Giving Gangsters Families

This excellent short film was produced by Fourth Line Films in conjunction with Christianity Today‘s Global Conversation project leading up to the third Lausanne Congress in Cape Town in late 2010. Here’s the blurb from the Fourth Line blog:

What happens when a generation of young men grow up without families? These are the stories of young gang members incarcerated in a Central American prison. They tell of their hunger for belonging, heartache at the church’s hostility, and hope that they can change and contribute to their communities.

In January I posted a video about a priest in San Salvador who ministers in a neighborhood with a lot of gang activity, which provides some more context on the situation facing so many in Central America’s urban centers. And last fall I shared some thoughts on Father Gregory Boyle’s work among gangsters in LA, as told in his bestseller Tattoos on the Heart.

Both of those priests and the pastor in this film show us the human side of gang members, who can so easily be dehumanized and, once they’re securely behind bars, forgotten. If anyone has any incentive to give these young men a new start and a healthy, life-giving place to belong and to seek the common good instead of destroying it, it seems to me it has to be the church.