A Pioneer in Ministering to Inmate Families: Mannie Craig

Manford "Mannie" Craig grew up in Maine and sensed a calling to become a missionary at age 16. He figured that meant service to a foreign country, because that's the only kind of missionary he heard about in the 1950s at Assemblies of God church services, prayer gatherings and camp meetings.

In Springfield, Missouri, in the mid-1960s, Craig graduated with a bachelor's degree in theology from Central Bible College and a master's degree in theology from Central Bible College Seminary. Upon the advice of Assemblies of God institutional chaplain representative Paul Markstrom, Craig served a year in a psychiatric clinical internship at Menninger Clinic in Kansas.

Craig began the customary route to missionary service at the time: serving for five years as a pastor. Craig pastored Assemblies of God churches in Missouri, Kansas and Vermont. During that era, in addition to being blessed with six children in nine years, Craig and his wife, Jeanette (Jeannie), provided a temporary shelter home for children from troubled backgrounds. Often in the middle of the night, a social worker or sheriff's deputy would knock on their front door. The couple took in kids who needed physical care, love and understanding. The temporary shelter they offered sometimes lasted for years.

At the age of 30, Craig was the youngest of 11 candidates and the only one not belonging to a mainline Protestant denomination to be interviewed for a federal prison chaplain post. Despite the more seasoned competition, Craig in 1971 became the first Assemblies of God chaplain in the federal prison system. At the time, just 22 chaplains served the entire federal prison service system.

After stints in Atlanta and Lewisburg, Pa., Craig came to the U.S. penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., in 1973. The following year, he became the supervising chaplain and began training interns for the chaplaincy. In addition to these duties, Craig was appointed the federal north-central regional chaplain and served both positions from 1980-89. From 1990-97, Craig served as the full-time chaplain at the Leavenworth honor camp (population 500) and administrator of the ever-enlarging Hallmark Cards project. Even though he officially retired in 1997, the Craigs still live in Leavenworth and for the past four decades, they have spent every Christmas Eve conducting a service at the camp.

Jeannie always ministered side by side with her husband. In addition to serving as Mannie's executive secretary, Jeannie helped with Sunday morning services at the camp, which often became family events, both for the Craigs and relatives visiting inmates. Jeannie conducted choirs and taught a children's sermon, spreading what she called "grandma's quilt" for kids to sit on and listen.

Herbie Harris, now chaplain at Ellsworth Correctional Facility in Kansas, remembers being impacted by seeing the entire Craig family worshipping together at the prison camp on Sunday mornings.

"A lot of inmates don't have good role models," says Harris, who served four years as an inmate at Leavenworth and as Craig's ministry clerk. "Mannie Craig was instrumental in shaping my thoughts and attitudes to one day become a chaplain."

Early on, Craig realized he had to be chaplain to everyone in prison, notes Alvin F. Worthley, who has been Assemblies of God Chaplaincy Ministries director since 2002.

"Mannie is an expert at ministering to both staff and inmates," says Worthley, who got his start under Craig's tutelage. "A chaplain really has to walk a tightrope and can't lean one way or the other."

"Mannie Craig taught me how to develop a relationship with an inmate so the inmate could trust me as his pastor," says Manuel Cordero, correctional ministries representative for the AG Chaplaincy Department. "He taught me how I could be the only friend an inmate might have in prison without compromising myself."

Worthley also credits Craig for knowing the climate of the institution by regularly stopping to chat, pray and look into the eyes of everyone from the warden to those in solitary confinement.

Bill Tracy, a diesel mechanic in Ashburn, Ga., who spent 16 years behind bars, credits Craig with keeping him from assaulting a prison guard who was harassing him. As he approached the pair, Craig quickly sized up the tense situation. Tracy says Craig could tell that he was about to erupt, but he calmed him down. Tracy has conducted lay prison ministry throughout the South since being released in 1981, all because Craig initially invited him to play his guitar at gospel services, where he began to grow in his Christian faith.

"Every time I needed something he always wanted to help," Tracy says. "I've seen lots of chaplains, but he is the best."

Craig had a compassionate quality of treating inmates as he would treat anyone else. He sensed their frustration being separated from their families.
"I don't know the hell they have been through," he says.

"He really loved inmates in an altruistic way," Worthley says. "He became their spiritual father. A lot of people really looked up to him."

"Mannie Craig is my friend, mentor and dad," says Cordero, who spent four years in the north-central region where Craig supervised him.

