- Starting price
- Free
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- iPhone · iPad · Android · Apple TV · selected correctional tablets
- Developer
- God Behind Bars, Inc.
- Launched
- 2020
- Updated
- Aug 3, 2026
The verdict
Pando addresses a profound access problem: people in correctional facilities often cannot use ordinary streaming sites, yet secure tablets can carry sermons, worship, Bible studies, and Scripture into a cell at any hour. The free public app is also a useful Christian video library. Its value is real, but its correctional edition, device availability, analytics, and response features vary by facility; its extraordinary conversion figures are ministry-reported rather than independently audited; and its 2020 privacy policy is much broader than a simple video player suggests.
Try Pando App ↗Opens godbehindbars.com
Pando is a free Christian streaming and Bible app created by the Nevada nonprofit God Behind Bars during the disruption of in-person prison ministry around 2020. Its defining purpose is not another consumer sermon feed. Pando distributes approved content through secure tablets used inside participating correctional facilities, where normal internet access and mainstream apps are unavailable. The consumer version on Apple and Google stores lets people outside prison use a related library and gives families, volunteers, and former inmates access to familiar content after release.
The current public app advertises weekly videos from churches and ministries such as Elevation Church, Life.Church, Fresh Life Church, Hillsong, Flatirons Church, The Chosen, and others. Users can browse sermons, worship, leadership material, topical Bible studies, devotionals, podcasts, and guided prayer. It also includes complete KJV and ESV Bible text. Older official descriptions and the faith.tools profile mention journals, prayer requests, decisions for Christ, personalization, and interaction between incarcerated users and outside believers; those functions may depend on the correctional deployment and should not be assumed from the consumer-store description alone.
God Behind Bars currently says Pando is installed on 671,071 inmate tablets and calls it the first faith-based app allowed on Department of Corrections tablets. Amazing Facts independently confirms access to its content through more than 600,000 incarcerated users across 423 prisons, but it is a participating ministry, not an independent auditor. God Behind Bars also announced one million “recorded decisions for Christ” in July 2025 without publishing the exact prompt, deduplication method, follow-up rate, denominators, audit, or distinction between a button response and sustained discipleship. Those figures demonstrate scale of distribution and response collection, not by themselves conversion, mental-health improvement, lower recidivism, or long-term church connection.
This is a researched review based on the current official sites, Apple ID 1530103969, Google Play package net.nexisit.pandoapp, store disclosures, partner reports, and Pando’s privacy policy. We did not enter a correctional facility, use an inmate tablet, create an account, submit a prayer request, inspect partner dashboards, or verify the ministry’s internal metrics. Apple reports about 4.7 from 82 US ratings. The latest iOS version is 3.0.1 from April 2026, and a recent review from a former incarcerated user describes video playback trouble after an iOS update.
✓ The good
- Reaches a uniquely restricted audience - approved delivery can put Christian video and Scripture on secure tablets when ordinary apps are inaccessible
- Free inside and outside prison - no subscription or in-app purchase is listed for the consumer app
- Broad media library - sermons, worship, devotionals, podcasts, studies, prayer videos, and leadership material support several needs
- KJV and ESV included - incarcerated users can access full Bible text without relying on a separate app or physical delivery
- Continuity after release - the public app can preserve access to familiar channels for former inmates and their families
- Substantial verified distribution - a partner ministry corroborates availability to more than 600,000 people across hundreds of facilities
- Local-ministry connection is part of the parent mission - God Behind Bars also operates prison campuses, reunification events, and reentry resources
✗ Watch out
- Facility access is not universal - availability, tablet vendor, permitted features, bandwidth, schedules, and content can differ by institution
- Impact claims are not independently audited - views, responses, and reported decisions should not be treated as verified long-term outcomes
- Privacy policy is old and expansive - the 2020 document covers journals, prayer requests, contacts, device data, location, tracking, and staff access
- Public and prison products are easy to conflate - the ordinary App Store build does not establish what an incarcerated user receives
- Editorial theology is broad but opaque - many partner churches are named, yet a public review rubric, complete doctrine policy, and correction process are not
- Accessibility is undocumented - Apple says the developer has not declared supported accessibility features
Best for
- Incarcerated people whose facility provides a tablet with the approved Pando catalog
- Prison chaplains and ministry teams evaluating free digital discipleship alongside personal care
- Former inmates and families who want continuity with Pando’s public Christian video library
- Viewers who want a free, church-centered alternative to general streaming feeds
Avoid if
- You need guaranteed availability at a particular facility without confirmation from its chaplain or tablet provider
- You need confidential journaling, counseling, or prayer communication with a clearly current security and retention specification
- You want one tightly defined denominational curriculum rather than content from many independent churches and ministries
- You plan to use view or response totals as evidence of clinical, recidivism, or long-term discipleship outcomes
What Pando App is
Pando is two closely related experiences under one name: a conventional Christian video app for the public and a curated distribution channel approved on some correctional tablet systems. Its public build offers on-demand church content and KJV/ESV Bible text. Its prison purpose is the differentiator, because correctional networks normally allow only contracted and reviewed applications rather than an open app store.
