Ambassador to the Global Village

By Alfred B. Johnson

In his memoirs, the author discusses Interfaith Relationship,
Racial Diversity, Immigration Issues and African Culture
and Spirituality. The author shares his involvement with the
Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society and pastoral challenges
in the inner-city of Newark, New Jersey, USA as he served
as Christs Ambassador to the Global Village.
Alfred B. Johnson author, lecturer and missionary pastor was ordained by the Baptist church in
Jamaica, WI. He gained his undergraduate degree from London University, England, a Masters
in New Testament Studies from Union Seminary, New York and a Doctor of Ministry from Drew
University, New Jersey. Additionally, he earned a Diploma in French from the Alliance Francaise
in Belgium. Prior to his retirement in 2010, Rev. Johnson served for 21 years as pastor of
Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Newark, New Jersey and was the fi rst Jamaican to
be elected as moderator of a regional presbytery in the over two-hundred-year history of the
Presbyterian Church, USA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479744565

Alfred B. Johnson

Popularly known as the “Village Pastor”, the author shares his memoirs of travels around the world from the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He has been welcomed by Pygmies in Equatorial Africa; preaching to those who have never heard the name of Jesus and baptizing hundreds of converts in the River Congo. Rev Johnson has lived in thatched-roof mud huts and found snakes coiled up in his bed. He has traveled by donkeys; in sail boats guided by the stars and the moon of the Caribbean night; and driven across wooden bridges repaired by his own hands. He has planted olive trees on the slopes of Mt. Olive in Palestine as the region searches for peace and justice; and he has had his cars stolen by day and been robbed at gunpoint at night. In his memoirs, the author discusses Interfaith Relationship, Racial Diversity, Immigration Issues and African Culture and Spirituality. The author shares his involvement with the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society and pastoral challenges in the inner-city of Newark, New Jersey, USA … as he served as “Christ’s Ambassador to the Global Village”. Alfred B. Johnson author, lecturer and missionary pastor was ordained by the Baptist church in Jamaica, WI. He gained his undergraduate degree from London University, England, a Master’s in New Testament Studies from Union Seminary, New York and a Doctor of Ministry from Drew University, New Jersey. Additionally, he earned a Diploma in French from the Alliance Francaise in Belgium. Prior to his retirement in 2010, Rev. Johnson served for 21 years as pastor of Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Newark, New Jersey and was the first Jamaican to be elected as moderator of a regional presbytery in the over two-hundred-year history of the Presbyterian Church, USA.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

GUEST FOREWORD

PREFACE

1. CALL TO MINISTRY

Call To Mission

Commissioned For Mission

Africa Christianized By Jamaicans

Immigration Issues

The Journey Begins

Missionary Orientation

2. INTO THE HEART OF AFRICA

Binga—Here I Come

Yakusu

Mission Cooperation

3. HOME IS A MISSION FIELD

The Decade Of The 1970S

Mt. Nebo

Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society: From Mission Field To Mission Force

Here Comes Chappie!

4. AT THE CALL OF CALABAR

Nigeria’s Multifaith Community

One Supreme And Sovereign God

First Baptist Church Of Calabar

The African Indigenous Church

5. CITIZENS’ RIGHTS IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

Our Common Task

Civil Rights Movement: We Shall Overcome…

Apartheid: I Can Hear Them Crying In Soweto

A Visit To The Holy Land: Tear Down These Walls

Social Justice Advocacy

6. SHEPHERDING GOD’S PEOPLE

Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church

Caribbean Patriotism

Jamaican Diaspora

Guyana

Hispaniola (Haiti And The Dominica Republic)

St. Vincent And The Grenadines

Mission To Jamaica: Santa Cruz And Iona

Weed And Seed

Presbytery Of Newark

A Sabbatical Journey—Searching For And Reconnecting With My Roots

7. DEDICATED LEADERSHIP SUCCESS-ION

The Future Of Theological Education In The Black Church

8. EPILOGUE

Retirement

To Be Continued…

A New Word For The Church

NOTES

Except where otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

DEDICATION

To the Cloud of Witnesses

"Marturos¹ for Christ"

