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Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders – A Moving Memoir of Ministry, Redemption, and Life with Outcasts
Interweaving his own story with moving vignettes and gritty experiences in hidden places, a jail chaplain and minister to Mexican gang and migrant worker communities chronicles his spiritual journey to the margins of society and reveals a subversive God who’s on the loose beyond the walls of the church, pursuing those who are unwanted by the world. Wanted follows a restless young man from the sunny suburbs of his youth to the darker side of society in the rainy Northwest, where he finds the direct spiritual experience he’s been seeking while volunteering as a “night shift” chaplain at a men’s correctional facility. The jail becomes his portal to a mysterious world on the margins of society, where a growing network of Mexican gang members soon dub him their “pastor.” As he comes to terms with this uncomfortable title—and embraces the role of a shepherd of black sheep—his adventures truly begin. Hoke shares comic, heartbreaking and sublime tales of sacred moments in unlikely singing with an attempted-suicide in the jail’s isolation cell, dodging immigration and airport security with migrant farm workers, and fly-fishing with tattooed gangsters. Set against the misty Washington landscape, this unconventional congregation at times mirrors the Skagit Valley’s fleeting migratory swans and unseen salmon. But Hoke takes us with him into riskier terrain as he gains and loses friends to the prison system, and even faces his own despair—as well as belovedness—on the back of a motorcycle racing through Guatemalan slums. In these stories of “mystical portraiture,” like the old WANTED posters of outlaws, Hoke bears witness to an elusive Presence that is still alive and defiant of official custody. Such portraits offer a new vision of the forgotten souls who have been cast into society’s dumpsters, helping us see beneath even the hardest criminal a fragile desire to be wanted.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2015
18 people are currently reading
491 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 6, 2017
i have decided to be honest with myself and admit that i'm never going to review this, and then i can take it off my massive "review pending" shelf and feel that much less stress in my life. this isn't something i ever intended to read, but it was sort of pushed at me back when i was reading for the bn discover program and they needed more reads on it. it was fine, but i had read Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America pretty much right before this, and i felt that some of the events and attitudes depicted here were a bit irresponsible, after reading what was a much more academic and realistic book about crime, criminals, and the legal system in this country. i was planning to reread (or re-skim) the book and point to specific examples of this, but that has been the plan for THREE YEARS now, and i have very little interest in revisiting a book that i wasn't crazy about in the first place when there are 75 other reviews i need to get to in addition to all the nonbook stuff in my life. so, i'm calling it - time of acceptance: now.
February 8, 2016
Hard to know what to say about this one. Chris, my dear friend, takes the way and words of Jesus more seriously than anyone I know. He follows him into the darkest corners of our world – jails, solitary confinement wards, migrant camps, Central American slums. And he finds Jesus in the tattooed, scarred faces of homies just as hungry as Chris for a glimpse of the beloved. Over and over in this book, small gatherings of wounded young men erupt into laughter at a surprise banquet prepared before them – the grace of bread & wine appearing where the world has done its best to forbid them. These are beautiful stories, told with an undisguised love for particular corners of creation, and an even more acute love for people who discover, despite society’s desperate claims otherwise, that they are wanted, in the most wonderful sense.
January 6, 2018
Finished in 3 days. It's like a true crime drama meets Annie Dilliard.
August 23, 2015
*disclaimer on this review: Chris is a good friend of mine that I look up to, so this review will no doubt be biased. But that’s ok. It really IS a great book.*
I came across this line in a book I read recently: "I never found a club or clan or idea that was more important to me than the men and women who believed in it." And I see in Wanted, and in Chris in this book, a type of love for people that gets Chris to where he is - finding God, maybe, through the people. I think what most struck me about Wanted was how truly misleading the term 'jail chaplain' really is, at first, because I see Chris not so much starting his vocation as a way to help others, but to help himself, in a true way - he finds in these criminals not the surface scars and bad behaviors, but a vulnerability and openness that gives him life. He in turn gives life as well, but what really struck me was that concept of hanging out with the tax collectors and prostitutes, as it were, not so much to help them as to learn from them, as to get from them the connection and openness he was missing elsewhere.
