12 Years Old In Prison | Johnny Chang’s Story

For us, we tried to stay out away from home. It wasn't a safe place for us. I just never understood my dad, why he had to do those things. I just knew that, okay, whenever he gets tipsy and drunk, it's just, we're gonna get beat. Felt like I always had to watch my back, even at home. When I saw gang members in my neighborhood, they had the guns, they had the money, they had the power, and they had the structure. They had the respect. And I saw that, and I was like, man, I want that. It's like, why am I gonna fly straight if I have no chances whatsoever? Again, that same emptiness was there. It was this void of just like, no matter what I did, I wasn't happy. What's it like at 12 years old, walking into a jail? Are you scared out of your mind? Are you trying to act tough? What's that like? Hey, welcome back to the God Behind Bars podcast. I'm Jake Bodine, and I'm excited about our next guest. We're here in the state of Mississippi at one of their correctional facilities, actually getting ready to do two events. Got done with one yesterday, where our next guest, Johnny Chang, spoke. Johnny is an amazing man of God, and has a history in prison himself.

And so I'm excited for you guys to hear where he came from and then what he's doing now. But Johnny, it's great to have you, man. Thank you, pleasure is mine, thank you. Excited. Tell me a little bit about your life. I know you've grown up in Los Angeles. Most of your life were raised in a single mother household, and got involved in the gang life pretty early on. If you wanna start, wherever you wanna start, man, and just give us who you are and what happened. So yeah, I grew up in Los Angeles. It's the San Gabriel Valley. It's a predominantly Asian and Hispanic household. I grew up in the Projects, Ramona Gardens, which mostly Hispanics. And essentially, I joined a gang at the age of 12. My parents are immigrants. My father was an alcoholic, was there, but wasn't really there. Was there physically, emotionally, wasn't there mentally. And my mom was a Buddhist, hardcore Buddhist. So she was very submissive. Us being Asian, we're just, that's our culture. And yeah, ended up kinda hopping off the porch really, really young. Started gangbanging at the age of 12, three months into my gang career, if you will, or being in the gang, I ended up getting locked up. So I went to California Youth Authority,

which is like a child's prison, you have to get admitted. And then from there, went over to prison, big leagues, level four, level three. Yeah, so I did a total of 13 years. From 12 to 25, I was locked up, essentially. Got out 2014, and pretty much never looked back. Changed my life, became Christian. Now I'm doing prison ministry, working with God Behind Bars. Amazing organization, so yeah. Amazing, brother. What's it like for our listeners that probably don't fully understand the culture of the gang life? Obviously, I think a lot of young men especially look up to that, because having an absent father, looking for the male role model in their life, I've heard it often that they turn to the streets for their structure and for the men to ultimately raise them. Is that kinda what you were seeking as well? Absolutely, absolutely. So I would go in the streets because it was more safer, actually, than my home. My dad was very abusive. He beat me, beat my mom, beat my brother multiple occasions, every time he would drink, which was every day. So for us, we tried to stay out away from home. It wasn't a safe place for us.

And I just never understood my dad, why he had to do those things. I just knew that, okay, whenever he gets tipsy and drunk, it's just, we're gonna get beat. And so it made me kind of think about always being oppressed, and I felt like I always had to watch my back, even at home. And when I saw gang members in my neighborhood, they had the guns, they had the money, they had the power, and they had the structure. They had the respect. And I saw that, and I was like, man, I want that. And at that time, I was fighting a lot. As a kid, I was getting suspended, and I just internalizing everything, and I'm gonna go out in the streets, letting it all out. And so that caught the attention of the local gangs. They were like, okay, this kid's kind of like a knucklehead. He's not from anywhere, but he'll fight. So that obviously made me kind of easy for recruitment. And they started to, yeah, recruit me and kind of coerce me into the gang. And I was getting, I guess, love, if you will. It was a different type of love, but for me, at that time, they were like my pseudo family. And I was like, okay, these are my brothers. They respect me. I remember the first vivid memory I had was going out, and my older homie, my OG,