It is not an unrestricted internet browser, live local church, confidential counseling service, accredited course, licensed mental-health treatment, reentry case manager, or proof that every Department of Corrections system carries the same version. A video can encourage, teach, and prompt a response; it cannot by itself provide sacraments, pastoral accountability, trauma care, legal help, family repair, housing, employment, or an enduring congregation after release.
Why prison ministries use Pando instead of an ordinary streaming app
YouTube, church apps, and major Christian streaming services assume a personal phone, normal internet, and broad account access. Incarcerated people generally work within locked-down devices, approved catalogs, monitored communications, limited bandwidth, and institution-specific rules. Pando packages Christian content for that environment and negotiates distribution relationships that an individual church could not reproduce by posting a public link.
That infrastructure can multiply a chaplain’s reach and provide private-time access between services. It should strengthen rather than displace human ministry. The best deployment combines digital Scripture and teaching with a qualified chaplain, local volunteers, correspondence, recovery and education programs, family support, reentry planning, and a concrete connection to a church after release. Facilities should also preserve access to other faith traditions and nonreligious programming so participation is genuinely voluntary.
A multi-ministry video library offers breadth, not one curriculum
Pando organizes sermons, worship, devotionals, podcasts, documentaries, leadership teaching, guided prayer, and topical studies from numerous churches and organizations. The public listing names several large evangelical and charismatic churches; participating channels such as Amazing Facts add their own denominational perspective. Search by church or topic and weekly uploads make the product feel more like a curated Christian streaming service than a sequential course.
Breadth gives an isolated viewer options, but brand recognition is not editorial verification. Churches can disagree on baptism, communion, spiritual gifts, prosperity, gender, politics, end times, recovery, and counseling. Pando should publish its content standards, theological boundaries, safeguarding rules, advertising policy, removal and correction process, and the identity of reviewers. Viewers should compare consequential teaching with Scripture in context and a trusted local pastor or chaplain.
Bible, prayer, and response tools move beyond passive viewing
The public app promises complete KJV and ESV Bible access. Official and historical pages additionally describe journaling, prayer, personalization, and in-app faith responses. Those tools can turn a sermon into reading, reflection, and a request for follow-up. For a person in a cell at night, availability itself can be meaningful, especially when a printed Bible, chapel schedule, or preferred language is limited.
Interactive spiritual data is sensitive. Prayer requests and journals may reveal trauma, addiction, mental health, crimes, family conflict, immigration, location, or religious beliefs. Pando’s policy says its team may view private journal or progress information in ordinary work, and it describes public contributions as potentially visible despite security measures. Never assume chaplain, clergy, medical, or attorney privilege. Use the facility’s approved confidential channels for crises, abuse reports, legal matters, and clinical care.
Reach metrics show distribution; outcome metrics need definitions
God Behind Bars reports more than 671,000 tablets with Pando and millions of inmates reached across its ministries. Amazing Facts reports its own Pando material reaching over 600,000 people at 423 prisons, with hundreds of videos and millions of views. Crown Financial Ministries reported rapid views, subscribers, resource opens, and recorded responses after joining in 2026. These partner figures make the distribution claim considerably more credible than an unsupported download counter.