Maybe it's a subtle shift, but for me a big one, to think about helping others not as helping others - maybe that comes later - but as, "I'll go where I find openness and life-giving relationships." I found that refreshing.
I loved: "Most men who come to our bible studies I can welcome as tragic extensions of my own hypothetical selves." and "Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places." The progression of searching for and finding oneself, and God, only in the places that create and with the people that exude openness and honesty, runs throughout Wanted.
Finally: "What I did know - and what I still know now - is that there was more going on than what I or anyone else could fully see. A banquet I had never imagined had broken into this padlocked dumpster. And it could be continuing still, deep in places I would never expect. What else could be happening that we will never hear of, nor see? 'We walk by faith, not by sight,' Neaners often said. 'That's us.'"
That last quote sums up so much of this book, and so much of Chris.
I came across this line in a book I read recently: "I never found a club or clan or idea that was more important to me than the men and women who believed in it." And I see in Wanted, and in Chris in this book, a type of love for people that gets Chris to where he is - finding God, maybe, through the people. I think what most struck me about Wanted was how truly misleading the term 'jail chaplain' really is, at first, because I see Chris not so much starting his vocation as a way to help others, but to help himself, in a true way - he finds in these criminals not the surface scars and bad behaviors, but a vulnerability and openness that gives him life. He in turn gives life as well, but what really struck me was that concept of hanging out with the tax collectors and prostitutes, as it were, not so much to help them as to learn from them, as to get from them the connection and openness he was missing elsewhere.
Maybe it's a subtle shift, but for me a big one, to think about helping others not as helping others - maybe that comes later - but as, "I'll go where I find openness and life-giving relationships." I found that refreshing.
I loved: "Most men who come to our bible studies I can welcome as tragic extensions of my own hypothetical selves." and "Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places." The progression of searching for and finding oneself, and God, only in the places that create and with the people that exude openness and honesty, runs throughout Wanted.
Finally: "What I did know - and what I still know now - is that there was more going on than what I or anyone else could fully see. A banquet I had never imagined had broken into this padlocked dumpster. And it could be continuing still, deep in places I would never expect. What else could be happening that we will never hear of, nor see? 'We walk by faith, not by sight,' Neaners often said. 'That's us.'"
That last quote sums up so much of this book, and so much of Chris.
December 24, 2016
There are some great things in this book. Hoke's ministry to people in prison, and his pastoring of those who've been in trouble with the law in a variety of ways is admirable, and shows the way in which Jesus works through lives that seem lost and hopeless.
It's also interesting to read about Hoke's own journey and how he's 'found his vocation', as it were, bit by bit over the years.
There are some extraordinary characters here too: people who've found Christ, or Christ's love shown through others, and who have come up from the garbage heap and turned their lives around. There are also people who were on the brink of doing this, and fell back into their old lives again, people whose lives ended abruptly.
So it's a real mix of hope and distress, pain and joy.
All that said, it's also rather hard going. At one point Hoke talks about his admiration for the book, A River Runs Through It and you almost get the impression that he's based his writing style on that reflective, slow-paced, nature-descriptive approach. He also takes things out of chronological order so that he can focus on different people at different times. For me this meant that I couldn't always line up where he was in his ministry, what he'd done by a certain point and what he hadn't.
There's no doubt that Hoke can write well, but sometimes you just want to get on with what he's got to say about someone and not spend a lot of time getting there.
Still, it's a great testament to the work of Christ in people's lives, most of whom in these stories, are Christians outside the normal church scene.
It's also interesting to read about Hoke's own journey and how he's 'found his vocation', as it were, bit by bit over the years.
There are some extraordinary characters here too: people who've found Christ, or Christ's love shown through others, and who have come up from the garbage heap and turned their lives around. There are also people who were on the brink of doing this, and fell back into their old lives again, people whose lives ended abruptly.
So it's a real mix of hope and distress, pain and joy.
All that said, it's also rather hard going. At one point Hoke talks about his admiration for the book, A River Runs Through It and you almost get the impression that he's based his writing style on that reflective, slow-paced, nature-descriptive approach. He also takes things out of chronological order so that he can focus on different people at different times. For me this meant that I couldn't always line up where he was in his ministry, what he'd done by a certain point and what he hadn't.
