Many Crossroads students have tremendous artistic gifts. We have showcased their talent in our Threads arts journal and in art shows that we hold across the country.
We now have another way to share prison art — through coloring pages. We have taken several of our favorite art pieces from Crossroads students and removed the color to create a coloring book for children (or the young at heart).
We hope that these coloring pages will be an opportunity to start a conversation with your children, grandchildren or kids in your Sunday school classes. Here are some talking points to begin the conversation with children about mass incarceration:
- Share with children that there are 2.2 million people in prison in the United States. Explain that many of these men and women made mistakes that led to them being incarcerated but that some of them are innocent.
- Share that there are 2.7 million children who have a mom or dad in prison. Consider having a conversation about how it would feel to be away from your parents.
- Tell your children that God loves us no matter what we have done. Share with them how Jesus spent time with those who were forgotten by society. Jesus said in Mark 2:17, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
- As Christians, we are called to love those who are lost and forgotten, like Jesus did. This includes people in prison. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”
CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE CROSSROADS COLORING BOOK PDF
