Byron and Kim Johnson

"God put us there, and because of it, there is a legacy."

In this episode Byron and Kim Johnson share their journey from meeting through Campus Outreach to their impactful work with students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). They discuss opening their home, discipling young people, and their current project, VISION 9:38, aimed at mobilizing more ethnic minorities into missions by addressing financial barriers.

The questions below are an invitation to reflect on how you might positively impact underrepresented communities. Further, you may also want to consider how you might bridge gaps—financial, cultural, or spiritual— to help empower others to serve in these communities.

‍

Further Thinking

1. Hospitality and Discipleship: How can I open my home and heart to those around me in a way that fosters meaningful connections and encourages growth in faith?

2. Legacy and Impact: What steps can I take in my own community to leave an impact on others, especially those from underrepresented groups?

3. Responding to God's Call: Byron and Kim's journey evolved through their willingness to go where they were needed. How open am I to following where I believe God is leading, even if it means stepping into the unknown? Do I currently feel a pull towards one area or another?

4. Faith and Financial Barriers: Are there ways I can support or encourage diversity in missions or other ministries, perhaps by addressing financial or other barriers people may face?

5. Shared Calling with Others: What role does family or community play in my own mission or calling, and how can I involve or support those closest to me in shared goals?

Transcript

Walter Henegar: I am Walter Henegar, and I'm here with my bride, Anne Henegar.

Anne Henegar: Hey.

Walter Henegar: And our dear friends and partners in ministry, Kim Johnson.

Kim Johnson: Hello, hello.

Walter Henegar: And Byron Johnson.

Byron Johnson: Hello, Westside.

Walter Henegar: We are thrilled to talk to you all today about your long history in ministry. And I wanted to say upfront, we were ... How long has it been? Over a year ago, we were standing in line outside of a cathedral in New York City, waiting for Tim Keller's memorial service to begin, and we happened to be standing with a well-known hip-hop artist named Lecrae. And it took a long time to get into the building, so we spent the whole time talking about how much we love Byron Johnson and ...

Anne Henegar: For real.

Walter Henegar: Well, and we, I mean, Lecrae and Anne and me, all of us together. And it's one of my great experiences as a pastor that I feel like I often introduce myself to people as I get to be Byron and Kim's pastor, because your reputation and the way the Lord has used you in so many lives has preceded you for so long. But a lot of people may not know what you all do, and it started in campus ministry. Maybe we'll start with Byron. What initially sparked your interest in ministry to college students?

Byron Johnson: I came to faith when I was 16. My oldest brother led me to the Lord. And went off to college a year-and-a-half later and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be an engineer, and that was probably mostly because my oldest brother was an engineer. He was kind of my mentor, idol, the person I wanted to be like. Well, God, I think, had a different plan, different story. I landed at the University of West Georgia. At the time, it was called West Georgia College. On a Sunday, two days later, a couple of guys were walking through the dorm, and they invited me to go play basketball. I didn't know these guys.

Come to find out they had just moved to Carrollton, Georgia to start the Ministry Campus Outreach, and I was one of the first students that they met. Two days later, Alan Love, the guy that I rolled over to the gym with, began the discipleship process. We had had a conversation at the gym a couple of days earlier about how I came to faith and how he came to faith. And two days later, he started meeting with me. And for the next four years, just invested in me, taught me how to walk with Jesus, how to share my faith, how to give my life away, things of that nature, how to disciple men.

The end of my junior year, I went on a short-term mission project to Mexico City. And by that time, I'd been walking with the Lord now for about four years. Every day for two months, I just said, "Lord, what do you want me to do with my life?" So, by the end of the summer, I was pretty convinced that God was calling me into full-time vocational ministry. I'd seen how college ministry had impacted my life, so I thought, "Well, God, maybe you're calling me to do college ministry."

Walter Henegar: I imagine Kim's story was running in parallel around the same time. How about you, Kim? How did the Lord begin to spark your heart for this?

Kim Johnson: I think he began to spark my heart as a result of being loved on by ladies who loved Jesus. A couple of friends and I tried to start a Bible study, and we did. And later, I realized that there were not many African Americans doing the same thing. And the Lord had us as a group, maybe it was four of us, and we were praying every day that the Lord would do something different and unique regarding African American students and minority students who needed him.