giving me $100. And a 12-year-old kid, $100 is like 1,000 bucks. You're like, man, I've never seen this much money. And I just felt like these are the people. This is my family. I don't care about my dad. I don't care about my mom. I don't care about my real brother. These are my brothers. These are people who protect me, who love me, who care about me. And yeah, the more violent I was, honestly, I was more praised than I was loved. So I learned the language of violence. It was a universal language from a very young age. And I was very violent, very just opportunistic, very people-pleasing with other, you know, my friends. And so, yeah, it made me crash out a lot, yeah. What's it like at 12 years old walking into a jail? Like, are you scared out of your mind? Are you trying to act tough? What's that like? Yeah, so I had a lot of, in my gang, you know, we got recode and a lot of the kids have been to places like YA, Juvenile Hall, our older, you know, the older guys have been to, you know, all the California systems, all level fours, maximum security and all that. So they kind of coached me, you know, when I caught the case, they were like,

okay, you're gonna go to YA. When you go in there, they were already teaching me, you know, two second rule, if anybody disrespects you, you have literally two seconds to act on it. If you don't act on it, then you're labeled this, and we will also beat you up if you come out, we'll take your life, all kinds of stuff. So they were just kind of coaching me, like you just, you're representing something, even though you're 12 years old, you're representing something bigger than yourself, right? It's like your team, right? And so if you don't represent us correctly, it's the ultimate disrespect, and you're disrespecting your family, and they kind of ingrained that in me. So whatever I did, you know, I was in 40 plus fights, you know, as a kid and in prison, in YA, and I started to recognize that this is what's gonna happen. Was I afraid? Absolutely. I didn't really know anything about YA. They just said, yeah, it is a crazy place, but it almost felt like a badge of honor because, you know, when we committed the crime, there was six of us, and I was the youngest one, and I took the rap because I was the youngest one. I went in there thinking I was gonna get four months, they ended up giving me four years.

So I was like, whoa, this is kind of wild, and they were like, it's okay, go in there, represent. And it was, you know, initial culture shock was, man, I'm going to this place, I started having a panic attack, I remember walls caving in, all that. But then when I got to the yard, the cottage, as they say, I started seeing my friends, my homies, and they were older, you know, they were 15, 16 years old, you know, 17 years old. Oh, I'm from this gang, and I'm like, oh, we're from the same hood. So it actually almost felt like a homecoming type of thing, it was weird. And so they were like, yeah, we heard about you, they already made phone calls, whatever, whatever. And so I was like, wow, so our gang is not only powerful in the streets, like we had some juice in YA, we had juice in prison, every yard that I've been to was always a couple of my friends, right? So it just felt almost like it was easy for me. At first, of course, initially you're scared, but then you're like, huh, I'm pretty much in here with my friends, like with my family. So it really wasn't anything, and I didn't think much of it actually. So aside from the fact that, you know, you can't go out of the walls,

it just was its own little ecosystem, and I kind of adapted pretty well to that. Yeah. That's amazing. What was the moment in your life where it was like God got ahold of you, or obviously that's all you've known for the majority of your life. And for some people that becomes normal life. And what was the moment where it was like, man, this is the full surrender moment to Jesus. Yeah, so in prison, you know, I had tried to fly straight a little bit. I had an older homie, rest in peace, he was trying to guide me through, and he was almost like a father figure. He was from my gang, but he was back when he was in the 60s. So he's an old, old cat. And he's like, you know, Johnny, you're not an animal, right? You have a brain, you should get your GED, you should, you know, get anger management, counseling, learn a skill. And so at that time when I was locked up, there wasn't much resources, but we could get our GED. They did have anger management, they did have counseling, and I took all of that. And I was kind of on the up, you know, I pass all those things, you know, I got my GED and I figured these things

