For over 30 years, once a month, the Rev. Johnny Stein drives his motorized wheelchair up a ramp made especially for him to preach on Sunday mornings at San Quentin State Prison.
The Garden Chapel’s Protestant congregation has become accustomed to Stein’s monotone voice and dry humor, said one of the ushers. The usher said the listeners also enjoy his sharp wit and keen knowledge of life, and appreciate his deep insight into the principles of the Bible.
After his services, he is frequently surrounded by those who wish to receive a more personal word and prayer.
“I never leave the same way,” Stein said. “I’m leaving a part of me here, leaving family.” While Stein says he identifies with the hard lives of many in prison.
Stein climbed the ladders of civil work with the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the city’s public transportation. Hired in 1961, Stein said he is the only person in the history of Muni who went from the bottom up through its ranks to become the head of S.F. Muni for the last five years of his career. Stein retired in 1994.
Stein has also become an alcohol and drug counselor — “two things I was once addicted to,” he says of his past in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
He says his many life trials come through in his messages to inmate congregations. “God speaks in a still, small voice,” he said. He came into his faith in the mid-‘70s, at about the same time his marriage ended. He desperately wanted to gain custody of his son.
“I heard this voice telling me, ‘Don’t do anything’,” he said. “Six months later, my wife told me she wanted to give me custody of our son.”
Stein said he shares many experiences with San Quentin residents. He said his “incarceration” in a wheelchair has been a great message of endurance and overcoming.
“Christian joy is not dependant on circumstances,” he said.