There's no doubt that Hoke can write well, but sometimes you just want to get on with what he's got to say about someone and not spend a lot of time getting there.
Still, it's a great testament to the work of Christ in people's lives, most of whom in these stories, are Christians outside the normal church scene.
April 24, 2017
I'm very glad I read this book. It is an important indictment of our incarceration system and of the way societies throw people away. I'm grateful for those like the author who love the outcasts no matter what and in all circumstances--a witness to a grace that will not be defeated.
February 15, 2016
Okay we're going to do this review.
I’m in Calculus right now and I’m crying.
I'm crying
In the middle of my CALC CLASS
Congratulations Chris Hoke, if that was your goal, you have fully accomplished it.
At least making me look doubly embarrassing in this dead silent post-quiz environment.
I am now going to spend the next half hour convincing you, whoever the reader of this review may be-or convincing perhaps empty space, that you should take every other book off the top of your to read list (besides of course the Bible and perhaps some of @cslewis' masterpieces) and replace it with
THIS
yes this. listen up, its the oddest most perfect compelling mix of people and God.
It's the most balanced chaotic cambrian explosion of grace and love and miracles (sans the disgusting cheesiness) but with all these subtle epiphanies on our culture war, legalism, the lost, and how we see people.
Yes you, and me.
He's 26. In jail for attempted murder, four counts of drug abuse, maybe even dealing. Illegal immigrant perhaps.
Who do we see that as?
A number. The ill of this country. The cause of all our problems, enabler of our children's drug addiction, challenger of our city's safety.
Tell me. Do we ever, ever see criminals as human? Does society? We mass incarcerate so many people. As if the minute they go behind jail they're no longer deserving of love or respect. They've voided their humanity.
*inserting a segment solely for believers*
Humans are all fallen correct.
We are all similar. What if we were in that situation. Raised in a broken household, factor in abuse, misery, betrayal, being hated, being tazered on the ground while multiple officers stood around you like you were a dog. Factor in a lifetime of running from the government, self worth based on power and violent strength, everyone you know in the drug dealing business.
What kind of recipe is this but one for people to end up in prison.
But stories don't end halfway, and certainly certainly not the ones God writes.
I kinda want to brush off every review I've ever written of prose. There's no power in flowery words that don't say anything. The combination of a story this size and a prose this profound practically married into
i don't know
apocalyptic standards.
If Jesus were our contemporary, somewhere out there, among us, where would we find him? And if we found him, would we join him or be offended by him?
And the greatest thing about having Hoke writing this book, that it's a sort of autobiography that's not about him. It's about God's stories, but the voice is so real because the perspective comes from Hoke's perspective. And its in these places, in the jails, among the convicts. That's where the story starts so much larger than anything we can imagine. Grace is larger when the pain is greater.
And then you wonder what's missing in our churches, in our sermons when you hear convicts say things like
How they look at us. They don't see what's happening out here and I"m talking about the church, too. I don't wanna be too hard on the church, but so much of the help or love they give comes with conditions. Like pastors who are supporting the auto detailing shop are asking me: If guys gonna work with me, they're gonna have to come to church with us, too right? Ramon sounded impatient, "For me, it's not about who comes to church. It's being-what's the word?-transformed. And who's there to see it."
Quoting Hoke
Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places-not places where you could show the worst side of yourself. But I found the jail to be a place where inmates didn't have the option to hide their problems. Hard as one may try with weak laughter or macho fronts, you can't pretend your life is working out for you when you're locked in the county jail.
And in this place, in these rooms of unadorned life, I found something that clergy call sacrament, mysteries I could feel.
if I could, I'd copy as many passages and stories into this tiny space bar as I could. Shove them all at you, or the space of whoever's casually past this.
Have Chris tell you of Richard, and Jenkins, and Pipe, Donacio, Neaner,
they never end. There's so many. And it's weird how the way he writes it, I think of these people as real people.
Oh on an entirely different side note, finding these people on twitter is like running my face into a wall. There's pictures of them, pulling names out of a surreal literary world. Into reality. This. Is. Actually. Real
I really wish I could meet someone like Chris Hoke, but in reality.