should make me happier. But there was always this emptiness that I felt, no matter what I did, I was like, oh, and then I just kind of like thought that it was because I was in prison that, oh, once I'm out of prison, I might be a little more happy, I get some money in my pocket, maybe find a nice girl, start a family, I'll be okay. So, you know, I get to prison, I'm sorry, I get out of prison and I'm trying to apply for jobs. And, you know, I'm a two strike felon. So they're just like, yeah, there's, they're not gonna give me anything. I think I applied to over a hundred places, Home Depot, Walmart, all that, didn't matter. And so that really pissed me off. And I was like, why am I gonna fly straight if I have no chances whatsoever? So I unfortunately went back and I started selling drugs again. And, you know, my first two, three months, you know, took me a little bit, but got up to 30, $40,000 a month. And now I'm thinking, okay, I got a penthouse, I have a cherry red BMW, you know, I have women, I should be happy. Again, that same emptiness was there. It was this void of just like,

no matter what I did, I wasn't happy. And during that time I tried to like commit suicide, you know, a couple of times. And I realized that like, I was more miserable outside of prison having everything that I thought would make me happy than I was actually inside. Cause inside I at least had this hope that once I get these things, I'll be happy. So that was true misery. I felt like I couldn't live anymore, but also I couldn't die, right? So it was like, I couldn't live, I couldn't, I was just existing. And through all of that, you know, a series of events happened, three things in particular, within about a week and a half, two week span. The first thing that happened was my friend actually hung himself in prison, sent me a kite, very encrypted letter, basically telling me, hey bro, when you look to the mountains, when you miss me, just weird things like that. And then I found out he, you know, took his life. And then another thing happened where my other friend, we planned a robbery. We robbed the drug dealers, cause our mentality, gang mentality is, we're not gonna sell drugs, like it's risky. They sell drugs, they get all the money

and we just robbed them, right? So we did that, it was botched. My friend ended up dying in my place because I was supposed to go to the right of the car. He was supposed to go to the left. When I stepped to the right, he stepped in front of me. So I naturally just went his way. Three gunshots rang out. He died right there in my arms, you know? So I had survivor's guilt after that. And then I had a youngster who I loved dearly. He was just like me, like a little brother that I never had. And he was exactly like I was, just knucklehead, crazy, all that. He loved me a lot. And I found out that he had gotten killed from a car to car shooting, right? So he's murdered. And all this within about a week and a half. And I started to recognize that death is very real. Like I can die, you know? And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die soon. I just had that feeling, right? And my mother's car broke down about an hour away from her church. And at this time, she's been going to church. When I was locked down for the last four years of my stretch, she had converted from Buddhism to Christianity. And I wasn't trying to hear that.

I was like, I'm Buddhist, you know? I'm not trying to listen to all that stuff. So fast forward, I take her to the church and I meet my pastor for the first time. Eventually this man ends up becoming my pastor, feeds me with black bean noodles, which is my favorite food. It's like God knew through food, man. As a prisoner, if you guys don't know, and the ones who do know, stamps, visitation, food, number one things when you get to the pen. So I love the food and he opened my heart with food. And he never imposed Christianity on me. He just asked me, you know, he explained to me that sin was an identity, that I was, you know, I don't eat more orange chicken and become more Chinese. Whether I, you know, sin or not, I'm still a sinner. You know, it's an identity issue. We're born this way, we're born flawed. And that's something that was understandable for me. And yeah, so, you know. Oh, keep going, sorry, I wasn't cutting you off. So through that, I was able to understand that, hey, like if God had had to, he made it this way, where we were flawed, imperfect beings, so that we can rely on a savior. And that's when he explained the concept of a savior. He said, you know, you're a sinner. Let's say you're somebody who's drowning. You know, if you can just get up and walk out,

you saved yourself. And I'm like, true. He's like, but if you have like, if you're drowning and you really can't save yourself, you need a lifeguard to come save you. Well, likewise, Jesus is like the lifeguard saving you from your sins. And that's why you're feeling empty. That's why you're living happy, sad, happy, sad, up and down, up and down. And I was like, this guy is a Korean dude, pastor's kid, clean cut, never shot a gun in his life, never stepped a foot, you know, big toe in the gang life, yet he knew my heart through and through, and I couldn't understand that. And I was like, this man, it felt as if he had the antidote for my problems. Like, how could he know that I was empty when I told nobody about this? Not even my parents, nobody. He saw right through me. And he was like, you know, I don't know you, Johnny, but the Bible, people like you are in the Bible, and I know the Bible. So, you know, and it was just beautiful, and he was able to just conceptualize everything from original sin to why I have intrusive thoughts to why I lay in bed at night and feel empty and why I spiral and then try to do better and then fall again and all backsliding.