T his memoir is dedicated to the memory of those who are now part of the Church Triumphant who witnessed to me and shared Christ with me. They prayed for me and gave me an example of Christian living as they served Christ faithfully and gave their lives to Him as His witnesses. They are His martyrs (marturos ) at rest from their labors, rejoicing in the eternal presence of the Lord and are now crowned in glory having received their reward for a job well done. They are a part of the great cloud of witnesses (marturos ) who helped in the formation of my life. I thank my God upon every remembrance of them. Their names are not written here; however, they are forever written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and are members of the Cloud of Witnesses.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the Church Witnessing

"Marturos for Christ"

I t is said " No man is an island, no man stands alone, " and may I add, I did not do it alone! I wish to express my deepest and sincere thanks to those who continue to share in my personal life and ministry. I wish to acknowledge the persons named and unnamed, whose collegiality helped to shape this memoir. You are the living evidence of the Witnessing Church and of a Christ who cares and comforts, and you are carrying the Gospel to the global community.

I wish also to say thanks to my family members who suffered because of the loss of quality time with them. I acknowledge those who allowed me to share and thus develop my gifts, also my coworkers who blessed me with their knowledge to help me grow. I acknowledge those who believed in me and encouraged me to share my story with you. I am indebted to those (particularly my wife, Abegail) who went through the ordeal of reading, commenting, making suggestions, and editing my drafts of this manuscript. You all know that I like to talk rather than to write. There are no spelling mistakes when I talk and not too much emphasis on grammar that may be easily forgotten or forgiven. And as they say, the buck stops here for the content. Keep on being witnesses to Christ’s love and care and keep on carrying God’s message as you remain the Church Witnessing (marturos).

FOREWORD

T his book comes to us as a gift from someone who has indeed been an ambassador to the Global Village. His personal journey began with an educational foundation and preparation at the Calabar High School, with spiritual nurture and theological formation at the Calabar Theological College, both of which were in Kingston, Jamaica, and expanded in a ministry within the Global Village to the First Baptist Church of Calabar in Nigeria.

Both of the Calabar institutions in Jamaica were under the auspices of the Jamaica Baptist Union, which, after careful and thorough preparation, commissioned him in a very memorable service in the Jones Town Baptist church in Kingston to the Mission Field, his Global Village. It was an honor for me then, as it is now, to have been involved in some small way in singing the solo So Send I You, words so appropriate for this commissioning occasion. Since that evening in 1966, the life and ministry of the Rev. Dr. Alfred Johnson has indeed been the unfolding of an ambassador to the Global Village. With additional preparation in language skills, he, along with his family, ventured into the unknown region of the Congo in Africa, where he immediately immersed himself in the African indigenous context, engaging in and building interfaith relationships. There in the Congo, his ministry rapidly expanded in the establishment of new congregations, pastoring, preaching, counseling, and teaching.

The journey took him back to Jamaica and the Jamaica Baptist Union, as it were for reconnection to his roots and foundation. During this time, he served in pastorates, as chaplain at the Calabar High School and in the administration of the Jamaica Baptist Union as secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society. Renewed in vision and commitment and reenergized, the ambassador returned to Africa, this time to Nigeria, where he played a pivotal role in the establishment of the First Baptist Church of Calabar and impacted life in general while he taught in the community college. As if he had not done enough, the ambassador’s journey landed him in the United States of America, where he immediately continued doing what he loved most—pastoring, first within the Reformed Church of America in New York, and for the last twenty-one years of his active ministry, in the Presbyterian Church, USA as pastor of the Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey. During these years, his service to the PCUSA was invaluable within the local presbytery, serving on a range of committees and as moderator and, more widely, on a very important committee commissioned by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy of the General Assembly to research and make recommendations on behalf of uninsured persons.

It has been for me a delight and pleasure sharing this journey with a brother and colleague whose service has been unto the Lord. Congratulations on this publication.

Rev. Dr. Raymond Anglin

Pastor, Ascension Peace Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Former General Secretary, Jamaica Baptist Union

GUEST FOREWORD

M ission, traditionally, has been at the heart of the General (Armenian) Baptist tradition. One may question a specific understanding of mission, or the execution of mission. Indeed, Baptist mission agencies and societies and the missionaries/missioners they sent were often paternalistic. If creating a culture of dependency was not bad enough, too often such paternalism came out of deep-rooted racism—a belief that those whom they evangelized were incapable of coming to a full maturity or expression of the Christian faith if left up to their own devices. This approach and understanding bedeviled much of what passed for mission coming out of Western Europe and the United States. This may partly explain why some European and American mission groups failed to enter into a true partnership that would allow local leadership to evolve and develop in some contexts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. But even with such caveats, a commitment to mission has been, for most of the past four hundred years, an important identifying marker for Baptists.

