Prison Ministry

"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).

The following are just some of the responses which we have received from inmates in the past year or so:

Thank you for giving me a chance to study God’s Word with your Bible studies. I know it’s going to help me gain more knowledge in God’s Word that I didn’t know before. What a blessing it is that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. God bless you!

I first want to say God bless you. I thank you very much for allowing me to do Bible studies through your ministries. I have to say I have been with your ministries for a few years and I have done a lot of studies, and some were much harder than others and some that I really have enjoyed, I have shared them with many ladies in several different places that I have been. Some I have held onto and I use them on a daily basis, and some of them I re-go over, and some I have gotten a lot of head and heart knowledge. I thank you for your Bible studies and your words of lots of encouragement to me. It has kept me going on. I really do enjoy each and every lesson. Thank you for your time with me and your cooperation.

If not for you, my growth would be so slow. Romans 10:14-15.

Thank you so much for this study. It has been a real blessing. I am praying for all of you as you bring the light of the glorious gospel to this sin-darkened world.

I enjoy doing these lessons. I am being blessed daily through your studies. May God bless you and your program.

I want to thank you again for your Bible study. I am always learning new and different ways to live my life through Christ Jesus. This lesson on DOUBT was very good. I want to thank all of you for caring for me enough to keep sending me Bible studies and giving me the strength and encouragement to continue on each day with these Bible studies. Your ministry has had a lot to do with me being able to go on. Your encouraging letters have kept me going on, your words and Bible scriptures that you had me look up, and just being there for me. Your ministry is the greatest.

I really appreciate your assistance with helping me get closer to God and what He wants and expects me to know and do to get closer to Him. Thank you and may God bless you.

I am writing in hope of expressing exactly how important your studies are to me. I have every piece of paper, study, and any other correspondence you have sent to me and I find that if ever I need help, I can go back over completed worksheets, and I find what I am needing at that very moment. My wife printed out a Bible study from your website almost two years ago, and got this fountain of learning started for me. Thanks to her and thanks to you, I have learned so much, and feel that I am closer to God now than I have ever been. Once again, thank you and God bless you and Middletown Bible Church.

Thank you for helping me to get closer to God and His Word. God bless you!

Hello. I would like to thank you for all the studies you have put together. We started a jail ministry and we now minister to 40 weekly. They are opening our new jail in 3 weeks going from 120 to 400. Your studies are going to help. Thanks.

Here in prison it is often hard to be part of anything good, but you have made me feel part of your church of great people that I will never meet. Please know that you and your church are in my prayers. Your kindness and continued Bible studies and other correspondence have aided me greatly in my walk with and developing relationship with God. For that I am eternally grateful. God bless you and the Middletown Bible Church. [male inmate from Texas]

This study sheet brought my hope up because I was getting down and about to give up, but not anymore. I read the Word and I read the whole book of John. I really don’t like reading but something was pushing me to read it and I enjoyed it and it opened my eyes to many things I did not know about Jesus. Please send me more lessons. I will hang in the Word.

Thank you for Isaiah 41:10. I will place it in my heart. Also I want to let you all know that I am devoted to your Bible study. It gets me through my days along with a personal relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. Please keep it coming. God bless!

This study is great! Thanks for the extras you put in. I have shared the poem "The Bridge Across" with many of my friends. God bless you for all you are doing.

Thanks for the lessons. They are a blessing from God. I work on them every morning. Christ is doing great things in here. I just helped a guy to get saved, before he went home. I want the church to know how the lessons are spreading the living Word of God. Thanks for your time.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing these lessons and would be honored to continue.

I’m sick and tired of living the way I have for the last 20 years. I asked God to come into my heart and be real to me. I just don’t feel like I’m worthy to be saved. I lay in my cell at night and cry for what I have done. Then I say to myself, "Why are you crying? Nobody put you here except yourself. You deserve everything you get." I need help. I want help. Pray for me.

This Bible study has taught me so much. I would like to grow in the Word. This will help me to keep the Devil out of my mind and heart. I pray for God’s will for me and to know and understand His Word. Since I’ve taken Jesus into my heart, I’ve been feeling a lot better and feeling free even though I’m locked up.

I am enclosing a Bible study I found in the day room of my dorm. When I asked if it belonged to someone else I was told no, and that I could have it. So I hope it’s okay that I am sending it back and really would love to follow up on more. I do have Christ in my heart and have met with struggles but His love and peace helps me. I want to continue these lessons and stay in the Word. I anxiously await my next lesson.