He was explaining everything to me. So, yeah, he's still my pastor to this day. He's the one that encouraged me to go to prisons, and now we're here with God Behind Bars, so it's awesome. I love it, man. And honestly, I think that people do need to recognize that, especially those that are kind of on the fence with this whole Jesus idea. And they look at guys like me and you, they read the stories in the Bible, or they hear all the great things that a Moses did or a David or a Paul. But every single one of us and who God has used has got a broken past that was never qualified to be in ministry, but he qualified each and every one of us with our own cause, our own purpose, whether it's big or small. And some of us, it's just surrendering to him. It doesn't mean you have to go out and be in ministry, right? Amen. But it's good to recognize that the Bible and even the guys that are doing this today are just all broken people, that God has ultimately made beautiful through this story of life that we all get to live. Amen. You give our audience the idea of what God's doing now. Obviously, you commit your life to Christ. You have this huge ministry.

One thing I love about your ministry is that most evangelists, they preach to people and share, but you have a unique approach. You allow people to ask questions. And you just stand there, and it doesn't matter, no questions off limits, no questions too big, too small theologically, and you just answer in real ways to real people's questions. Where did you get that kind of heart? I think I was just a big brain always, and I was like, man, I need proof, proof, proof. A lot of the times we start with our walk by sight, not by faith, and a little bit we transition into walking by faith, trusting in the Lord. So I understand the frustrations of wanting to figure things out, going down rabbit holes, finding discrepancies, and not understanding things. But I've kind of made everything relatable because I know where they're coming from. I understand that they're asking, usually out of fear. A lot of people are seeking truth. Not every question correlates to disrespect, and even disagreements does not mean disrespect. So I always keep it as an open platform for people because I get it and I understand. Also, the disciples asked Jesus questions. Didn't mean that they lacked faith, it's just they didn't even understand that they were lacking faith.

So God was very compassionate and very meek with that. And so I think God has given me that heart to be able to be like, there's certain things, like we can't explain everything, but there are things that we can do where Jesus is a prime example, spoke in parables and things like that. So I tend to kind of make things relatable. For me, 1 Corinthians 9.22 always comes to mind. We are all things to all men so that we can save some of them. So anybody, I explored Muslim religion, I explored Buddhism. There are people who are just looking for love. At the end of the day, everyone is interconnected through the struggle, through sin. Whether you're a Buddhist, whether you're this, we're all human at the end of the day. We all bleed the same color, we all go through the same things. Depression, loneliness, emptiness is a universal language. So I think it's really important to allow people to be vulnerable. And the first thing you have to do is be able to be receptive to them being vulnerable. A lot of people I've noticed, whether it's evangelists, and I'm not calling anybody out specifically, but they tend to be like, it's my way, you listen to what I say because I know the truth.

But I take that approach as like vegetables to children. Veggies are good for kids, but if you take a silver spoon and you shove the veggies inside of their mouth, that's abuse. We have to be able to let them understand at times and when the time is right, they'll be able to see, wow, if I'm eating these veggies, it's good for me. It's the same with religion, it's the same with relationship. You can't force something because something forced is not love. So I've learned that to love on people is to have dialogue with them, is to be receptive to the things that they say, is to understand that they may not know what they're questioning and it may be coming from a fear-based thing or a position of vulnerability and they don't know how to deal with it. Because I was like that. My whole life I was operating off of fear. It looked like I was a gang member, but inside I was this scared little boy. So I see everybody who comes to me and approaches me as, hey, they just want love. And it's a perfect opportunity to show the love of God through the gospel and just make everything relatable. So that's why I love doing what I do.