Pause
Hit the rewind
I already have. It's Christ, and that was the whole total purpose of this autobiography.
So I have no idea what I just said
Kudos to me
Hi Mr. Hoke, wow to you too
but damn, this cambrian explosion of God's grace utterly destroys anything I have ever known.
I’m in Calculus right now and I’m crying.
I'm crying
In the middle of my CALC CLASS
Congratulations Chris Hoke, if that was your goal, you have fully accomplished it.
At least making me look doubly embarrassing in this dead silent post-quiz environment.
I am now going to spend the next half hour convincing you, whoever the reader of this review may be-or convincing perhaps empty space, that you should take every other book off the top of your to read list (besides of course the Bible and perhaps some of @cslewis' masterpieces) and replace it with
THIS
yes this. listen up, its the oddest most perfect compelling mix of people and God.
It's the most balanced chaotic cambrian explosion of grace and love and miracles (sans the disgusting cheesiness) but with all these subtle epiphanies on our culture war, legalism, the lost, and how we see people.
Yes you, and me.
He's 26. In jail for attempted murder, four counts of drug abuse, maybe even dealing. Illegal immigrant perhaps.
Who do we see that as?
A number. The ill of this country. The cause of all our problems, enabler of our children's drug addiction, challenger of our city's safety.
Tell me. Do we ever, ever see criminals as human? Does society? We mass incarcerate so many people. As if the minute they go behind jail they're no longer deserving of love or respect. They've voided their humanity.
*inserting a segment solely for believers*
Humans are all fallen correct.
We are all similar. What if we were in that situation. Raised in a broken household, factor in abuse, misery, betrayal, being hated, being tazered on the ground while multiple officers stood around you like you were a dog. Factor in a lifetime of running from the government, self worth based on power and violent strength, everyone you know in the drug dealing business.
What kind of recipe is this but one for people to end up in prison.
But stories don't end halfway, and certainly certainly not the ones God writes.
I kinda want to brush off every review I've ever written of prose. There's no power in flowery words that don't say anything. The combination of a story this size and a prose this profound practically married into
i don't know
apocalyptic standards.
If Jesus were our contemporary, somewhere out there, among us, where would we find him? And if we found him, would we join him or be offended by him?
And the greatest thing about having Hoke writing this book, that it's a sort of autobiography that's not about him. It's about God's stories, but the voice is so real because the perspective comes from Hoke's perspective. And its in these places, in the jails, among the convicts. That's where the story starts so much larger than anything we can imagine. Grace is larger when the pain is greater.
And then you wonder what's missing in our churches, in our sermons when you hear convicts say things like
How they look at us. They don't see what's happening out here and I"m talking about the church, too. I don't wanna be too hard on the church, but so much of the help or love they give comes with conditions. Like pastors who are supporting the auto detailing shop are asking me: If guys gonna work with me, they're gonna have to come to church with us, too right? Ramon sounded impatient, "For me, it's not about who comes to church. It's being-what's the word?-transformed. And who's there to see it."
Quoting Hoke
Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places-not places where you could show the worst side of yourself. But I found the jail to be a place where inmates didn't have the option to hide their problems. Hard as one may try with weak laughter or macho fronts, you can't pretend your life is working out for you when you're locked in the county jail.
And in this place, in these rooms of unadorned life, I found something that clergy call sacrament, mysteries I could feel.
if I could, I'd copy as many passages and stories into this tiny space bar as I could. Shove them all at you, or the space of whoever's casually past this.
Have Chris tell you of Richard, and Jenkins, and Pipe, Donacio, Neaner,
they never end. There's so many. And it's weird how the way he writes it, I think of these people as real people.
Oh on an entirely different side note, finding these people on twitter is like running my face into a wall. There's pictures of them, pulling names out of a surreal literary world. Into reality. This. Is. Actually. Real
I really wish I could meet someone like Chris Hoke, but in reality.
Pause
Hit the rewind
I already have. It's Christ, and that was the whole total purpose of this autobiography.
So I have no idea what I just said
Kudos to me
Hi Mr. Hoke, wow to you too
but damn, this cambrian explosion of God's grace utterly destroys anything I have ever known.
March 23, 2018
Ever since I heard Chris Hoke on Snap Judgment I was hoping and hoping he would put a book out because that podcast moved me deeply.
