Allen Jiang
Testimony
I was born in San Diego, California, but my family moved to China when I was in the 6th grade. Though my parents were not Christian, I was exposed to Christianity from family friends, and genuinely believed and accepted Jesus early on. However, there was still much in my life that wasn’t right — in high school, I pursued idols of academic success and accomplishment, all the while living in pride, selfishness and sin. As a nominal Christian, Christ had little impact in my life. Jesus was my ‘savior’, but not the Lord over my life.
In college, as I started to become more involved with Stepping Stone Ministry, a group of close friends and I began reading the Bible habitually. It was through this regular time in the Word, and starting to pray at our Friday night services and prayer meetings that I gradually started to see the worthiness and beauty of Christ — that He was inviting me into a relationship with Him. At the same time, God was breaking apart my idol of academic success as a premed at Hopkins, as I strived to be accomplished and respected in the eyes of my peers. Through this process, I struggled with some depression as I lost purpose in chasing my old dreams.
Finally, during passion week my junior year, I started to come to a deeper understanding of what Jesus Christ’s sacrifice meant — why I needed a savior for my sinfulness, why I needed Him to redeem me and change me — that He died for me, to save me because He loves me. Over the course of the next few years, as I started serving more actively in my church, I started to recognize that He deserved to be Lord of my life, and that I needed to fully surrender to Him to allow Him to use my life for His purposes!
Steps into Ministry
While serving as a small group leader, a worship leader and later a worship director at Stepping Stone, God gave me a heart to serve the church. After I graduated from Hopkins in 2014, I stayed behind to continue serving as volunteer staff at the church — originally as a few gap years before heading off to medical school. However, in those years, I realized that my passion was doing ministry — making disciples, encouraging brothers and sisters, helping them to see the richness and goodness of Christ and that He is worthy of our lives.
During that time, God put Ephesians 4 on my heart as a ‘life verse’ — “and he gave the apostles, the prophets… to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” He also put it on my heart to stay in Baltimore, to pray for God’s work on the Johns Hopkins University campus consistently, and to continue making disciples and evangelizing to the campus. College was an intensely impactful experience for me, as it was foundational in changing the trajectory of my life towards seeking His Kingdom first above all things. I realize that college is a time when many young adults struggle to find their identity, purpose and place in the world.
God has been challenging me recently to take steps of faith with Him, and to trust in His guidance and faithfulness. As I have been thinking about taking steps into exploring full time ministry for a few years now, I decided that now – graduating from my masters program, would be the appropriate time to do so and to see if God is truly calling me into this. I am excited for what’s next, and appreciate all the support I can get!