In 2008, Paul Herbert, a municipal court judge from Ohio, was using Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life to disciple his teenage daughters. One night, one of his daughters asked him, "Daddy, what's your purpose in life?"

Herbert gave a vague answer about being "a light on the bench," but that night, he prayed candidly to God: "I realize that being a judge is a very unique position. Not many people get this opportunity. Can you show me some way that I could be significant for you in my work?"

About nine months later, after seeing a typical procession of domestic violence victims, the sheriff brought a prostitute into Herbert's courtroom. Herbert realized that she looked exactly like one of the domestic violence victims he'd been seeing. It shook up his categories.

Herbert began researching the criminology of prostitution and what he learned stunned him. Around 87 percent of prostitutes are sexually abused, typically starting at around age 8. They often start using drugs to deal with that trauma around age 12. The girls run away from home or foster care and are dragged by predatory pimps into the commercial sex trade.

Herbert decided to apply his faith to his work. He launched a new program called CATCH Court, which stands for "Changing Attitudes to Change Habits." Prior to this program, prostitutes simply cycled in and out of jail. But through Herbert's two-year program, women convicted of prostitution receive drug treatment and counseling. Their movements are monitored electronically, they offer support to each other, and they appear before Judge Herbert weekly in the courtroom to report on the progress.

Herbert describes some of the women who have completed the program: "One [woman] was sold when she was a little girl by her mother to older men for crack cocaine. Today she is in Phi Theta Kappa at Columbus State Community College." Another was kidnapped by a motorcycle gang and raped, then transported to other gangs and sold for sex. Now, she is two years sober from heroin.

But Herbert also emphasizes the spiritual transformation that has occurred in his life. He said:

The Holy Spirit continues to reveal how much I've been forgiven, and how similar I am to the individuals that come before me. That's really hard to say! [My] job is to judge. But the farther I go along [in my faith], the more I realize that I'm just like most of them—and that makes me more understanding, more kind, more merciful.