The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry provides the Bachelor of Arts in Applied Ministry to women with extremely long prison sentences. Women with extremely long prison sentences must qualify according to educational and behavioral standards set by and agreed upon between the college and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). Each application year, incarcerated women from all over the state of Texas are given the opportunity to apply. A class of up to 40 women are carefully selected. The new class is transferred from all over the state of Texas to the Hobby Unit in Marlin, located one hour north of College Station.
The Heart of Texas Foundation regularly visits the Field Ministers in their respective prisons in Texas. There are thirty-three prisons in Texas who have their own team of Field Ministers. Currently there are 162 Field Ministers serving in those 33 prisons, where a total of over 78,000 men are housed.
“Seeing is believing.” There is no more powerful proof of that old expression than to go into a men’s maximum-security prison with us. We often take new friends of our work into the prisons to visit our Field Ministers. We often take donors as well. And our visitors encounter experiences they never could have imagined.
The Heart of Texas Foundation | College of Ministry begins at the Hobby Unit for Women in 2021!
We are now developing a Field Ministers Program for the women in Texas prisons. The Hobby Unit for Women, in Marlin (30 minutes south of Waco) will be the location of The Heart of Texas Foundation | College of Ministry for women where the Class of 2025 will begin their studies pursuant to the Bachelor of Arts in Applied Ministry.
We look forward to releasing updates as we go. Please pray for the women students and faculty as we move forward together to equip women to serve skillfully and with joy under the cross of Christ anywhere a woman lives in the prison.
“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?“
Romans 10:14-15
Mission of The Heart of Texas Foundation: The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry takes the gospel of Jesus Christ into the darkest of places in the Texas prison system through our bachelor degree program which educates men and women with long-term prison sentences. Graduates of the Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry are allowed to serve their peers as Field Ministers throughout the Texas prison system.
The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry and The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recognize the Bachelor of Arts in Applied Ministry for Men at the Memorial Prison Unit and the for Women at the Hobby Prison Unit as the only degree qualifying the completion of the first step in becoming a Texas Field Minister. The Texas Field Minister job opportunity provides men and women who have extremely long prison sentences the opportunity to display a new way of life by faithfully handling responsibilities that flourishing people enjoy to the benefit of themselves and everyone around them, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.
The Heart of Texas Foundation College of Ministry makes a lifelong commitment to men and women who enter the Texas Field Ministers Program and successfully keep their jobs as Field Ministers. There are currently 202 active Field Ministers in 42 locations across the state of Texas.
