“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” (Hebrews 13:3 ESV)

In a recent interview with Faithwire‘s Billy Hallowell, Prison Fellowship CEO, Heather Rice-Minus, stated the popular TV series, The Chosen, based on the life of Christ, is having a profound impact on those who are imprisoned and their families.

The decision to include The Chosen as part of its ministry was enabled with the help of the Come and See Foundation, an organization set up to expand the viewership of the TV series.

In prisons where it has chaplains, Prison Fellowship has been able to set up screenings and even watch parties of the TV series inside the facilities.

Rice-Howell noted that The Chosen’s authentic depiction of the disciples and the people that Jesus ministered to as the “least and the lost,’ and “at the margins of society … people perhaps no one else wanted to be with” genuinely impacted prisoners who society often treats with similar disdain.

“We’ve just been seeing such amazing transformation in the men as a result of the opportunity to see the authentic Jesus,” Rice-Minus said. “And not only that, to see the people he chose — many lost, the least, and really being able to resonate with the disciples that Jesus chose to be part of the greatest awakening the world’s ever known — and I think they really resonate with that in the position that they’re in.”