I loved this book and the way he shares the stories of the way the people he is serving teach him. The stories and writing are so real and beautiful. I grateful for people like Bob Ekblad and Chris that are sharing their stories and reaching the people society wants to throw away, following Jesus into the places the rest of us avoid and showing us how to love and SEE people.
I loved this book and the way he shares the stories of the way the people he is serving teach him. The stories and writing are so real and beautiful. I grateful for people like Bob Ekblad and Chris that are sharing their stories and reaching the people society wants to throw away, following Jesus into the places the rest of us avoid and showing us how to love and SEE people.
August 6, 2016
Phenomenal. Hoke writes beautifully about his experiences as a night-shift chaplain at a men's correctional facility. The emotional range of these stories is breathtaking -- I was crying one minute, guffawing the next, jittering with my heart-pounding in suspense another, sitting silent in numb disbelief the next. You get the idea. Go ahead and put this one at the top of your to-read list. Both the stories themselves and the graceful prose through which they are told are stunning.
February 19, 2017
Because of his willingness to tell hard truths about himself and his subjects, Chris Hoke's portraits of the men he has learned from and loved during his prison ministry transcends the syrupy, feel-good triumphalism so common in memoirs about ministry. Hoke is able to provide damning illustrations of the dehumanizing effects of prison policies--and even prison itself--without valorizing the men in those prisons or the officers working in those prisons. While set in dark places, the book does not wallow in the darkness but illuminates the world with brilliant flashes of grace.
June 23, 2017
I wanted to hate this book. To be cynical and antagonistic to the cheesy, bible thumping, over reaching story that had to be between the covers, but I couldn't. Regardless of what religion you believe in (if any at all), this story is about empathy and connection and finding the things that we all have in common as human beings with hearts and brains.
August 29, 2018
I appreciate what Hoke is doing (and maybe even moreso, the evocative way he writes about it). I kept having this sneaking suspicion that Hoke was willing to kick doctrine (or at least dogma) to the curb, in order to emphasize a certain kind of approach to life. I recognize that response could be more about me than him. I love the approach, but I need the dogma, too.
July 9, 2021
Set in the Skagit Valley, where I grew up, I was swept up into a world I didn't know existed. This book takes you on the author's journey of following one's faith, learning what it is to be faithful to God and how that translates into actions. It is compelling, inspiring, honest. I couldn't put it down.
November 28, 2017
Kale for the soul
If you struggle with doubt as I do, this book will fortify your soul. Chris Hoke tells the terrifying truth in both its pain and joy. It's exactly what we humans need to nourish faith.
If you struggle with doubt as I do, this book will fortify your soul. Chris Hoke tells the terrifying truth in both its pain and joy. It's exactly what we humans need to nourish faith.
April 10, 2018
Very eye-opening and shows the extent of spiritual warfare and the compassion of those called to minister .
June 1, 2018
Just a gem.
June 22, 2016
"The love of God is greater far than any tongue could ever tell…." When I was a kid I heard this opening line to a song sung at church enough times for me to remember it over 50 years later. At the time these words didn’t mean much to me; they were just random words in a random song. Strangely, though, those are the words that come to mind when I think about this book. And this time they’re not just random words; they express a deep and profound truth that is life-changing.
Chris Hoke writes about people and experiences most of us could never dream of. This is not a sweet story of a nice guy who tried to save the world and the interesting folks he met along the way. Nor is it a theological treatise that uses ‘lessons learned’ to prove something. It’s not even a manual to use to convince others to follow Christ. I’m not even sure how I can characterize it, or if I should even try.
What I do know is that is sparked a change in me, the same kind of spark of change I felt when I learned a dear cousin had stage IV cancer. All the petty minutiae of everyday life fell away; this anxiety was no longer important; that grudge was discarded; I couldn’t remember why I longed for a particular item that yesterday seemed so valuable. I felt spiritual hunger in a way I hadn’t for a while. God seemed very close.
