MONROE — As a young man, John Burkholder was a champion wrestler and bodybuilder.
His athletic career culminated in his being named Mr. USA and Mr. North America before he retired from competition in the early 1980s and became a teacher.
He attributes his success in sports to discipline and self-control.
The same values also defined his path when he became a Christian.
Burkholder, now 65, is a full-time pastor for the Cascade Church prison ministry at the Monroe Correctional Complex.
Burkholder was born in Germany to American parents. He grew up on military posts around the country and used to own a bodybuilding gym in Seattle.
He started bodybuilding at 14 and wrestled through high school and college. He joined the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War but was discharged because of a knee injury and went back to school.
He and his wife Rita have been married 32 years and raised two sons.
Burkholder earned his master’s degree in theology in 2004.
“I came to Christ when I was 41 years old,” he said. “Being a pastor wasn’t really on the agenda. I didn’t really live a Christian life before. It was one of those things where there was a huge change in my thinking and my life.”
After graduate school, he started a job in finance at Cascade Church in Monroe. He was invited to teach a Bible study class at the prison, or “the hill,” as the locals call it. The next thing he knew, it was his full-time job. He primarily works in the units for offenders with mental-health problems and sex-crime convictions.
Hundreds of inmates attend worship services in the ministry program, Burkholder said. He helps teach skills for inmates who are preparing for release, including finding a job and resolving conflict.
His experience teaching junior high comes in handy, and his bodybuilding past sparks interest and common ground. He’s provided faith leadership to thousands of inmates over the years.
“It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life,” he said.
He finds the reward in seeing inmates change and not return to prison. Many of the inmates he works with are recovering from childhood abuse and neglect, and problems with drugs and alcohol, he said. He wants them to become better men.
That means taking responsibility for their misdeeds, particularly the lessons from the first chapter of James, and the messages of self-control found within the Letters of Paul, he said.
The way Burkholder sees it, most of the prisoners he works with will someday make it back into society.
“How they come out of that prison is a very serious thing,” he said.
Burkholder still works out, too, three times a week in 90-minute sessions starting at 6 a.m. in the “man cave” at his house in rural Snohomish.
“That’s my downtime, and it keeps me very healthy, mentally and physically,” he said.
He’s had the same workout routine since 1981.
“When you have something that works, you just stick with it and that’s where the discipline comes in,” he said.
For more information about Cascade Church and its prison ministry, go to www.cascadechurch.org or call 360-794-4600.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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