After being loved on by people, and invited into their home, and taught the scriptures, I wanted to do the same thing. I wanted to open my home up and invite people in, and I think that was just God putting that on my heart. I wasn't being creative.

Anne Henegar: How did your paths converge?

Byron Johnson: We were both involved with Campus Outreach, and Campus Outreach has summer projects. So, the summer of '87, we were on two separate projects in Panama City. She was on the west, we were on the east end of the beach. And I went to visit their project, and I remember seeing her and I thought, "Oh, that's different." So, our paths crossed on the summer project in [inaudible 00:05:51]-

Walter Henegar: Wait, wait, wait. That's different. You got some other adjectives to describe it, don't you?

Kim Johnson: Elaborate.

Anne Henegar: I was thinking the same thing.

Byron Johnson: I just remember sitting at this table, and I remember seeing this young lady walking down the steps and she just caught my attention. But I found out where she was working that summer, and I decided, "I think I'm going to go visit." She worked at Walmart that summer. One of the-

Kim Johnson: In the jewelry department.

Byron Johnson: One of the responsibilities of being on the summer mission project is you worked the job during the day, and then all the evangelism, and training, and Bible study training went on at night and on the weekends. So, she worked in the jewelry department, of course. I had no need for any jewelry, but I would find my way to the jewelry department to engage her in conversations.

Walter Henegar: And your first placement out of college, where were you called?

Byron Johnson: I went to work for Camps Outreach Single, and my first assignment was at Alabama State University in Montgomery. I went to a predominantly white high school. My African American friends in high school, a lot of them wanted to go to HBCUs, historically Black colleges and universities. And I had no desire to go to an HBCU, but God called me to work at a HBCU. So, I just thought God has a great sense of humor. And I think part of that, I just had the wrong perspective, and I'm so grateful that He put us there.

One quick story. A week ago, we get ...

Kim Johnson: Which happens to have been on Kaitlyn's birthday.

Byron Johnson: Kaitlyn's birthday, absolutely. It was Kaitlyn's birthday, April 17th. We get a text message from a pastor friend of ours in Montgomery, and he just says, "Hey, I just wanted to send you this. Here's a continuation of your legacy in terms of ministry." And it was five or six people getting baptized in their church. Two of them were the pastor's children. The other two, or three, were college students from Alabama State University, that one of the guys that was involved in our ministry at Tuskegee is now the campus minister at Alabama State.

Kim Johnson: And the two people who were doing the baptizing, one is doing missions work, and the other is a pastor.

Walter Henegar: I'm curious, what changed in your perspective about HBCUs. You had not wanted to attend one coming out of high school, but then the Lord led you, well, to several over the years. But what did you learn to what appreciate about the particular experience there?

Byron Johnson: I think it was just ignorance. I just don't think I understood the historical context of HBCUs, but I have grown to appreciate what HBCUs have had to offer. And I think I understood some of the reasons as to why they were in place, because the larger or majority white schools were not allowing them to enter into those schools, so they created their own campuses. So, just the forethought and just the desire to educate. But as I've referenced, I think God has a great sense of humor, and He placed me there. And because of it, there is a legacy.

Anne Henegar: Kim, what about you as you joined Byron on campus, what was your calling, role, desire, and then also maybe a shared calling if you all have one?

Kim Johnson: Well, I think I'll just begin with his groom cake. I had been praying for Byron when he told me that he was going to go on staff with Campus Outreach. On his groom cake, I had written ASU, which is Alabama State University, USA, which is United States of America, and the world. And I think, in my heart, I remember singing a song in a community choir and the lyrics were, "Use me for your servant. Here am I. The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few."

I did not know how everything was going to be connected at that time, but I really did want to have an impact on the world for Christ, even if I don't have anything in the process. We're going to do what the Lord would allow us, but we're going to have to be creative. So, I would go and I would go to the professors, and I would say, "Hey, can I grade your papers?" So, it was a creative, "Lord, help me to invite people into my home, because I have real responsibilities, and help me to go on campus and the way that I can be strategic."