Having said that, I have to assume this book is not something everyone would have the same feelings about. Sometimes it felt disjointed, and I couldn’t keep track of where I was in time or who I was reading about. There is ‘adult’ language throughout. Horrible things happen to people, and there are few happy endings. In fact, if the definition of comedy is that it ends in a wedding and the definition of a tragedy is that it ends in a funeral, this would be considered a tragedy. But I can’t confine this book to those definitions. To me, it transcends them and opens up something that goes beyond tragedy to something I want to explore more deeply. I hope you try this book and find something new and deep and important that will enrich your life.
Chris Hoke writes about people and experiences most of us could never dream of. This is not a sweet story of a nice guy who tried to save the world and the interesting folks he met along the way. Nor is it a theological treatise that uses ‘lessons learned’ to prove something. It’s not even a manual to use to convince others to follow Christ. I’m not even sure how I can characterize it, or if I should even try.
What I do know is that is sparked a change in me, the same kind of spark of change I felt when I learned a dear cousin had stage IV cancer. All the petty minutiae of everyday life fell away; this anxiety was no longer important; that grudge was discarded; I couldn’t remember why I longed for a particular item that yesterday seemed so valuable. I felt spiritual hunger in a way I hadn’t for a while. God seemed very close.
Having said that, I have to assume this book is not something everyone would have the same feelings about. Sometimes it felt disjointed, and I couldn’t keep track of where I was in time or who I was reading about. There is ‘adult’ language throughout. Horrible things happen to people, and there are few happy endings. In fact, if the definition of comedy is that it ends in a wedding and the definition of a tragedy is that it ends in a funeral, this would be considered a tragedy. But I can’t confine this book to those definitions. To me, it transcends them and opens up something that goes beyond tragedy to something I want to explore more deeply. I hope you try this book and find something new and deep and important that will enrich your life.
March 4, 2015
Dark and yet hope-filled, this book carries you along on the journey of a young pastor through gangs, prisons, and illegal immigrants. These are desperate people. But these are the people–like the huckster tax collector Matthew in the Bible–that Jesus made a point of befriending.
It’s an emotional and frightening journey. Chris at first felt uncomfortable with the title of Pastor, but that’s what his outcast acquaintances insisted on calling him. Pastor means “shepherd” … in this case, a shepherd to the black sheep. It’s where Chris seemed to belong:
“Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places–not places where you could show the worst side of yourself. But I found the jail to be a place where inmates didn’t have the option to hide their problems. Hard as one may try with weak laughter or macho fronts before guards, you can’t pretend your life is working out just fine when you’re locked in the county jail. Here, people are left staring–innocent or guilty of the specific charges–at the wreck of their lives. And in this place, in these rooms of unadorned life, I found something that clergy call sacrament, mysteries I could feel. More than bible studies, the one-on-one visits with the men were the sites of holy encounters for me.”
The fellowship in prison grew, and Chris’s faith grew alongside it.
“I felt like I was falling deeper in love as all this happened. It wasn’t just with these broken lives at the table with me. It was love for the One through whose eyes I was possibly learning to see. I began to suspect I was sensing the desire of Another–God’s desire for the locked-up.”
Raw and real, this is a book you don’t want to miss if you’re serious about being a Christian. I hope to provide a few excerpts from the book in future posts.
Harper One, © 2015, 367 pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-232136-7
It’s an emotional and frightening journey. Chris at first felt uncomfortable with the title of Pastor, but that’s what his outcast acquaintances insisted on calling him. Pastor means “shepherd” … in this case, a shepherd to the black sheep. It’s where Chris seemed to belong:
“Growing up in many churches, I never found them to be raw or extremely honest places–not places where you could show the worst side of yourself. But I found the jail to be a place where inmates didn’t have the option to hide their problems. Hard as one may try with weak laughter or macho fronts before guards, you can’t pretend your life is working out just fine when you’re locked in the county jail. Here, people are left staring–innocent or guilty of the specific charges–at the wreck of their lives. And in this place, in these rooms of unadorned life, I found something that clergy call sacrament, mysteries I could feel. More than bible studies, the one-on-one visits with the men were the sites of holy encounters for me.”
The fellowship in prison grew, and Chris’s faith grew alongside it.
“I felt like I was falling deeper in love as all this happened. It wasn’t just with these broken lives at the table with me. It was love for the One through whose eyes I was possibly learning to see. I began to suspect I was sensing the desire of Another–God’s desire for the locked-up.”