Q and A's, any questions, personal, deep theological, whatever it is. If I don't know, I'll say it too. Hey, I don't know. You know, I think transparency and authenticity is also very important too. Hey, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the God Behind Bars podcast. This is Jake Bodine, one of your hosts here. And I just wanted to encourage you to like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to to the God Behind Bars podcast and then set your notifications to be alerted every time we upload a new episode so that you can be up to date in hearing what God is doing in and through the men and women that are behind bars. Continue listening to this episode of the God Behind Bars podcast. I love it, man, because I've gotten myself in a couple of pigeonholes, even trying to defend my personal belief for God. In fact, I walked through a very tough time over two years with my own wife that was asking very adult questions and I was only able to give her very childlike answers. And when she wasn't able to fully comprehend my understanding of it, it became frustration and tension. I think that we have to recognize that everybody is on their own journey with God and that the questions aren't offensive, right?

Or shouldn't be offensive. So therefore, we shouldn't be defensive. But hey, let's look at that together. Let's grow like that together. Because I know there's a lot of guys in prison, in fact, that they care a whole lot about the men that are around them and they've given their life to Christ and they fight for their salvation. And that's what us as men especially do. We're protectors, we can be aggressive. and we want to fight for the good of other people most of the time. So it could be come from a, the intention could be good, but the approach can be wrong. Absolutely. And I've loved your approach and then what God's done through you. He's actually absolutely blown up your ministry. Millions of followers all over your YouTube channels, Instagram, and it's all just real authentic conversation at the end of the day. Amen. So loving it. What's next for Johnny? I think we're going international, right? We're trying to dub everything in Spanish. We do have a lot of, you know, a lot of people from Latin America who follow us and just going to China as well. I'm Chinese, you know, ethnically, so I speak the language as well. Which I'm curious about that. Obviously, China is pretty opposed to Christian ministry. Yeah. How do you get around that? Are you going to use the underground church?

I mean, it depends. Whatever God allows, right? I'm just, to me, I see it as we're just a vessel. But genuinely speaking, they're actually lightening up a lot from what I've heard. We have underground churches out there, too. Our churches are in 90 different countries. So when I see that, I'm like, oh, and then also there's statistics proving that China is the fastest growing Christian country, which is wild, right? So I'm like, OK, I think it's God is doing revival everywhere. We can see that everywhere in prisons, outside of prison, everywhere. So it's just a beautiful time. And I feel more so honored to just be a vessel for him. Like, it's a beautiful thing. Like, prisoners think that when we come into prison, I'm sure you can attest to this, that, you know, it's a pleasure for them. But it's actually we receive the bigger reward, you know, by giving. So for me, it's like I don't mind if I'm getting persecuted or whatever. If it's for the gospel, I find honor in that because that's biblical, you know. So it's like I'm a person who came from nothing, from the streets, project housing, to be able to then touch people, preach the gospel to these people, come back and give life to these people, not because I'm good, but because the gospel is in my heart. It's such a beautiful thing. So that's the next move is just to is literally to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. You know, God wants us to do that. And I don't know what he had. Like, I never thought going on Soft White Underbelly, the secular platform and giving my testimony on there would then blow up and blow me up to where I am now. God sent me, you know, my my my I call them family now, my team,