They do not establish causation or durable change. One user can create many views; a tablet installation is not an active viewer; a subscriber is not necessarily a completed course; and a digital decision prompt is not the same as baptism, church participation, recovery, or lower recidivism. Pando could improve accountability by publishing definitions, unique-user denominators, facility coverage, duplicates, response wording, follow-up completion, independent audits, privacy protections, and longitudinal results without exploiting personal testimony.
Pricing
Public mobile and TV app
Free
The Apple and Google consumer listings show a free download and no paid subscription. Streaming still uses data, and the available catalog may change with licensing.
Correctional-tablet access
Free to the incarcerated user
God Behind Bars says Pando content is free on participating secure tablets. Device, network, message, media, or account charges imposed by a facility or tablet provider are separate and should be confirmed locally.
Ministry support
Optional donation
God Behind Bars solicits one-time and monthly charitable gifts to fund distribution and broader prison ministry. A donation is not required to use the public app.
The consumer proposition is unusually simple: Pando is free to install and Apple lists no in-app purchases. There is no premium tier to unlock the Bible or partner videos. Viewers still need compatible hardware, storage, and internet, and content rights can change without creating a paid entitlement.
Inside a facility, “free” needs a narrower reading. God Behind Bars says the Pando app and its content are free to inmates, but the tablet ecosystem may involve separately priced hardware access, messages, calls, media, or network services controlled by a correctional agency and vendor. Pando does not publish one national fee table because it does not control every institution. Ask the facility or chaplain whether opening and streaming Pando itself consumes paid credits.
For churches and content partners, distribution is a partnership rather than a consumer subscription. The public ministry form asks for a statement of beliefs, sample content, congregation size, and other information, which suggests review but does not explain all selection or licensing terms. Ministries should obtain a written agreement covering rights, accessibility, corrections, analytics, inmate privacy, theological review, and removal.
Donations support God Behind Bars and are optional. Prospective donors should evaluate audited financial statements, governance, program ratios, metric definitions, restricted-gift handling, and the distinction between Pando costs and the nonprofit’s prison campuses, events, music, reentry, and family programs. A dramatic testimony is meaningful but is not a substitute for transparent measurement.
Where Pando App falls behind
The public documentation does not cleanly separate the correctional build from the consumer build. It should list each tablet partner and participating jurisdiction, the current feature set by deployment, offline rules, media charges, content-review authority, response workflow, language access, account portability after transfer or release, and how an incarcerated person requests help when playback fails.
The 2020 privacy policy is overdue for a product-specific rewrite. It contemplates names, contact details, precise and approximate location, device identifiers, phone numbers, contacts, photos, video, search, behavioral tracking across services, prayer requests, journals, progress data, public contributions, and staff access to private areas. Apple’s label also reports linked email and identifiers plus additional unlinked content and usage data. The policy should state which fields the 2026 app actually collects, why, for how long, with whom, and whether correctional vendors or agencies receive them.
Security and power asymmetry deserve special treatment. Incarcerated users cannot freely choose devices, networks, or competing apps, and religious data may carry social or institutional consequences. Pando should document encryption, access logging, breach response, deletion after transfer or release, subpoena handling, role-based permissions, aggregate reporting thresholds, and a strict prohibition on using spiritual responses for classification, discipline, surveillance, eligibility, or commercial targeting.
The impact language runs ahead of the evidence. Pando says it improves mental health and God Behind Bars equates recorded decisions with people meeting Jesus, yet no published clinical design, recidivism study, denominators, independent evaluator, or follow-up methodology accompanies the claims inspected. The ministry can celebrate responses while describing them accurately and funding ethical evaluation that protects a vulnerable population.
