SAGINAW, MI -- Confess a sin to Trevis Ruffin on Sunday and the Saginaw minister can help set you on a path of redemption.

Confess a crime to Ruffin during the week and he might use his role as a Saginaw County prosecutor to recommend your punishment.

The 32-year-old Ruffin serves the Saginaw community in both roles.

He preaches and ministers at Living In Victory Everyday Ministries, a church he founded. He also acts as a voice of the people in the Saginaw County courthouse.

Though the two jobs and their duties are different, Ruffin sees a lot of similarities between them as well.

"Both are callings," Ruffin said. "Both serve people."

"Essentially both jobs are just that. You're serving. As a pastor, to provide encouragement. In prosecution, it's about getting people on the right path and encouraging them to live productive lives."

Ruffin said he has wanted to become a prosecutor since he was a teenager. He worked 12 years in the business world as he completed law school. In May, he accomplished his goal when he was appointed an assistant prosecutor.

A little more than a year ago, as he neared the end of his studies, he felt a second calling. It led him to the pulpit.

"I'm serving my community," Ruffin said. "I believe I'm called to this. I serve people. I love people."

Determined to succeed

Ruffin said his background led to his decision to become a prosecutor.

"Growing up in Saginaw, you face certain challenges," he said. "One of the things that plagued our community was crime, and I wanted to be part of the solution. So as soon as I went to law school, I knew that I wanted to be a prosecutor and fight violent crime."

Ruffin recalled an incident from seventh grade when one of his friends was slashed with a knife while they were at their lockers.

"He tried to cut his throat at the locker but cut his face," Ruffin recalled. "Seeing the pain and impact that it had on his life, I had a real distaste for people taking advantage and hurting other folks. It bothered me."

In the courtroom, Ruffin says he hopes what he does helps people to get on the right path.

"I don't see a huge difference between myself and the people I prosecute," Ruffin said. "I come from where they come from."

Growing up, Ruffin said he didn't know any lawyers or judges.

"I remember Mark Macon, Terry McDaniels and Darvin Ham coming back to the community and telling us that we can do something," he said of the Saginaw athletic stars. "They showed us we could do anything."

Ruffin graduated Buena Vista High school in 2000. He worked at AT&T as a business representative for about nine years and was elected chief union steward for Communication Workers of America Local 4108.

He served on the Buena Vista Township Board of Education in 2005 for about a year before leaving the township.

Ruffin volunteered in the prosecutor's office before being granted an internship, which he worked at for about a year. He spent the last few years in law school on the weekends while he interned at the Saginaw County Prosecutor's Office.

"The most challenging part was, because I'm married and have kids, so I had to work, go to school and come home to take care of my family, and minister," he said. "There are no law schools in the Great Lakes Bay Region, so sometimes I was driving two hours on Saturdays and Sundays or to Lansing, depending on the classes."

Ruffin graduated from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in January 2014 and took the bar in July. He received the results in November.

None of it would have been possible, he said, without his wife of 13 years, Sparkle Ruffin.

"She's at home with the kids while I'm away," he said. "She encourages me and prays for me. She is the nucleus of this family."

The couple has four children.

Ruffin was sworn in as an assistant Saginaw County prosecutor on May 5.

Chief Prosecutor Chris Boyd called Ruffin an asset to the community during the swearing-in ceremony held in Saginaw County Circuit Court Judge Darnell Jackson's courtroom.

"I know that we make our own luck through hard work and determination," Boyd said, adding Ruffin "worked hard through his education."

God leads him

Ruffin said he founded Living Victorious Everyday Ministries based on a verse from the New Testament, Ephesians 1:11.

"In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."

Ruffin says, simply put, "It's in Christ that we find who we are and what we are living for."

The church, located at 3264 Bay, is hard to find, sitting in a parking lot behind and between several businesses. Ruffin tells those who are visiting from the city that if they pass Hertz Car Rental they "went too far."

"It's the victory center," he said of the small blue-and-white room where chairs are neatly lined for parishioners. They have a little less than 90 members.

Ruffin says he is never off the clock when it comes to church and God, even in the courthouse.

"24/7," he said. "My life is God's work."

Faye Presely has known Ruffin since he was 8 or 9 years old, and said she knows what he has overcome to get to where he is.

"He is from the streets, but not of the streets," Presely said. "As he got older and start maturing, he was always a very serious person. I know what kind of environment he came up in and it worked for him."

Helping victims

Ruffin said one of his goals as a prosecutor is to make it safer for victims and witnesses who have to testify.

Ruffin said he would like to focus on the Saginaw Witness Assistance Program, which complements the Victim Rights Program and provides advocacy, relocation services and referrals for witnesses otherwise reluctant to testify.

"That's a big hurdle, because we have witnesses who are on the stand testifying and they look out into the crowd and they see gang members and essentially a huge support system for the defendant, but there is no support for the victim or the witness," Ruffin said.

Ruffin said he's been assigned to the Major Crimes Unit with assistant prosecutor's Manvel Trice III and Paul Fehrman. The unit is led by Boyd.

There are 25 assistant prosecutors assigned at all case levels in the county, according to Boyd.

Presely, who attends Ruffin's church, said she thinks being a pastor helps Ruffin in his job at the courthouse.

"Because he has God to lead him in everything he is doing," she said.

Ruffin agrees.

"There are so many parallels between the law and the Bible," Ruffin said.

At the end of the day, Ruffin feels that his job as a prosecutor is part of his calling.

"I was called to serve my community," he said. "It's just an extension of that assignment."

Bob Johnson is a public safety reporter for MLive/The Saginaw News. Contact him at 989-395-3295, by email at bob_johnson@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter,Facebook or Google+.