Dr. Charlie Wingard, one of Pastor Johnson’s professors at RTS Jackson, interviewed him in April after an RTS class on leadership taught by Dr. Wingard. The interview also served as a tribute to the professor/student relationship between the two men as Pastor Johnson began his transition from Jackson to Houston, both in his new pastoral calling to Antioch and the continuation of his RTS studies at RTS Houston.
John Johnson is a historic pastor. The RTS student, who until this spring studied at the Jackson campus, was formally installed in June as the pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Houston. Founded in 1866, Antioch is not only the oldest historically African-American Baptist church in Houston, but it is also the first structure of any kind in Houston built, owned and operated by newly emancipated slaves.
How did God call you to ministry?
In the African-American tradition I grew up in, to be called to ministry you had to be presented before the church. I didn’t know a lot about what it was, but I knew I wanted to share God’s Word. I don’t know why at that early age I was so in love with preaching. I would be on the church bus at age 15 going to hear preaching in the afternoon. It was then that it was burning in my heart to share the gospel.
I confessed that the Lord had called me to preach, and pastor sat me aside for about a year, taught me, gave me books to read. Even from there I knew I needed more. That was my call to preaching. People talk about how far they ran from the calling, but it wasn’t that kind of experience for me. As ignorant as I was to all the nuances and paradigms of preaching, I knew this is what I had been placed on this earth to do. I knew because when I did, it was like a burden lifted, like eyes opened. I loved to read, but I didn’t know a lot. I couldn’t afford the education I wanted at that time. But I knew I had been called to preach the gospel. And at that early age of 19, I started out. I had a church at 20 years old.
What churches have you served?
I served my first church starting in October 1994. I preached at a youth day at a church, and the other deacons heard me and asked me if I would come over, and I said sure. I didn’t know anything better, so I preached for them every Sunday, and they elected me and was ordained. That was my first church. In hindsight, with all the experience I learned, I never would’ve taken that church. I would’ve waited, gotten me a mentor, went to school, taken my time and learned more. But nevertheless they were wonderful people.
My second church was Mount Pisgah Baptist in Westport, Mississippi. I served there for three years, and then I got a call to St. Paul Baptist Church in Starkville, Mississippi, in April 1999, where I have been, and I’m making the transition to Antioch in Houston. All the churches I’ve served have had wonderful people, and they have grown.
What led you to study at RTS?
I was at Bible college, and my Greek professor said, “John, you’re about to graduate, and you highly need to consider seminary.” I looked at other seminaries, but my professor said, “You need to go online and look at RTS. You’re serious about biblical language; you’re good at it.”
So I looked at RTS, and I found out that its heart was in preaching the Word of God and training ministers in the Bible — not around the Bible, and not all the philosophical whims attached to the Bible, even though those other areas of learning are great. The people at RTS are so driven to study the Word of God. That immediately caught my attention, because it was so conservative, and the other schools were so liberal in their approach.
I wanted RTS, and I was already driving two hours to Bible college, so the drive wasn’t going to bother me. I came to RTS, and it’s the best decision I ever made.
What do you think RTS can offer men preparing for ministry in historically black churches?
It offers a biblical approach to ministry, a true heart drive for biblical preaching, the formation of your spiritual life, and a camaraderie of colleagues beyond the professor and student — it’s a family here. RTS will go far beyond to make sure you succeed. And they want you to learn not to be an “A” student, but a godly person with a heart after God.
So I think for any African Americans serious about their call to preach the gospel, RTS would be the greatest place for them, because it would sharpen them, and put a discipline and a passion in them that no matter where they go, nobody can take away what they got. Nobody! For any African American, RTS is the place to be if you’re serious about Scripture, about the language and about the forming of your own life.
In the leadership class earlier this morning, you talked about black ministers that RTS students should be reading. Who are some of those ministers?
We talked about Lemuel Haynes, John Chavis, E.V. Hill, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, A. Louis Patterson, H.B. Charles, Ralph West and Manuel Scott. And James Earl Massey is good for keeping a pastor humble.
You had recommended James Earl massey’s book The Burdensome Joy of Preaching to me last year, and I read it with great profit. What about the ministry of Martin Luther King Jr.? How has he influenced you?
