It’s a night that we all felt privileged to be a part of.