Category Archives for "News"

June 2025 Update

News

What’s Coming Up?

Greetings everyone, Since we recently finished a series on major Bible doctrines, our editorial staff has been working on a five-year plan for magazine content. Here are some of the topics that we hope to cover in upcoming issues of the magazine, not necessarily in order. Please pray for our staff as we compile content for each of these vital topics.

In the past several years, the circulation of Loaves & Fishes has become more challenging in some prison scenarios. Distribution was disrupted by the Covid pandemic in 2020. But the greatest impact continues to be felt from facilities who are switching to all-digital communication.

Lighthouse Publishing has several key goals for Loaves & Fishes magazine. These include maintaining or increasing our print circulation, publishing quarterly, and expanding our digital reach in prisons. Increasing circulation can be accomplished not only by increasing the number of subscriptions, but also by sending more magazines to existing subscribers. Because of recent funding, we can now publish on a quarterly schedule, ensuring more consistent delivery of the magazine to our readers. Thank you to all of you who use Loaves & Fishes in your work with prison inmates. We are delighted to provide you with this free resource.

Please let us know at any time if you could use additional copies from our inventory of back issues. Also, please feel free to spread the word about Loaves & Fishes to anyone you know that is involved in prison ministry or chaplaincy. We have the resources available and would love to support more bulk distributors.

• Substance Abuse
• Sexuality
• Mental Health
• Successful Reentry
• Discipleship in Prison
• Unselfishness and Empathy
• Loneliness 8. Relationships
• Contentment
• The Bible
• Anger and Bitterness
• Hope
• Faithfulness
• Prayer
• The Kingdom of God
• Past & Identity
• The Cross and New Life
• Real Freedom
• Walking in the Light
• God’s Family the Church

Circulation Update

In the past several years, the circulation of Loaves & Fishes has become more challenging in some prison scenarios. Distribution was disrupted by the Covid pandemic in 2020. But the greatest impact continues to be felt from facilities who are switching to all-digital communication.

Lighthouse Publishing has several key goals for Loaves & Fishes magazine. These include maintaining or increasing our print circulation, publishing quarterly, and expanding our digital reach in prisons. Increasing circulation can be accomplished not only by increasing the number of subscriptions, but also by sending more magazines to existing subscribers. Because of recent funding, we can now publish on a quarterly schedule, ensuring more consistent delivery of the magazine to our readers. Thank you to all of you who use Loaves & Fishes in your work with prison inmates. We are delighted to provide you with this free resource.

Please let us know at any time if you could use additional copies from our inventory of back issues. Also, please feel free to spread the word about Loaves & Fishes to anyone you know that is involved in prison ministry or chaplaincy. We have the resources available and would love to support more bulk distributors.

Reader Feedback

I just want to thank you for the help providing reading material for my journey to Christianity. I’m in the beginning process, and anything to help me understand God is a big help and is very much appreciated. Thank you.

—Robert Burruel, FCI Herlong, Herlong, CA

Distributor Feedback(People who distribute in prisons)

The women inmates in my jail enjoy the spiritual materials in Loaves & Fishes. They like the Bible studies and are encouraged by the testimonies.

—Michael Andrews, Chaplain Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Phoenix, AZ

Please pray for the work of Lighthouse Publishing, and pray for the nearly 2 million prison inmates in our country.

Financial Update

The cost of producing the next issue of the magazine is projected to be $35,000, including editing, design, printing, and shipping costs.

Our current funds on hand are around $117,000, not including our building fund, which means the next three magazine issues are fully funded at this time.

For this, we can only thank those of you who have cared enough to support our work financially. Without your kindness, and the work of those who are distributing the magazine, our work would be impossible.

Publishing Update

Issue 55: Apostasy and the End Times

Issue 55 has arrived in our warehouse, and is scheduled to be shipped the week of June 2. By the time this newsletter reaches you, it should be arriving to our readers and distributors. For the rest of the year, the Lord willing, issues 56 and 57 will ship the first week of September and December respectively.

April 2025 Report

News

PandoApp

In the past year, many of our bulk distributors have discontinued receiving the magazine due to facilities changing over to digital-only communications. As a result, we have been working to find an avenue for digital distribution of Loaves & Fishes.

Johnny Hill, one of our readers from Maury Correctional Institution in Maury, North Carolina, let us know about a Christian content app that was newly available on his tablet. Thanks to this lead, one of our long-time goals has now been realized.

We have signed a one-year agreement with God Behind Bars, a ministry that has created a digital content app for prison tablets. This app, called PandoApp, has a public version available on major app stores, and a prison version, available on certain tablet platforms.