Raw and real, this is a book you don’t want to miss if you’re serious about being a Christian. I hope to provide a few excerpts from the book in future posts.
Harper One, © 2015, 367 pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-232136-7
June 12, 2015
Murderers. Drug addicts. Gang leaders. Thieves. The troubled men in this memoir by Chris Hoke, a gang pastor and jail chaplain, are known to society by these dark labels. To Hoke, however, these “men starved for kindness and care” are so much more than their criminal actions or statuses; they are his unconventional congregants and his true friends.
WANTED: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders traces Hoke’s first years of visiting with, praying with, and listening to the hunted “outlaws” and convicted criminals of Skagit Valley, Wash. They have been caught up in the fiercest cycles of violence, abandonment, and shame. They are deeply wounded—but they are deeply funny too, and even tender. They curse excitedly while hearing Christ’s parables, weep openly during prayer, and make communion elements out of candy while in solitary confinement. Their histories are painful and their spiritual journeys cannot be tidily mapped—which is exactly why their stories are so real and powerful and so evocative of the gospel.
As Hoke builds relationships of trust and love with these “tormented souls,” he celebrates their capacity to flourish as creative, uniquely gifted beloveds of God. This ministry beyond the church pew and into the prison cell is hard and often heartbreaking. Yet Hoke writes with immense gratitude and a ceaseless eagerness to see how God will continue to defy the lines we often wrongly draw between shadowed places and hallowed space. The stories in this daring and gracefully written book will stay with you as radiant evidence of a profoundly merciful Father who is always ready to answer his children’s yearnings “to be fully known and loved” (Banner review: wp.me/p12w21-Df )
WANTED: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders traces Hoke’s first years of visiting with, praying with, and listening to the hunted “outlaws” and convicted criminals of Skagit Valley, Wash. They have been caught up in the fiercest cycles of violence, abandonment, and shame. They are deeply wounded—but they are deeply funny too, and even tender. They curse excitedly while hearing Christ’s parables, weep openly during prayer, and make communion elements out of candy while in solitary confinement. Their histories are painful and their spiritual journeys cannot be tidily mapped—which is exactly why their stories are so real and powerful and so evocative of the gospel.
As Hoke builds relationships of trust and love with these “tormented souls,” he celebrates their capacity to flourish as creative, uniquely gifted beloveds of God. This ministry beyond the church pew and into the prison cell is hard and often heartbreaking. Yet Hoke writes with immense gratitude and a ceaseless eagerness to see how God will continue to defy the lines we often wrongly draw between shadowed places and hallowed space. The stories in this daring and gracefully written book will stay with you as radiant evidence of a profoundly merciful Father who is always ready to answer his children’s yearnings “to be fully known and loved” (Banner review: wp.me/p12w21-Df )
April 4, 2016
Powerful and moving stories of Chris Hoke's journey of the spirit that takes him to the prisons and the inner cities to work and pray with criminals. The individual stories are heart-wrenching and page-turning. I yearned for the redemption of these men who appeared to be letting their hard hearts crack a little. It was painful to read about the crushing penitentiary system and how it destroys the souls who arrive there. It takes a special person to enter through those clanging doors to pray with prisoners, and then to write about it. Chris Hoke has a knife-like vision and is not afraid to be brutally honest and courageous as he opens his own heart to readers -- I could feel his own suffering as he struggles to understand and listen and feel compassion toward the almost-lost in our society.
Hoke is also a heck-of-a-good writer! I appreciated his picture of Skagit County. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I've seen the pastoral area around Mount Vernon as a quiet, beautiful, tulip-blooming oasis. I'm aware of the migrants arrive each spring/summer to work the fields there, but Hoke's portrait of the region woke me up to the plight of those who pick the luscious local berries.
This book should be required reading for anyone going into prison ministry and those shocked at recently overturned convictions due to new evidence (like DNA evidence, for instance), as well as those concerned about people serving life sentences for "small" offenses due to the three-strikes-you're-out rules.