Before anyone else in rehabilitation circles thought of it, Craig devised ways to try to keep families close, even though prison walls separated them physically. He organized monthly marriage seminars in which wives were allowed to come to the camp. He performed wedding ceremonies for inmates and their girlfriends. He held baptismal services for husbands and wives, as well as dedication services for their babies.

"Wives and kids do time when the inmate does time," Craig says. 

In 1973, Craig went to Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Mo., 25 miles southwest of Leavenworth, to ask for donations of greeting cards that prisoners could send to loved ones as a way of nurturing family relationships. Hallmark agreed to donate new cards, not discontinued or damaged stock, for various occasions including Christmas, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. The project kept growing through the generosity of Hallmark, spreading to 700 federal, state, county and city institutions. Craig managed to oversee it for 24 years in addition to his other duties. At its peak, prisoners mailed 7 million cards worth up to $60 million annually. Each institution paid the postage to have the cards shipped to the correctional chaplains there. Distributing cards to inmates continues to be an opening for chaplains to minister to inmates who might not come to a structured chapel service. In order for the card ministry to continue upon his retirement, Craig trained Salvation Army personnel to succeed him in administering the relocated card ministry to Kansas City, Mo., from Leavenworth.

In 1975, the American Correctional Association named Craig as Chaplain of the Year in large part due to his innovative methods to keep families intact.

In 1981, the Bureau of Prisons hired Craig as a regional chaplain for nine states. His influence spread along with opportunities to mentor younger chaplains. As a regional chaplain based in Leavenworth, Craig trained other chaplains, even Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis. He recruited many evangelicals as interns, including Worthley, Cordero and Ricky O. Davis, representative for Assemblies of God institutional and occupational chaplaincies from 1986 until his 2001 death from complications following heart surgery.

"I had the joy to be Barnabas and encourage a lot of people into ministry," Craig says.

Through the years he also engaged in conversation with a wide range of famous people, from Jimmy Hoffa to Corrie ten Boom. Because of her burden for prison evangelism, ten Boom, in conjunction with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, invited Craig and several other chaplains to develop a manual for prison chaplains and volunteers. This association continues to provide educational opportunities for chaplains in Wheaton, Ill. Cordero and other Assemblies of God chaplains still serve as resource instructors for the program.

The Bureau of Prisons bestowed the Myrl E. Alexander Award upon Craig in 1989 for recognition of, on his own initiative, developing and administering the innovative Hallmark Card project that made a significant impact on inmate morale.

In 1991, Craig further facilitated strengthening familial bonds by developing a flower project at the Leavenworth camp. Inmates with sufficient funds could make arrangements with Teleflora to pay for delivery of flowers to wives.

During his career, Craig conducted various other outside-the-box ministry that illustrated the acceptance and respect that inmates had for him as chaplain. He took low-risk inmates on projects to build Habitat for Humanity houses. He helped defuse a riot by being a peacemaker between prison officials and inmates. Native Americans invited him to share in their sweat lodge ceremonies. Rabbis invited him to participate in Jewish religious observances. He saw it as part of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:22: "l have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."

"I had a firm assurance that the only thing to change lives is the power of Christ," Craig says.

Every Sunday night at the camp he invited different music group representing different worship styles and ethnicities to perform. He oversaw fellowship gatherings every night of the week, and warned the men that they wouldn't find such a close-knit Christian community on the outside.

"The inmates trusted me with their lives," Craig says. "Sometimes it took years, but many inmates committed their lives to Jesus."

The Craigs keep in touch with many former inmates and all are welcome to their residence for an annual "homecoming."

Craig continues to serve as a field representative as needed for Assemblies of God Chaplaincy Ministries. He laments that many innovative programs implemented in earlier years have fallen victim to budget cuts.

"Corrections have changed a great deal in recent years," Craig says. "There are much younger and more violent offenders. There are tighter lockdowns and longer lockdowns. This all makes getting good literature such as the Pentecostal Evangel into inmates' hands all the more important."

He also believes with fewer chaplains being hired, it's more vital that well-trained faithful, consistent evangelical volunteers - both on the inside during sentences and outside for aftercare - serve as good role models.

These days, those volunteers include Mannie and Jeannie Craig. A plaque Craig received in recognition of his regional work summarizes his life's ministry efforts: "A pastor to all people. A pastor to pastors. A servant of God."