I came from a Jamaican Baptist culture at a time when there was no great emphasis on mission. Truth be told, not many of the 120 countries represented within the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) have produced as many outstanding Baptist preachers as Jamaica has. Blindly choose any Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU) pastor and you are almost guaranteed to have someone who is as outstanding an expositor of the word as any pastor from another country. This comes about through careful selection of candidates for the ordained ministry and rigorous academic training at the baccalaureate level.

Yet mission did not seem to be a priority. By way of speculation, this may stem from compromise made for sharing training space with other Christian traditions. As an ecumenical institution, the United Theological College of the West Indies, where JBU pastors are trained, no doubt had to accommodate compromises in order to allow the eleven or so denominational groups to coexist. In my time as a student at the school in the 1980s, not one course on mission was on offer.

Another reason may be linked to a decision made by the JBU to disband the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society (JBMS) and create the Board of Mission and Evangelism instead, disempowering the mission director in favor of the JBU general secretary. One is not sure that a later decision to replace the mission and evangelism board with the Jamaica Baptist Union Mission Agency, the present status quo, adequately addressed the problem.

Alfred Johnson’s memoir reminds us that there was a time in the not-too-distant past when Jamaican Baptists, at least before the disbanding of the JBMS, emphasized mission, even if this emphasis could not match periods in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when Jamaican Baptists were engaged in mission in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Such stories are largely unknown; and Johnson’s memoir is a timely reminder, in the same way Horace Russell’s 2011 biography of Terrence Haddon Duncanson, Jamaican missioner to Panama in the first half of the twentieth century, was. Jamaican Baptists, like others elsewhere, took mission seriously. In this sense at least, Johnson’s story is bigger than himself. In reading his story, one gets a broader history of Baptist footprints generally, and those of Jamaican Baptists in particular. Johnson, importantly, served in the two countries with the largest Baptist membership on the African continent: Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One can say he has played a hand in the strength that Baptist witness in these countries has attained.

Then Johnson served in a country that is increasingly becoming a mission field, the United States. Almost all churches in the United States that experience growth in the twenty-first century are because of the influx of immigrants into the country. Immigrant churches in the United States are thriving, while Anglo churches are in decline and struggle for survival. Churches of the Jamaican and Caribbean diaspora are no less.

We are indebted to Alfred Johnson for sharing his life with us. More importantly, we are grateful that he has provided us a well-needed reminder of the important role played by Jamaican Baptists in mission, a story that needs to be told more and more, and a vision that needs to be recaptured in all its fullness.

Rev. Eron Henry

Communications Director,

Baptist World Alliance, Washington DC

PREFACE

Please fasten your seatbelts for landing. I was once more captivated by the panoramic view of the sprawling green mountains, rich with vegetation, and the harbor spotted with ships on the blue seas of Kingston Harbor, Jamaica. I choked up as I became emotional. It was with a feeling of excitement, trepidation, and honor that I was returning to Jamaica to preach at the Ordination Service of Rev. Authman Morgan. It was an event I could not have scripted. Let me share with you the circumstances surrounding this event. Let me take you back to the year 1970.

I had just returned to Jamaica from the Democratic Republic of Congo after having served thirty months there as a missionary. After a few months’ furlough, I was asked by the Jamaica Baptist Union to serve as interim pastor of the Oracabessa Circuit of Churches while the Circuit awaited the arrival of their called pastor. During this appointment, I baptized a young teenager named Authman Morgan. After pursuing a career as a policeman, Morgan responded to a call from the Lord and entered the Christian ministry.

Rev. Morgan had maintained fond memories of the pastor who had led him to Christ and baptized him forty years earlier. As he struggled with the decision as to who would deliver the charge at his ordination service, unexpectedly, our paths crossed at the February 2011 General Assembly of the Jamaica Baptist Union, six months prior to this significant event in his life. At the encounter, he exclaimed, Thou art the man! After confirmation by the Jamaica Baptist Union, arrangements were made for me to preach at the Ordination Service on Thursday, September 8, 2011, which to the day and date was the forty-fifth anniversary of my ordination and commissioning service. How better could I have celebrated my forty-fifth anniversary? This certainly was an invitation orchestrated by the Lord! It brought back memories.

