Jonno grew up in Brisbane, in a household that was culturally Chinese and nominally Buddhist. “We’d go to temples once a year, but around grade six I started asking questions about it all,” Jonno shares. At his primary school, there was a religious education program, and through those teachers he first heard about Christianity.
His parents sent him to a Christian high school, because they were keen on the educational benefits. Through that school he became friends with many Christians, who started inviting him along to church.
As a young teenager, Jonno struggled with feeling insecure and insignificant, which led to people pleasing behaviours in a bid to gain acceptance and identity. But at church, he started to hear that he was significant and important to the God who made him. “I felt I was nobody, just lost in a crowd. But I’m someone in God’s eyes,” he recalls. This transformed how Jonno saw himself and the world, and he gave his life to Christ.
After finishing high school in 2005, Jonno studied commerce, because that was what his family expected. But after graduating, he found that accounting was not for him. In 2011, a friend invited him on a mission trip to Zimbabwe that would mean taking a few months away from work, and Jonno leapt at the chance. The trip reoriented his life and work, and when he returned he decided to start studying social work. This took him closer to a role he was passionate about, but something was still missing.
“I found with social work, that while I loved working with youth, there was also only so much you could do to help someone. That’s what really drew me more and more to bible college. I kept thinking that there is more to this, and that it is really only the gospel that can change someone,” Jonno explains.
So in 2015, a decade after leaving high school, Jonno found himself where he was meant to be: enrolling in a degree at Brisbane School of Theology.
The choice of BST turned out to be right for many different reasons. “I really appreciate the interdenominational aspect of BST. I wanted to experience different denominations, because I wasn’t really committed to one in particular,” Jonno says. Another benefit was BST’s focus on mission, and the connections the college has with mission organisations.
“You reach the point where you hit a ceiling of what you can teach yourself,” Jonno explains. “Sitting in the classroom with a lecturer really opened my eyes to how much more there is to the Bible than I realised.”
The units on introduction to the gospel and introduction to the New Testament were particularly groundbreaking for Jonno in understanding the purpose behind why the authors wrote particular letters or the gospel accounts, and how it linked back to the Old Testament. Additionally, the exegetical subjects helped him dig deeper into God’s word. Through Church History lectures, he says, “I was amazed and thankful to see how Christianity got to this point in the 21st century,” he says.
Jonno was also blown away by the size of the library at BST. “At the university library, the social work section was a few bookshelves. But when you go into the BST library, there’s an incredible amount of books, all written on different topics of Christianity.”
The library was bigger than Jonno expected, but the classes were much smaller. This too turned out to be a blessing. “In a lecture room with 300 people, the lecturer presents and that’s it. But in smaller classes at BST the lecturers are not only your teachers, but become your mentors and friends. They open up their hearts to you and you can see how the gospel has impacted them in the way they teach you,” Jonno reflects.
This permeation of the gospel flowed into everything during Jono’s time at BST: he describes the community as one where the gospel was being lived out in active ways as students studied together, had meals together and relaxed together. “It is an incredible environment. And with people living on campus, I would often be staying late to study and end up having dinner with people who opened their homes and opened their families.”
Overall, Jonno’s years at BST were transformative, and he looks back on them as years he was being invested in and spiritually grown into the person he is today. “They gave me tools that I could add to my toolkit and resourced me so that after graduating from college I can preach a sermon or lead a devotion. But they also taught me to grow in reverence of who God is, and I came out shaped by that growth the most.”
Jonno now works as the lead pastor of Birkdale Baptist Church. He can clearly see how his training at BST has equipped him for the work he is now doing there. “My lecturers always revealed the treasures in scripture to me, and the great joy for me is that I now get to reveal those treasures to my congregation through my preaching. And just as the BST lecturers showed me the impact those treasures of scripture had on their lives, I can do the same for people now.”
To someone considering studying at BST, Jonno says to stop considering it and go do it. “It changed and transformed my life, and I am sure it will have a profound impact on you as well.”
Jonno would love the community at BST to join in praying with him for his church community to continue to grow in reverence, awe, wonder and joy as they gather as a church. He also asks for prayer for his wife and two kids, as the whole family supports his ministry work.
