JON KELLY M.A. ’19 found himself facing a life sentence for his involvement in a shooting at age 19. “If you can imagine one of the angriest, most disrespectful, always high, always-getting shot-at-or-shooting-at-somebody teenager, that was me,” Jon remembers. He pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 6 to 15 years. 

During his first week in prison, a guard gave him a Bible. “My eyes were opened, my heart was changed, and I haven’t been the same since,” Jon says.

After six years, Jon made parole and began serving a church in West Philadelphia. He moved to Chicago in 2011 to study at the Moody Bible Institute while he pastored at Harvest Bible Chapel. In spring 2016, Jon became lead pastor of Chicago West Bible Church. “I had a heart to go back into a neighborhood just like where I came from, to see God do something great there,” he says.

“As a high school dropout, I place a high value on education,” Jon says. He is pursuing his master’s degree at Wheaton on a Colson Scholarship. “It’s been a true blessing.”