Accessibility and pastoral safeguards are largely undocumented. Apple says no accessibility features have been declared. Pando should publish caption, transcript, audio-description, screen-reader, keyboard, contrast, cognitive-access, hearing-device, and low-bandwidth support; content warnings for violence, abuse, addiction, suicide, and incarceration; crisis pathways; and a policy that digital material supplements qualified human care.
Pando vs. Redeem TV vs. RightNow Media vs. YouVersion
Pando’s correctional distribution is its irreplaceable advantage. Redeem TV is a free donor-supported public streaming service with Christian films and series, while RightNow Media is a large teaching library normally sponsored by a church or organization. Both may offer stronger household interfaces or broader conventional catalogs, but neither public service automatically operates on a locked correctional tablet.
YouVersion provides a much larger range of Bible translations, audio, plans, highlights, and languages on ordinary devices. Pando’s KJV and ESV access is modest by comparison, yet approval inside a facility can matter more than catalog size. A chaplain may use printed Bibles and approved correspondence alongside Pando because translation choice, accessibility, and offline rules vary.
Choose Pando when prison access or continuity with prison-used content is central; Redeem TV for free Christian entertainment; RightNow Media for church-organized video study; and YouVersion for a comprehensive public Bible app. None replaces local pastoral care, licensed counseling, reentry services, or a fair institutional policy for religious choice.
The bottom line
Pando is an unusually consequential faith app because it solves distribution, not merely discovery. A free sermon or Bible on a personal phone is ordinary; the same material on an approved secure tablet can reach someone who cannot open the public internet, attend chapel on demand, or choose another device. God Behind Bars and its partners have documented impressive scale, and testimony from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated users shows why access matters. Use the service with gratitude and clear boundaries: confirm the exact facility version, treat partner teaching as diverse rather than uniformly endorsed, keep sensitive disclosures out of ordinary journals, and interpret installations, views, subscriptions, and response buttons as engagement metrics—not audited proof of conversion, recovery, mental-health benefit, or reduced recidivism. Pando can become a model of responsible prison technology by pairing its reach with current privacy documentation, transparent outcomes, accessibility, religious-choice safeguards, and durable connections to people who will still be present when the screen turns off.
Alternatives to Pando App
Redeem TVA free donor-supported Christian streaming service for films, series, documentaries, and teaching on ordinary household devices.
RightNow MediaA church-sponsored video library with extensive Bible study, recovery, leadership, family, and kids material.
Gospel PartnerA free teaching and devotional app centered on Joseph Prince Ministries, with a more unified theological voice.
YouVersionA comprehensive public Bible app with thousands of versions, audio, reading plans, notes, and far broader language support.Frequently asked questions
What is the Pando App?
Pando is a free Christian video and Bible app from God Behind Bars. Its distinctive version is distributed on approved secure tablets in participating correctional facilities; a related public app is available on Apple, Google, and Apple TV devices.
Is Pando free for inmates?
God Behind Bars says Pando content is free to incarcerated users. A facility or tablet provider may charge separately for devices, communications, media, or network services, so confirm whether streaming Pando consumes credits at the specific institution.
Is Pando available in every US prison?
No public source establishes universal availability. God Behind Bars reports 671,071 tablets, and Amazing Facts reports access across 423 prisons, but each agency, facility, and tablet vendor controls its approved catalog and features.
Which Bible translations does Pando include?
The current consumer listing advertises the full King James Version and English Standard Version. Translation, audio, offline, and search options may differ in a correctional deployment.
Does Pando prove that one million inmates became Christians?
God Behind Bars reported one million recorded decisions for Christ in 2025. It did not publish the prompt, unique-user method, denominators, audit, or long-term follow-up, so the figure should be described as a ministry-reported digital response count rather than independently verified conversion or discipleship.
Are Pando journals and prayer requests confidential?
Do not assume professional confidentiality. Pando’s 2020 policy says staff may view private journal or progress information during ordinary work and covers broad account, content, device, and tracking data. Use approved confidential clinical, legal, or chaplain channels for sensitive matters.
Can family members use Pando outside prison?
Yes. The consumer app is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Apple TV. Its library and functions may not exactly match the secure version available inside a correctional facility.
Sources & further reading
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