What does it look like to follow God’s calling when the path ahead is not clear? In this special father-daughter takeover, Grace Church Teaching Pastor Matt Williams and JUMPSTART South Carolina intern Causey Williams explore calling, criminal justice, and the church’s responsibility to care for people who are often overlooked. Through personal stories and the message of Matthew 25, they challenge listeners to believe in the transforming power of the gospel and recognize that no person is beyond restoration.
What if the people society pushes to the margins are the very people Jesus calls us to see?
In this special episode of At the Table: Voices of Restoration, Grace Church Teaching Pastor Matt Williams and his daughter, Causey Williams, take over the microphones for a deeply personal conversation about calling, justice, ministry, and restoration.
Long before Causey became a criminal justice student at Clemson University or spent her summer interning with JUMPSTART South Carolina, Matt had an unexpected encounter inside a South Carolina prison that changed the way he understood faith. As a teenager, he met incarcerated men whose hunger for Jesus challenged his assumptions and showed him that God was working far beyond the world he knew.
Years later, Matt and Causey are seeing that same truth from two different perspectives.
Matt reflects on the growth of Grace Church, the importance of serving beyond the church’s walls, and the lessons the church has learned through its partnership with JUMPSTART SC. He also offers a powerful examination of Matthew 25, where Jesus identifies Himself with those who are hungry, overlooked, imprisoned, and marginalized.
Causey shares how studying criminal justice and working alongside JUMPSTART SC participants complicated the simple labels of “good people” and “bad people.” Through hearing participants’ stories, she witnessed how the gospel can change a person’s heart, priorities, relationships, and future.
Their conversation explores the tension between accountability and restoration, the barriers people continue to face after incarceration, and the temptation to assume someone else will step forward to help. It also offers encouragement for anyone trying to understand God’s calling: you do not have to see the entire journey to faithfully do what He has placed in front of you.
This episode invites us to look beyond a person’s past, believe that genuine transformation is possible, and remember that when we serve those who have been pushed aside, we are serving the King Himself.
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