Hoke is also a heck-of-a-good writer! I appreciated his picture of Skagit County. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I've seen the pastoral area around Mount Vernon as a quiet, beautiful, tulip-blooming oasis. I'm aware of the migrants arrive each spring/summer to work the fields there, but Hoke's portrait of the region woke me up to the plight of those who pick the luscious local berries.
This book should be required reading for anyone going into prison ministry and those shocked at recently overturned convictions due to new evidence (like DNA evidence, for instance), as well as those concerned about people serving life sentences for "small" offenses due to the three-strikes-you're-out rules.
February 3, 2015
Fr. Greg Boyle calls this a book of "exquisite mutuality"--and I couldn't agree more. Chris Hoke tells stories of his life as a prison chaplain with Latino gangsters in the pacific NW. Raised in a Christian home like myself, he is electrified to discover what happens to his own faith as he starts to pray and read the Bible with those at the bottom of the totem pole in America. He slowly starts to orient his entire life to pursuing these flashes of a very good God, one who speaks affirmations to schizophrenics, who heals murderers, who blesses and loves people seemingly beyond repair. When he talks about this God, as revealed through Christ Jesus, something within my soul leaps up. There is it. That's the God I have been slowly changing my life around to pursue as well. And any tiny little glimpse I get, every flash of gold in my gray world, cracks my heart open a little more. I can't recommend this book enough!
August 20, 2016
Fascinating story about yet more injustices meted out to people of color. Chris was living & working mostly in the state of Washington & writes beautifully about his observations of the birds, land, waterways, etc. A big learning for me in this book is about what happens to immigrants that are transported to Mexico and dropped off over the border in an area where they have no people to help them and nothing to sustain their lives. They are picked up by the drug cartels and made their slaves. If they refuse, they are at risk of death from lack of food & water, or simply wasted by the cartels. We in the U.S. regard these as disposable bodes, as do the cartels.
September 4, 2015
When we interact primarily with people who are very much like us we can sometimes begin to think that our way of encountering the gospel and our ways of expressing faith are standard for most everyone. Then you read this account of a man who brings the presence of Christ and the words of Christ inside prisons and into the lives of gang members. The language is not for sensitive ears but it is honest and refreshing and underscores how Jesus shows up everywhere in ways that are real and transforming to anyone. It was an inspiring read.
December 28, 2016
Hoke is a skilled and poignant storyteller, and he has beautiful stories to tell. This is not a book about a brave privileged pastor bringing Jesus to poor prisoners. Instead, it's the tale of an empty guy who discovers Jesus amongst immigrants, gang bangers, and prisoners and comes most alive when he's with them. Reading this book moved me like few have. I want to go find Jesus in loving people as well....
May 5, 2021
Such a beautifully written book. Chris has such a deeply emotional way of describing the people he walks with that makes you love them too. He brings humanity to people who are cast aside and forgotten and draws you into deep emotional investment of the people in these narratives. Blessed to know Chris and many of the people in this book and be a part of the Kingdom bringing work.
July 12, 2016
A wonderful inside look at the ministry of jail chaplains and those they minister too. It makes me grateful for those like our own jail chaplain Cory Martin. He serves as pastor of our counties 4th largest congregation. If you think about it, pray for your local jail chaplain, and those they minister too every day.
March 18, 2016
Hoke is a prison chaplain who outlines some of his ministry over the years. Interesting stories of reform and renewal and also heart breaking stories. Hoke works hard to explain how prisoners come to this place in their lives and also to explain the corruption of the prison system both in the USA and in other countries, especially amongst migrant workers.
September 16, 2015
While I initially bought the book because I know the author, I found myself laughing out loud at points, with tears creating a barrier between me and the words on the page at other points, and a yearning to tune my own antenna to the "spiritual frequencies." Very well done.
February 27, 2015
This collection of theological memoir vignettes really starts to pick up steam and pathos about halfway through and continues strong to the finish line. An excellent addition to the growing literature that has emerged out of the phenomenal Tierra Nueva ministry in Washington state.
January 6, 2016
Very inspirational way to look at sharing your faith to the marginalized part of our society. Very Inspiring and thought-provoking. I could not put it down.
I am actually planning a trip to meet the author to see how I can support his ministry.
I am actually planning a trip to meet the author to see how I can support his ministry.
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