I am learning to acknowledge my bad/negative behavior and change it as I’m learning more of God’s Word! Thank you so much for making these studies available.

Thank you for all you do and for all the Bible lessons you send. I’ve learned so much. As I get them I keep going over and over them until I get the next set of lessons. Thank you! (From a girl working on the advanced lessons).

Thank you for your Bible study. I have found it inspiring and spiritually educational. I would like to continue receiving these Bible studies. They are consuming my time wisely while I learn more about Jesus Christ and our Lord and Saviour. Five of my fellow inmates would like to receive your Bible study sheets also.

Thank you for the Bible studies. We learned a lot. I feel more secure now that I KNOW I am saved.

I have truly enjoyed this course and am very grateful for your being there for me!

I love the Word of God and your lessons bring blessings and understanding. Thank you!

I would like to thank you for your Bible studies. I am really enjoying the studies and all the valuable information I am learning. Everyone there is doing a fantastic job; it means so much to us who are locked up. We learn and really start looking at ourselves on how much our Lord Jesus Christ means to us.

God’s Word has reshaped the way I think, feel and behave. Glory to God!

Thank you for your Bible study and your time you give to help grading them and mailing them back. I’m really new to the Word. My whole life has been parties, drugs, drinking and other sins. On Oct. 16, 2009 I chose to ask Christ for forgiveness. I have finally found the true meaning to life and it has nothing to do with money or sin. I thank God for helping me be able to enter heaven.

Praise God! Beautiful study. I truly see Jesus Christ being glorified in these studies.

I have two new Christians that would like to do your Bible studies. I helped these two to commit their lives to Christ. I want to help and see them grow. I can’t believe I led someone to Christ. Praise God! [This inmate was suicidal when he first began our studies.]

Thank you so much for helping me in studying the Word of God, helping me to understand the importance of our risen Saviour and most of all why God Himself came to earth to save us. I’m able to tell others about His love. I’m so grateful for what He has done for me. I was the woman of shame and disgrace when I came back home here in St. Louis. What they don’t know is that I came home with the power of God risen in my soul. I’m going to hold onto God’s unchanging Hand.

I am really enjoying doing these Bible studies. These lesson have really helped me understand the Lord’s words. The more I do it the easier it is to understand. Thank you and bless you!

I am very happy about all of these different studies that you send me because I am still learning the Word of God, and it’s not just filling in the blanks that is making a difference. I am understanding it and getting lots of knowledge from them, and applying these things to my life. I thank you very much and may God continue to bless you in your life.

Pray for God to change me into a better person and to walk in a whole different way now and once I am in the free world.

I am learning a lot from these lessons. It is showing me a good way of life. I know I am in better hands than I was before. I was in the wrong hands and doing wrong. Thank you.

I love studying the Word of God. Your studies helped me keep my mind stayed on Jesus. I began to have peace, knowing that I was going in the right direction. And oh so much joy (smile)! Since the Lord touched me I became so different. I found out who I belong to and my purpose in life. I’m glad I made my choice to follow Jesus.

Thank you so much for the Bible studies. I really enjoy them and I’m understanding God’s Word a lot better and getting a lot out of it. Thank you for helping me to stay close to God and live for Him and understand His Word.

I just want to say thank you for your wonderful study on the 12 Disciples. My husband and I have been doing prison ministry for almost 30 years now. We are taking one disciple each week for discovery and discussion. We are up to Matthew. This week I found your sight on the net. What a big help!!!!!! God bless you and keep up the good work. Our men are enjoying delving into the word with you. Needless to say, we are also!

I thank God for your time and lessons to help me get closer to God! Thank you and God bless you all!

Thank you so much for the booklets you have been sending. The "Drummer Boy" was especially good and made me think how blessed we are. May God bless you and the other men and women that are doing such a wonderful job.

I enjoy these lessons and ask you to send me more. They are helping me to read the Word and memorize Scripture. May God be with you.

I really have been enjoying these studies! They are teaching me so much more of God than ever!

Thank you, MBC, for this wonderful opportunity to participate in your Bible studies. I am grateful to God that there are resources like these available for inmates like myself.

I truly cannot wait to see what the next study has in store for my life. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for the latest lessons. I have graduated from over 15 different Bible Correspondence schools and colleges over the past twenty years but none of them has been as well written or in depth as yours. I feast on these as soon as I get them. God bless all my brothers and sisters there at the Middletown Bible Church.

