Corbin Hubbell, social media coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, recently interviewed Bryan Dahlberg for the Southern Nebraska Register. Before joining See us Rise (RISE), Dahlberg was director of operations at Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska, and he is the current president of the board of directors for the Society of St. Vincent De Paul in Lincoln. He currently teaches as an in-program assistant at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview. Watch the full interview on the diocesan YouTube channel, @CatholicDioceseofLincoln.
Corbin Hubbell, Southern Nebraska Register: Introduce yourself and tell us about RISE.
Bryan Dahlberg: I’m Bryan Dahlberg. I grew up here in Lincoln and got hired with RISE in 2019. A program associate for RISE is somebody that goes into the prisons and visits them, and runs an actual program. For six months, we recruit people. Actually, they kind of come ... to take our program because there’s a lot of people that really enjoy our program.
Once they get into our program, after we introduce them to our program, they spend six months with me in a ‘foundations’ part of our program to help them develop their character, basically unpack why they’re there in prison, and help them to rethink how they think and how they act. And then for three months after that, we work on job readiness to get them ready for the workforce when they get out. And then lastly, entrepreneurship; we teach them to be a legal business owner instead of an illegal business owner.
We start out with about 36 to 38 people. I have some peer facilitators that have gone through our program before, (who) help me. We graduate probably anywhere from 60 to 80% of them. It’s not an easy program. So we do lose some people in the process. But once they graduate, we found that if we give them six months, they actually start changing the way they think and the way they function. And that’s pretty cool to watch, since they’re ex-gang members, and (lead) all kinds of interesting lives. It’s amazing to listen to the stories and the lives that I’ve encountered in prison.
SNR: So you got involved with this in 2019. How did you discover this calling to get involved with this program?
Dahlberg: Yeah, I was working for Catholic social services after I converted (to Catholicism) in 2014, from being a Protestant—a Protestant pastor, actually—and then came into the Catholic world, into the Catholic Church and was working for Catholic Social Services, because I had already been working with the poor and the marginalized.
Once they decided to go a different direction at Catholic Social Services, I asked the Lord, “What do you want me to do?” And at the Holy Family Shrine between Omaha and Lincoln, I just started praying and asking Him what He wanted me to do. And, ultimately, He said, “Don’t forget the people that were crucified; the men, the criminals that were crucified, on my right and on my left.” And I think that was profound, at that moment, that He wanted me to do that, but I didn’t know anything about RISE.
And then I found a couple of people like Katie Patrick, who’s now the executive director (at Catholic Social Services), and Brian Sack. They said, “Bryan, you’d be really good working with RISE. They go into the prisons, and you could really be a benefit to the to their program.”
And I thought, “Okay, Lord, you just gave me an answer.”
And so I interviewed. They happened to have an opening at the time—imagine that; the Lord wanted me to do something, and He had an opening for me already. And so ultimately, I got hired in 2019 and I started working with people.
We do about two cohorts a year, so about 60 guys ...graduate from our program a year. So I’ve met really amazing men in there. And I continue to have those friendships and help nurture not only my friendship with them but their friendship with Christ.
SNR: And how have you seen Christ work through some of these people that you get to work with?
Dahlberg: I think the main thing is that we have a lesson in our program that talks about self-limiting or self-freeing beliefs. And once they start believing that they can act differently, then they actually start acting differently.
What I find is that, as human beings, psychologically, we are very programmed. You know, that nurture-nature. We have our natural state, but also that nurturing, and these men are nurtured in criminal behavior. They’re nurtured in not following the rules.
And then when they lose a parent or lose both their parents, are homeless or whatever, then people on the streets pick them up, and sometimes, that’s the gangs and ultimately, their family becomes a criminal family. And ultimately, that’s how they function.
So when I step in, and when we step in, we step in with a program to help them start thinking differently: “You don’t have to think that way. You don’t have to use violence to solve your problem.” And then ultimately, I build a classroom in an environment, in a relationship with them.
I believe in relational evangelism and discipleship. Once they begin to trust me, which is actually a huge thing, because they’ve been around people that are untrustworthy, including their parents and their friends and things, once they start trusting me, and then I have a platform to share my faith, to share who I am, because Christ lives in me and, and I want them to see Christ in me. And that’s ultimately how I penetrate their hearts and minds, that they can actually make a change.
I think the Church has the most powerful—obviously— agent of change, which is the Lord and the Holy Spirit and His Word. And so I encounter everybody. I encounter Muslims, I encounter people, they have every religion in the prisons, there were 20 religions in the prison, so I encounter everybody. And I just find out where they’re at, what they’re thinking at the time. And then ultimately, if they’re open, you know, if the Lord is calling them, then I have a chance to share Christ with them.
SNR: Where can people go to learn more about this program, See us Rise?
Dahlberg: “Seeusrise” is actually our website (seeusrise.org). And that’s where you’re going to get most of your information. You can find all of our employees, our locations in Omaha and Lincoln, our phone numbers, you can email us you can read stories about us.
You can connect with us on social media; we’re on LinkedIn and on Facebook and Instagram. We we have 30 employees; it’s a pretty amazing organization. And even though it’s a secular organization, it does reach into the prisons to help these people. And since God called me as a higher calling, I do it for Him mostly, but I also have to make a living, and so that’s how I make my living right now is to go into prisons and help them.