Let me take you back to that afternoon. I can still recall being transfixed by that sacred moment on September 8, 1966. I did not fully comprehend the depth of the words of my pastor, Rev. M. E. W. Sawyers, at that historic and august occasion. They have been indelibly written on my heart and have been the driving force and theme of my life. "Freddie, you are going out as an Ambassador for Christ." I was being ordained by the Jamaica Baptist Union and commissioned from the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society, an organization which was founded by freed slaves in 1842 with a vision of carrying the Gospel back to their homeland in West Africa. I was being seconded to work as a missionary to the Congo with the Baptist Missionary Society of London with full rights and equal privileges as one of their missionaries. Little did I know then that I was being commissioned to become one of God’s ambassadors to the Global Village.

Fasten your seatbelt and come journey with me around the world that has become to me a Global Village, as I have sought to fulfill my charge as an Ambassador for Christ. Let me share with you my memoirs of a journey which will take you from the low-lying streets of the urban community of Kingston, Jamaica, to the sandy tracks of Parika, Guyana, in South America. Fasten your seatbelt as within forty minutes of the airport/seaport city of Calabar, capital of Cross River State, Nigeria, we experience turbulence caused by poor weather conditions and were redirected to land in Port Harcourt.

Fasten your seatbelt as we travel on the New York State Thruway, USA, to Toronto, Canada, on the occasion of the installation service for a colleague in ministry. Walk with me through the thick forest of Binga, Equatorial Province of the Congo. Buckle up your seatbelt and travel with me in our bulletproof Land Rover on the muddy road from Johannesburg to Soweto, the home of Nelson Mandela, during the time of apartheid in South Africa. Climb with me to the peak of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and buckle up your seatbelt as we travel in the tour bus to Palestine and observe sheep grazing in Bethlehem; then climb with me to the slopes of the Mount of Olives as I plant an olive tree. I will even ask you to pause and kneel with me for a moment of prayer in Jerusalem’s Garden of Gethsemane and renew your vow as you see the grave where Jesus was raised from the dead; and join with me in rejoicing with Mary, Alleluia, Jesus is alive!

CHAPTER 1

Call to Ministry

"You shall be my witness . . ."

M y journey begins with my early days at the Tarrant Baptist Church. It was then a small wooden structure on the outskirts of the capital city of Kingston, Jamaica—the Island in the Sun.

Pursuing a call and one’s vocation is never easy. One has to be convinced that it is a call from God, overcome distractions, and garner the courage and steadfastness to faithfully carry out God’s mission. I had the blessing of growing up in a Christian home, and as the lyrics of a popular Gospel chorus goes, My mother prayed for me; had me on her mind, took a little time to pray for me, I can still recall my mother’s groans at night for her children. With the industrious spirit, entrepreneurship, and commitment of both of my parents, my siblings and I were in school during the week and in church on Sundays. It was while I was an impressionable teenager in high school that I committed my life to Christ. With the guidance and discipline of my parents, I became a strong adherent to church life.

In January 1958, the internationally known evangelist Billy Graham visited Jamaica. The Crusade was at Knutsford Park, a popular horse-racing stadium. It was the last Sunday of the month and the last night of the Crusade. A group of friends from Bethel and Tarrant Baptist Churches and I were sitting high up in the balcony in what seemed to be miles from the pulpit. George Beverly Shea began his signature altar-call hymn, Just As I Am, and moved by the intensity of the occasion or the Holy Spirit, I began my long walk to the platform. This was to become the beginning of my extended journey with and for Christ. On Good Friday 1958, after weeks in the new members preparation class at the Tarrant Baptist Church, I was baptized by the Rev. M. E. W. Sawyers, pastor of the Jones Town Baptist circuit of churches, which included Tarrant, Canaan Mount, Constitution Hill, and Jones Town, the lead church also referred to as the mother church.

I progressed from being involved in church life to being immersed in the life of the church. I was a tenor on the church’s choir and a member of the youth male chorus, the Harmony Group, which was invited to sing at churches and events around and outside of the city and at conferences across the island. I was involved in drama and acted in plays at other churches around the city and getting enthusiastic reviews for this ministry. Indeed, this was one of my passions having acted in school drama festivals both at our nationally known Ward Theatre and the then newly opened Tom Redcam Theatre. This passion continued even to Nigeria, where, years later, I performed in a play which was televised by the Cross River State affiliate of the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation. I recall an occasion on a Sunday afternoon