Biography

Keithian L. Starling is a native of Albany, Georgia.  He grew up in a single parent home in a poor neighborhood surrounded by drugs, gangs, and violence.  Keithian started dealing and using illegal drugs at the age of eleven.  After being robbed by a drug addict, Keithian bought a gun to protect himself.

Shot by gang members in the summer of 1992 with a sawed off shot-gun at a block party, Keithian became a very angry young man.  He was known for robbing people, drug dealers, and stores, and was involved in gun fights with other rival street thugs.  Law enforcement officers considered it a trophy to get Keithian off the streets. 

Due to constant incarceration, Keithian was so far behind in his schoolwork that he dropped out of school in the eighth grade.  He abandoned himself to a life of drug dealing, partying, and crime.  He spent most of his teenage and young adult life incarcerated.

In 1993, Keithian and another friend were sentenced to twelve months in a juvenile prison for aggravated assault.  After his release in 1994 he went back to a life of crime.  He was present when another friend killed a drug addict during a drug deal.  Keithian thought his life was over.  He was not charged in connection with the murder.  He was sentenced to eighteen months in Milledgeville YDC for being involved in a drive-by shooting and drug possession.  In court, the judge called him a menace to society.

Upon his release in 1997, Keithian began to deal in marijuana.  During this time Keithian and friends were fighting with rival drug dealers.  He had a friend die in his arms at a party in 1998 after being stabbed in the heart.  In 1999, Keithian was charged for the murder of one of His customer's clients.  The person responsible was later found and Keithian was found to be innocent.  He wanted to get out of that life of crime and drug dealing.  He was tired of running from God and His plan for his life. 

In 2000, while incarcerated in Albany for four drug charges, Keithian began to seek to know God, His plan for his life, and how to be obedient to God, by reading the Bible.  The Bible began to change his thoughts about himself as a sinner, and the life he once lived without God.  God's love for sinners revealed in the Gospel motivated him to want to love God back by dedicating himself to God and serving Him for the rest of his life.

He prayed and asked God to reveal His ways to him.  A few days later he had the privilege of receiving Grace books by R.B. Thieme, Jr. from Ernest Smith of Lost & Found Ministries.  Mr. Smith is a member of Albany Bible Church.  These books opened his eyes to salvation—by grace, through faith—and how to live the unique spiritual life through the power of the Spirit and the Word of God.  When he understood the doctrines of “Faith Alone in Christ Alone" for salvation, to confess sins and keep moving, Faith-rest, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and other doctrines taught by R.B. Thieme, Jr., he became a lover of truth and was burdened to bring that truth to those who were suffering.  Keithian started teaching the doctrine he was learning to the inmates and guards.  Keithian was sentenced three times totaling 40 years; but, by the grace of God he only served 2 years.

When he was released from prison in 2003, he continued his pursuit of doctrine at Albany Bible Church where Pete Daughtry is the Pastor-Teacher.

From 2003-2006, while attending Albany Bible Church, God opened doors for Keithian to visit schools, prisons, jails, and youth detention centers, presenting the Gospel and basic procedures to live the Christian life.  He also shared how he found deliverance from a life of crime.

In 2004, Keithian went to a community college and got His GED and pursued a diploma as a Radiology Technician.  After the first two courses, he dropped out and enrolled in seminary through extension at Tyndale Theological Seminary in order to be a better trained minister of the Word.

From July 2004 to August 2006, Keithian worked for Nanze Springs Water Company as a salesman.  While working at this company his daily route brought him in contact with many who needed the Gospel.  This kindled his desire to do full time mission work.  He began to see what the Lord meant by “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few”.

In May 2006, Keithian moved to Nashville, Tennessee to volunteer at Grace Evangelistic Ministries, a missionary organization.  While working for Grace Evangelistic Ministries he received many letters from prisoners that he had taught.  Keithian sensed the call by God to go back as a missionary into the prisons, jails, and detention centers, taking them the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and sound Bible teaching.  He incorporated Grace Prison Ministries in April of 2008.

Currently, Keithian teaches weekly at two Nashville, Tennessee jails and two state prisons.  He travels to youth detention centers, jails, and prisons in Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Texas, and wherever else God opens the door.  Keithian shares our Lord’s heart for the lost, and a heart for prisoners.  He has already walked a mile in their shoes and knows that the only way for them to change is by becoming a new creature in Christ and renewing the mind.  The grace and love of God has transformed his life and now he is reaching out sharing the truth that set him free.