People often misunderstand Martin Luther King because they think of him and the civil rights movement, but they don’t get to know Martin Luther King the preacher. All those speeches we hear — like “I Have a Dream” — were founded as sermons. What we heard at the Lincoln Memorial was a sermon he’d preached years ago.
So I think it would behoove all of us to know Martin the preacher at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, that guy who came straight out of seminary and grew up in his father’s church. Preaching had been in his family lineage for years. There are many others like him to get to know, even though we don’t agree with their doctrinal presentation, but we need to see the environment they came from.
Some observers from outside your tradition are surprised by the emotion expressed in African-American worship. What can we learn from your tradition?
That’s what it is — a tradition. It’s very important before we get disturbed about a tradition that we do our due diligence to learn the tradition, where it came from, back to the days of slavery, back to the days of plantations, and find the relationship between the pastor, the preacher, the slave, the slave owner, the master of the house, and the slaves in the field and the slaves in the house, and how It’s very important before we get disturbed about a tradition that we do our due diligence to learn the tradition…dangerous it was for any preacher or slave to go out and preach a message that would contradict the message of the master. He could lose his life. So codes had to be created. The call-and-response is nothing more than the code in the congregation. Nowadays it has turned into a lot of fallacious things that have no bearing on the truth of God’s Word. Some use it, and shouldn’t use it, to drive people’s emotions to get their point across. I don’t think we should ever clearance-rack the truth just to get a cheap “Amen.” The truth of God’s Word stands for itself, and we don’t need anything to bag it up or prop it up.
I don’t think we should ever clearance-rack the truth just to get a cheap “Amen.”But let’s not degrade or turn a blind eye to what it means for a suffering person who has gone through injustices and racist biases, and they’re hurting, and they hear an affirming, encouraging, exhortative word on Sunday from the biblical text, expository preaching in its context, and they just cry out. You’ve got to understand the environment where they’re coming from, instead of condemning it, and not use the call-and-response as a polluted paradigm of preaching in order to get your own personal point across or to get applause. I think that’s dangerous.
You’re going to become pastor at the historic Antioch Baptist Church in Houston. What are your leadership goals as you begin your work there?
First off, I’m very excited. This has been a long process. St. Paul Baptist is a wonderful, loving church, and if it were left up to me, I would be there the rest of my days. But God moved and created another assignment.
My first objective is, honestly, to go in and pray for the people. I don’t have this big vision in the first week — we need to take our time and be patient.
I’m going to start a series preaching through 1 Thessalonians. I’m starting there because it was recommended a couple of years ago by one of my professors — you in particular. When you start at a new church, look at 1 Thessalonians to see the hope, the joy, the encouragement for the people as they live in the time of the coming Christ.
I also want to get to know the people and my elders; I want to spend some time with them. I want to see where we are. Antioch is a great ministry now — they don’t need my own personality to change the whole paradigm. In time, as ministry needs approach, we will look at those together. But for now, I just want to go in and pray for the people, go through this transition, be with my family, get to know my deacons and elders and leadership staff, and love those people, and preach the gospel.
I am privileged beyond my imagination to be the pastor of Antioch. If you had told me two years ago that I would be the pastor there, I would’ve told you that you were the biggest comedian in the world. But by God’s sovereign grace and providential hand, he brought it to pass, and I’m humbled beyond my thought pattern at this opportunity. Not to make me big, but it’s amazing how God can make your name great if you just follow after God, and He will do all the rest.
At Antioch they didn’t even know my name, but God somehow brought my name to them. And out of all the lofty qualifications, God looked beyond all that and found a guy in Mississippi, hiding out here at RTS.
And now RTS is in Houston, 20 minutes away from the church. I’m going to continue my RTS classes this summer — I’ve got 39 more hours to go, so I can’t stop now!
John, we’re praying for you that God will pour out his blessing on your ministry. We’re going to miss you here — you’ve been a role model to our students, both in preaching and in pastoral integrity. We’re going to miss that witness, but we’re glad it will continue in Houston.
Thank you.
Learn more about Antioch Missionary Baptist Church — both its rich history and its dynamic present — at www.ambchouston.org.