The app publishes video content provided by churches and other Christian ministries for free distribution, and the prison version of the app also includes ebooks. All content is free to prison inmates and is sponsored by churches and ministries that wish to offer their content.

The cost for publishing ebooks on PandoApp is $200 per title per month and scales up to $1,000 per month for unlimited titles. We are now offering two recent issues of the magazine on the app, and based on usage analytics, we may expand to include more of our back issues.

PandoApp is currently on as many as 400,000 tablets in prisons. It goes without saying that this could represent significant growth in the reach of Loaves & Fishes magazine.

Marketing

Our staff have been working state by state to introduce the magazine to new prisons, sending out sample packages to facility chaplains and staff. At this time, 28 of 50 states have been covered in this campaign.

Some of you who receive this newsletter are new distributors. Welcome to our ministry! You make it possible for us to bless prison inmates with our free publication.

Pray

We request your prayers and support as we navigate changes in how prison inmates access content, and seek to use wisely the resources that have been entrusted to us.

REACH 2025 Recap

In March, Lighthouse Publishing was blessed to be represented at REACH 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with over sixty other ministries. We enjoyed meeting with supporters and partners and introducing many convention attendees to Loaves & Fishes magazine.

Financial Update

The cost of producing the next issue of the magazine is projected to be $35,000, including editing, design, printing, and shipping costs.

Recently, our ministry has been blessed to receive significant funding through a charitable foundation. Our current funds on hand are around $120,000, which means the next three magazine issues are fully funded at this time.

We are deeply grateful for these gifts and are delighted to be able to project our publishing schedule on a quarterly basis for the near future. This has long been our goal, and due to the kindness of our donors, it is now realized.

Distributor Feedback

Thank you for sharing Loaves and Fishes with our inmate population. They constantly are asking for them and when will the new ones be in. They thoroughly enjoy each edition. Thank you and may God continue to bless you and your ministry. Thanks again for giving to brighten and give hope to broken lives.

—David S., Chaplain
Christian County Jail
Hopkinsville, Kentucky

Reader Feedback

This month’s issue reached out to my heart. The article on discipleship made me stop and think about how I was living this prison life. You see, I’ve been in for 20 years now. Thank you and God bless you all.

—John Winn
NorthWest State Correctional Facility
Swanton, Vermont

Publishing Update

Issue 55: Apostasy and the End Times

In March, we shipped Issue 54 of the magazine. We are making progress toward our goal of having multiple issues print-ready ahead of schedule, and Issue 55 is currently in graphic design. The target ship date is early June.

The theme of Loaves & Fishes Issue 55 is Apostasy and the End Times. It is crucially important for followers of Jesus to be aware of the dangers that face even the most mature Christians. History speaks, and we take a look at the book of Judges for painful examples of God’s people who fell from faith in Him.

February 2025 Update

News

Welcome to 2025!

We are happy to launch another year of sharing the good news of Jesus with prison inmates. As a donor, distributor, or prayer supporter, you are a tremendous blessing to our ministry.

In the coming year, we are particularly excited about a few things. James Hoover has been volunteering as a magazine reviewer, and is now also functioning as administrative assistant in order to help facilitate our publishing goals for 2025.

Another new development is the possibility of featuring Loaves & Fishes magazine on a digital content app on prison tablets. We are in discussions with a content vendor, and hope to learn more very soon. Please pray with us that a channel could open up for digital distribution of our content in prisons.

In addition to sharing our financial and shipping reports for 2024, I want to let you know about our publishing goals for this year.

Building Fund Update

Since Lighthouse Publishing moved to Pennsylvania in 2014, we have held funds from the sale of its former property in Tennessee in reserve as a building fund. At our recent advisory board meeting, we discussed the status of this fund, originally $40,000, with a current balance of $53,456.61.

Lighthouse Publishing currently rents its facilities, and intends to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This brings up the occasional question of what to do with our building fund. It was suggested that we find a use for these funds to assist the ministry operations in some way other than for routine expenses.

Our decision was to use a portion of these funds to prepare a number of magazine issues ahead of our publishing schedule. The goal is to have several issues of the magazine fully print-ready so that they can be released for print immediately when our general fund allows, reducing delays.

Specifically, a limited amount of these funds will be used for editing and graphic design expenses for 3-6 issues of the magazine in 2025. Our editing team is working on an accelerated schedule to make this happen. We would appreciate your prayer support, as all of our staff have other responsibilities, and the hours of writing and editing can be a significant sacrifice. This is particularly true for our editor who is serving as a missionary in Peru.