where they're literally helping me with social media and all that. I don't know anything about social media. You know, I still type with one finger, you know what I'm saying? So I just yeah, I'm a person who I realized if you place truly God in the kingdom first, everything else will be added unto you. So my job is always gospel centric, keeping everything salvific, all about salvation. And I just I just want to preach the gospel. I don't know how to explain it. I just feel like anything I do, if we're in there to preach the gospel and whether it's kingdom partnerships like this, kingdom appointments, it doesn't matter. It has to just be gospel centered. And that's what we want to do. So documentaries are coming out. You know, we have people reaching out to us now, you know, going out to different prisons and just all kinds of stuff. We're going to Sweden in January, doing our first arena, S3 arena, 40,000 people. We're going to do a stop the violence thing. It's wild, man. It's wild. Parliament's going to be there. It's I'm just like, wow, I'm just a snotty nose kid from East L.A., you know, like how is God doing all of this? And that's the power of God. And how do our listeners find you and get to be a part of that? Yeah. So, you know, we have discord. You can look at core of the heart dot com as well. I'm very active on all social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. You can look for Johnny Chang or Johnny Chang live. And yeah, we do Bible classes, deep dive Bible classes.

I read the Bible front to back a lot of times. So we break down scripture exegetically, as we say, and lexiconically in the original language. So every Saturdays we do that. And yeah, you guys can join. We do free live events after service. So we come to your cities. Yeah. So and then we're also on the Pando app, right, which appreciate you guys on the Pando app. You know, God behind bars. Really amazing, amazing app. But we're on there. I mean, you guys can consume all of our free content. We do free events like the live events and then we do the Bible classes and all that. So, yeah, I love it, man. Last question for you. There's 18 year old young Johnny sitting in his cell right now on the Pando app. Yeah. Watching this conversation. Maybe you've been a part of the gang life, maybe not, but has a lot of questions about this whole idea of Jesus. And likes a lot of what you had to say, but still has questions and maybe even in a different faith and feels like, how do I get out of it? And just have a relationship versus a relationship with this particular religion. What would you say to that kid? I would say all religions teach you to do well. What I've learned, however, through my exploring and my journey is Christianity is the only religion that teaches you can't do it without Jesus. And, you know, you can't I couldn't get myself out of depression, couldn't get myself out of loneliness. And that's why we call him our savior.

He saved. me out of it he removed all of that out so you know you have nothing to lose if you want to give him a try um you know we're not going to force anything but even when me i didn't i became muslim for three years to debate people about jesus and i ended up actually coming back to him so whether you go against him or not that's okay i genuinely ask everybody to explore their faiths that's not a problem seek right but god is telling us that the truth is the truth right and there is a universal truth which is jesus and i believe god will lead anybody here you don't have to try yourself it's not a forced relationship but if you just step a little bit i believe god wants to help you and he will lead you i didn't believe in jesus i was all buddha i was all allah i was like you know what i don't care about christians they're hypocritical and now i'm working with you know christians and a big christian influencer and i'm preaching the gospel truly i was able to be set free um and you know i'm not a person who would ever could ever even imagine that i'd be going back to prisons because once i got out of prison i was like i'm never coming back here now i'm coming back here preaching the gospel so it's not you know you don't have to believe actually god is going to work according to his timing but all i ask is to keep an open mind to say hey i don't have the answers to everything which i was real with myself i'm not a person who's truly happy and can produce happiness and so i can give this a try and when i did leaps and bounds god literally leveled up my life crazy and yeah that's that's all i can say i love it man well thanks for joining us i love this conversation i love what god's doing in and through your life amen and uh keep doing it man because i know uh especially our generation this millennial and gen z generation we've got a lot of questions oh yeah uh and we live in an information age and i just love your approach and how god's put that on your heart so thanks for being here with us man thank you appreciate you hey thanks for tuning in to another episode of the god behind bars podcast and i just want to thank you as a listener for your continued support and encourage you to share this with as many of your friends and family as possible it is our heart and goal to tell the story of what god is doing behind bars with as many people as possible and so as you share this amongst your friends and family and on your social networks it allows us and supports that goal number two is if you would love to make a gift to god behind bars to help us continue the work and to grow the platform of what's happening here as a ministry i want to encourage you to go over to god behind bars dot com backslash donate and no matter what you can give it all helps in

making the mission and vision of introducing as many people to jesus as we possibly can and connecting them to the local church and so thank you so much again for being a listener and we pray that this encourages you just as much as you've been an encouragement to us