PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG: Prison Fellowship Academy

Chew wanted to live free from rules and consequences, but his poor choices led to his incarceration. Could Chew learn how to live free in prison?

Thousands of people die each year from drug overdose. But Celebrate Recovery offers hope.

What’s the Prison Fellowship Academy all about? Part 1 of this new blog series highlights integrity, one of the six core values of the Academy. The Academy allows participants to embrace a Gospel-centered worldview and take ownership of their transformation—even in prison, where positive change might otherwise seem impossible.

A champion bareback rider and a wild horse named Sushi share the Gospel with Kentucky prisoners.

For most of his life, Josiah steered clear of “crazy” Christians who “make no sense,” just like his Wiccan parents told him to. But in prison, he encountered a "presence" he couldn't explain away.

Things run a little differently at Minnesota Correction Facility—Shakopee. Here, female prisoners engage in community and in-prison programing like the Prison Fellowship Academy.

  After her addiction sent her to prison, Amber knew she needed help. But recovery programs just didn’t seem to work. She needed something more. She needed a deeper relationship. She needed the Gospel.

Despite recent reforms, the United States still has the largest prison population in the world. America’s prisons need a culture shift if we’re to see an end to the cycle of crime and incarceration.

  For years, Emily desired to join the Marines. But her life took a drastically different route. Could the Prison Fellowship Academy help her find her way?

“I can never make the day of the accident vanish as if it didn’t exist. It happened. But I can be restored.” Amy, a Prison Fellowship Academy graduate, reveals what happened when she stopped running from God and finally began to grow.

If you had told Tino 30 years ago that one day he would be a devout Christian, he would have been shocked. But that’s the transformative power of God’s love.

  "Returning to prison is not nowhere in my future. I’ve given the state of Texas enough of my life."

'I fell in love with [volunteering] right away, because there were people in there who needed me. A chance to make a difference—that's what I've been praying for my whole life.'

Tammy Franklin has come full circle. A former prisoner, she is now a Prison Fellowship Academy manager at the same facility in which she was incarcerated.

In 2018, an earthquake shattered roads and shook buildings in Alaska. The epicenter of the quake was traced to Goose Creek Correctional Center. But the incarcerated population there have been experiencing seismic shifts of a more positive kind through Prison Fellowship and The Urban Ministry Institute.