6 April 2020
Greater Than Gold Blog
By Andrea Lucado
“If it’s your calling, you won’t be able to get away from it. I live it, eat it, breathe it, dream it.” This is how Dr. Karen Pelizzari describes her calling to bring the Gospel to every inmate in every prison in the United States. It may seem like a lofty goal, but she’s already closer than you might think.
Several years ago, Karen had a desire to attend Bible college, but as a single mom, resources were limited. She started studying on her own, working her way through the Greater Than Gold Bible studies, at the time titled The Christian Worker Bible Study Series.
In 2001, a minister invited her to visit Gatesville Correctional Facility near her home in Temple, Texas, to minister to some of the prisoners. Karen showed up, but the minister never did.
“I was terrified,” she recalls. There she was, alone, in a room full of female inmates. “So I just started giving my testimony, and people started to weep, and it just hooked my heart right then.”
Karen began going to Gatesville on a weekly basis. She led Bible study classes using the Greater Than Gold curriculum, initially to about 30 students.
Seeing their hunger for the Word, as well as seeing how little hope inmates have once they’re released from prison—unable to get jobs because of their records—Karen began developing an education program through the Bible studies she was teaching. This program grew into what is now Agape Bible College, an accredited college that offers varying levels of educational certificates, as well as associates and bachelors degrees in biblical studies.
As of this month, she has 1,600 inmates in prisons across the country and around the world enrolled in Agape Bible College.
“It has just continued multiplying and multiplying and multiplying,” says Karen, who now co-ministers with her husband, Dr. John Pelizzari.
Karen doesn’t take any credit for her 30-student Bible class growing into a fully accredited Bible college.
“It’s just God doing it,” she says. “He’s the one that lights the fire. He’s the one that encourages them, but I think that certificate says to them, ‘I’m going to have a degree. I’m going to prove to my family and to the world I am not a piece of trash.’”
This is, Karen says, often what the inmates have to come to believe about themselves—that they’re worthless. The studies teach them otherwise and give them hope.
“They need that little bit of hope,” says Karen, “and energy to know that God is for them and he’s not angry with them, that he’s not going to cast them out.”
The success stories coming from Agape are numerous. Karen knows of one particular inmate who was released from prison a year ago and because she had a degree in biblical studies, a nonprofit organization hired her. She then worked her way up to being an executive administrative assistant and now holds a job in city government.
“God has shown himself off with everybody through all of this, and I think he’s proven that he’s still around, that he’s still good,” says Karen.
Even though she’s been doing this work for 16 years, she and John have no plans of slowing down anytime soon. In November, a group of federal government officials are going to review Agape Bible College to see if they can get the program initiated into every prison in the United States. In the meantime, Karen and John have taken Agape Bible College worldwide, with programs now up and running in prisons in Kenya and India.
“I think the greatest thing that’s going happen in these last days is the prison system is going to have a revival,” says Karen. With the way her ministry and work have spread, perhaps that revival is already happening.
We’re honored to partner with Drs. Karen and John Pelizzari through Agape Bible College. If you want to learn more about their work, visit the Agape Bible College website here and the Pelizzaris’ church and ministry site here.
If you work in prison ministry, Greater Than Gold would love to support your efforts. Contact us here for more information about our Redemption Edition Partnerships. If you have been moved by what you’ve read, consider donating to Greater Than Gold’s Redemption partners here, and note that it’s in honor of our Redemption Program or a specific ministry. Of course, prayers are also always needed for those called to work in our nation’s prisons, and for those to whom they minister.