Thank you for the Bible Study. This helps me get closer to Jesus Christ and God. I’m in prison but with Jesus at my side, I’m a free man (emphasis his).

Thank you so much. These lessons give me strength to face my day.

I have to say you are always giving me just the right lesson that I need at just the right time and this last one was right on the nose. I really appreciate you and I thank you so much for allowing me these studies. I have learned a lot. Thank you for caring enough to send them to me.

God bless you at MBC!! You have been a blessing to me through my cancer treatments with all the Bible studies. I look forward to the next set.

Jesus Christ has completely changed me and continues to do so. I am not the man that I once was. I tell you this right now as I live and breathe I would not be able to stand if it were not for Jesus Christ. He is my strength, my courage. He is my everything. Thank you for these Bible studies and if you could please put it in your hearts to pray for me. God bless you all.

I have a friend who was in federal prison for 6 years. At the end of the 6 years he was saved. He is having a hard time understanding what he reads in the Bible and gets frustrated. I told him that doing your Bible studies helped me understand a lot. He wants you to start sending him studies. Thank you so very much. Your ministry is truly a blessing to so many lives that you touch. You will be blessed for what you do.

I have truly enjoyed working and studying the bible course you sent me. It’s been a blessing in many ways and has helped me grow stronger in the Lord’s Word (praise God!). Also I would like to thank all the people who work hard to help you. I will always be praying that god would continue to bless the Middletown Bible Church and that by your hard work will bring many men and women to accept Christ as their one and only Saviour.

I am learning a great deal from these lessons. Thank you for making it possible for me to learn and grow spiritually.

I have been incarcerated for nearly a year and have been studying the Lord’s Word faithfully. I have so much gratitude for God’s grace, mercy and the blood of Jesus. Before coming here I was hopeless, broken and lost and very close to death due to my addictions. This experience here has been the biggest blessing fro me to come to know Christ. I lived for my own will for the last 37 years; I pray it’s in His plans for me to have another 37 to do His will. In the meantime, I use every opportunity to bring others to Christ. I want to attract others to God through how I live and conduct myself. When people notice the change in me I use the opportunity to give God the glory and give my testimony. Thank you for the Bible study and tracts. I will keep your congregation in my prayers. It’s wonderful to know there is support out there.

Thank you for accepting me as one of your Bible students. I have really enjoyed studying your lessons. They have enlightened me on some issues regarding God’s truth which I wasn’t clear on. Though a true believer may fall hard on the deck of the "ship of faith," I’m thankful he will never fall overboard. I am grateful that the Lord keeps those that are His.

Before I came to jail I was an empty, numb, and very broken man. Today I am happy that I’m here in jail. I honestly believe that if He had not put me in jail, that the life I was living would have killed me and I would have died in sin. His sweet mercy and forgiveness is beyond anything that I can even try to write or explain. I want to thank you and everyone that works for the Lord under you for loving me enough to take the time and money to help me in my quest to seek God’s smiling and love-filled face. If Jesus loves you enough to die on the cross, then you are good enough for me to love too!

Thank you very much for the tremendous answer to my question about a personal relationship with God. I became a born again Christian in Sept. 2009 at Concord Prison. Thanks again very much for taking your precious time to write me such a long detailed letter, me a mere prisoner.

Recently I was given your name and address by a fellow inmate who shared with me a portion of the Bible study he had received from you. He has participated in your study program for over two years. Immediately my interest was sparked and a desire was begun to be part of that Bible study. For several years now I have been incarcerated due to my disobedience to God and thinking I could run my own life. Since being locked up I have again found Jesus. Today he is my Saviour and friend. He lives and reigns on the throne of my heart. I would like to receive your Bible study. I will be a sincere and dedicated truth seeker.

As of today I have served over 11,890 days of my life in prison. I have about 324 days to go. Thank you for helping me do these last days in the Word of God. Your Bible studies are GREAT! Praise God for you.

I wanted to take the time to express my gratitude for the work your church is doing for the Lord. I am enjoying learning about God and am continuing to grow in Christ more each day. Words cannot express my love for Christ for His sacrifice at Calvary. I praise the Lord for not giving me what I deserve in life. Instead He blessed me with His mercy and grace. I tell people in here we are lucky life isn’t fair. We would all be in a lot of trouble. Although I am in prison paying for my deeds of my former life, I have never been more alive in the Spirit. I have such peace within and a sense of love towards others. The Holy Spirit continues to bless me as I learn to rely on Him. I could use a few tracts to spread to other brothers in here too.

Perhaps you can help!