2024 Items Shipped Report

2024 Financial Report

Publishing Update

Issue 54: Evangelism

By the time you receive this newsletter, Loaves & Fishes issue 54 should be in our warehouse. We are pleased to announce that this issue is fully funded and will be sent out as soon as it arrives.

We expect the cost of editing, design, printing, and shipping to be around $35,000. Due to your generous support, our funds on hand are close to $45,000. Your giving inspires our work, and we are excited to place this issue in the hands of our readers and distributors.

-Mike Fisher, Manager of Operations

Reader Feedback

I just want to say thank you for allowing those in the prison system to have access to your wonderful publication. Please continue to bless us with the news of God’s love and greatness! God bless you all for your love and kindness.

—Joshua Engle

Graceville Correctional, Graceville, FL

Distributor Feedback

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to you and your staff for your generous donation in support of the residents in the custody of the Sheriff’s Office. We are deeply touched by your kindness and generosity. Please know that your donation will be used efficiently and effectively to maximize its impact.

December 2024 Update

News

Christmas All Year

Dickens’ fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge famously said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

It’s hard to say whether Jesus expected his followers to celebrate His birth in the way we do these thousands of years later. However, there are timeless themes in the story of Jesus’ birth that, if we allow them to inform our lives, will be a blessing to us and those around us.

Jesus’s birth and childhood in humble and poor circumstances, and his constant associations with those less fortunate, demonstrate the importance God places on people, above material wealth and status. We should follow Jesus’ footsteps and reach out to anyone regardless of where they come from or where they have gotten themselves.

The supernatural phenomena associated with Jesus’ birth, including manifestations of angels and His birth to a young virgin, should inspire us to seek divine intervention in the problems we face. We must believe in miracles. God is able to place his divine spark inside a person and transform them. Pray constantly for God to show himself. He is able.

We live in a dark world, and yet it is a world that God created as a beautiful home for mankind. Jesus’ birth is a story of light in the darkness. The light of Jesus in us can burst as a bright star upon the dark spaces where we sometimes live and serve. Through Christ, the beauty of creation as God first intended it can be glimpsed again, if imperfectly, as His followers bring the good news of redemption and live transformed lives.

Scrooge may have had in mind such Christmas graces as hospitality, generosity, and friendliness, and the birth of Christ is about these things, but Christmas is so much more. The birth of Christ represented an epochal change, the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth.

Christmas is for all the year. Christmas is for life.

—Mike Fisher, Manager of Operations

James G. Weaver – December 7, 1950 – December 5,2024

Remembering James Weaver

Today, we at Lighthouse Publishing experienced a deep loss. This morning, James Weaver passed from this life into the presence of the Lord. Jimmy filled an invaluable role here as our primary office staff member for nearly seven years.

After retiring from his career as a laboratory technician, Jimmy gave his time and talent to our ministry. He went above and beyond simply processing mail and maintaining our database, to establishing personal connections and sharing notes of encouragement with untold numbers of prison inmates.

At the end of 2022, Jimmy retired a second time, and we have missed his presence often. And now as the Lord has called him away, we are left with many great memories of his infectious laugh, intense care for others, and thousands of hours of service on behalf of people he never met.

Pastor Jimmy

There was once a kindly gentleman,

Jimmy Weaver was his name;

Often when I crossed Sproul Mountain

I heard much about his fame.

Jimmy was a much loved pastor

In a little country church,

Personal friend and trusted mentor

To the folks who worshipped there.

Jimmy cared for those in prison—

Lighthouse was his usual spot.

He helped propagate the vision:

Reaching a less fortunate lot.

Jimmy was a kindred spirit,

Though I didn’t know him long.

He enjoyed a table garnished

With nutrition quite diverse.

Time was short to know my namesake;

Only twice we got to talk.

But I have those treasured memories,

Now life’s path alone I walk.

Friends, there is a kindly Being

Who you really need to know,

Time is short and life is fleeting,

Talk to Him while here below.

Jesus Christ, your Friend and Savior,

Now invites you, “Come and dine;”

Jimmy’s waiting at the table—

Till we make our heavenly climb.

—James Hoover, Loaves & Fishes magazine staff

Publishing Update

Issue 54: Evangelism

Since our October newsletter was published, issue 53 was shipped. We are currently finishing up issue 54, and hope to have it ready for editing and design soon. Our current bank account balance is around $13,000. We project a printing cost of $22,000 for this issue, and a postage cost of around $9,000. With design and other expenses, the total cost of this issue is expected to be around $35,000, so our goal is to raise an additional $22,000 in funding by press time.