I enjoy NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. I listen as I’m getting for church, and today I was thrilled to get all the answers right to Will Shorts’ quiz. That doesn’t usually happen. But bragging is not what this blog is all about, so I’d better cut it short.

Today’s story about El Salvador’s high murder rate driven my gangs caught my attention. The Economist‘s Sarah Esther Maslin reported on how evangelical churches help gang members pull away from lives of crime. Listen to this short report.

The government has struggled for solutions with crack downs and negotiations, to no effect. Now evangelical churches are trying to help gang members who want to leave the crazy gang life.

So this movement that began as born-again Christians in prison asked for separate quarters to hold services has continued upon their release. They are taken in by the tiny evangelical churches that are widespread and growing in El Salvador.

Why is this working?

Sarah Esther Maslin: “The other thing they have going for them is the by-the-bootstraps emphasis on individual transformation.”

And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
2 Corinthians 3:18, MSG