Walter Henegar: I would guess you also invited some students just into relationship with your kids and to parent them with you and help you care for them.

Kim Johnson: Yes, yes. We had people who were in our home from breakfast to bedtime, so we did. We welcomed them into the realness of the Johnson household, whether that was enjoying a meal with us, or in conversation with our children, or Bible study. And there are people like Sho Baraka, he would come and do make friendship bracelets for our children and have Bible study times.

Byron Johnson: And one of the beauties of being in Tuskegee is our house really was Grand Central Station. And it was always fun to have people in the house, have students in the house, and they became our children's best friends. And since then, we've had people that have come to us who were not Christians at the time, but later came to us and said, "It was you who shared," although they didn't come to faith until later in life. So, that was very rewarding too.

Anne Henegar: You think of the hymn saying, "Your labor is not in vain."

Byron Johnson: That's right.

Anne Henegar: And also the fact that you can have four years where it feels like, what, cutting up concrete with a butter knife and then you go from that to Grand Central Station. It's like that's just what the Lord had for you at different seasons, and I'm sure the Lord was pouring into you and shaping you all in that as well.

Walter Henegar: What challenges did you find on the college campus in general? You've been on many different college campuses over the years, and maybe specifically at HBCUs, and getting a hearing for the gospel and building community among the students?

Byron Johnson: It seemed like our biggest hurdles on those campuses were primarily the administration. And we have stories probably for all of those campuses. When we went to Tuskegee, we had a friend in Montgomery who knew the chaplain at Tuskegee, and she introduced me to him. And I had caught wind that Tuskegee was not excited about ministries outside of their chapel to be on their campuses, so I kind of knew that walking in.

Well, our friend in Montgomery introduced us to the chaplain at Tuskegee. And I remember driving up over to Tuskegee from Montgomery. But I walk in to the chaplain's office, Dean Wheeler, and we sit down and we start talking. And he said, "I've been praying that God would send someone to this campus."

Walter Henegar: Wow.

Byron Johnson: And the more I talked to him, I began to realize his primary responsibility is to lead chapel on Sundays, to teach some religious classes throughout the course of the week. So, he didn't have time to do college ministry or to minister to students in the way that he really would like to minister to students. And I will forever be indebted to him because from that point on, he said, "Hey, let's get together and pray together." So, we prayed together for ... Maybe every two or three times a month, he and I would get together, and we did that for several months, just praying, praying, praying.

So, our relationship formed, and towards the end of one semester, he asked me if I would teach his Bible study like, "Hey, I'm going to be gone for the next two weeks. Will you teach our Bible study?" And that became the foundation for our ministry at Tuskegee.

Walter Henegar: And this leads to a question to what you're doing now, because after many years of working on staff with Campus Outreach together, a number of years ago, you started VISION 9:38. Tell us what VISION 9:83 does.

Byron Johnson: We just started praying, "Lord, what's next? What do you want us to do?" Hence, VISION 9:83 came to fruition. Of course, Matthew 9:38 is where the 9:38 comes from.

Automated: Matthew 9:38. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.

Byron Johnson: So, the gist of what we do is we want to see more ethnic minorities get to the mission field, particularly as it relates to fundraising. We don't want funding to be the primary reason as why they don't go or they choose to come home from the field. God has just taken that and opened up some other doors, some other opportunities within VISION 9:83, particularly around helping mission agencies become more effective in mobilizing minorities.

Walter Henegar: Well, and it's full circle with your initial summer project to Mexico City, right? Your heart for the world.

Anne Henegar: Or the groom's cake.

Walter Henegar: Yes, yes. Because VISION 9:83 has brought the two of you all over the world the last few years serving other missionaries, doing mission work alongside them.

Anne Henegar: And I love that you get to do it together, like Walter and I have a shared calling, it's beautiful to see your alls. There's something dynamic about the two of you together and your family and just your heart that is very contagious. So, thanks for sharing it with us today.

Kim Johnson: Thank you for having us.

Byron Johnson: Thanks for having us.

‍