Jerry Johnston

Early life and education

Johnston was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and moved with his family when he was in the third grade to Overland Park in suburban Johnson County, Kansas. As a struggling boy, he contemplated suicide by taking valium but was converted to Jesus Christ in the summer of 1973 at the age of fourteen at a Baptist camp in Roach in Camden County in central Missouri. Within two months, he accepted the call to Christian ministry and was thereafter speaking some twenty-five times weekly to organizations while he was still in high school.

Concurrent to Johnston’s senior year in high school, he took courses and graduated from Youth for Christ’s Christ Unlimited Bible Institute, and he ultimately received a General Equivalency Diploma. He was accepted on a scholarship to then named Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia. While at Liberty, Johnston became an "associate evangelist" for the college. Jerry received his B.A. from Midwestern Baptist College in Kansas City, Missouri, and his Master of Divinity from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. In May 2012, Johnston and his wife each earned Doctor of Ministry degrees from Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, an entity affiliated with the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches. Johnston's doctoral thesis is entitled An Exploration of Rates and Causes of Attrition among Protestant Evangelical Clergy in the United States. In 1998, Johnston delivered Liberty University's baccalaureate speech, and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary awarded Johnston an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. Johnston controversially used the title "Doctor" based on this honorary degree before earning even his undergraduate degree.

Evangelism

Through his Jerry Johnston Ministries (JJM), a nonprofit organization, Johnston traveled from 1978 to 1996 across the United States and Canada. His evangelistic crusades were particularly focused on struggling teen issues, including problems with narcotics, suicide, and Satanism. During his full-time evangelism years, Jerry prepared various videos and wrote eight books on these very issues. Among those converted in the Johnston crusade was the Texas evangelist Jay L. Lowder, Jr. (born 1966), of Wichita Falls. In 1984, JJM had assets totaling $206,000; by 1990, $383,000; by 1996, $454,000.

During these eighteen years, Johnston spoke worldwide to five million people at more than three thousand colleges and universities. He preached revivals in many churches. By 1993, according to his biography, more than 500,000 copies of Johnston's books, 62,000 videos, and a million cassettes of his sermons were in circulation. His sermons have been broadcast worldwide via satellite and web video streaming.

Pastor

Launched in 1996, First Family Church saw exponential growth, and the church broke ground in 1999. The sanctuary was completed at a cost of $10.1 million. Another $8.5 million was spent in 2006 on expanded facilities. The congregation peaked at four thousand members and was described as among the fastest growing churches in America.

In 2007, the Kansas City Star reported issues relating to financial accountability within First Family Church. In his doctoral dissertation, Johnston attributed the negative media attention to his political conservatism, such as his pro-life convictions and his support for the Kansas constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. In 2004, Johnston hosted Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University, at First Family Church to rally Christian support in the general election in which then U.S. President George W. Bush narrowly defeated John Kerry. At the gathering, Falwell encouraged pastors to be politically involved in their communities. After the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Kansas passed in 2005, Johnston was highlighted as a proponent of the amendment and openly voiced his opposition to abortion. Journalist Jack Cashill, executive editor of Ingram’s Magazine, agreed with Johnston’s assertions that the pastor was a political media target because of his position as an influential conservative. Tax liens filed by the Internal Revenue Service were resolved quickly in 2008. The Attorney General of Kansas investigated complaints but no violation of the Kansas Consumer Protection Act was found. A blog reported that Johnston ordered one church member asking for financial records to repent.

In September 2011, the church creditor, Regions Financial Corporation, foreclosed on the property. The bank pressed for payment of more than $14 million in outstanding mortgage payments. The elders of the church stated that even while the church was current in its monthly payments, Regions Bank accelerated the mortgage maturity from 30 to five years due to the 2008 banking crisis and demanded the full payment of the loan. The elder board said that AG Financial made a cash offer to Regions Bank to finance First Family Church's mortgage, but Regions Bank rejected the offer. The Blue Valley School District, with plans to use the structure as an early childhood facility, paid $9 million for the 51-acre church complex located at U.S. Highway 69 and 143rd Street in Overland Park. Regions Financial Bank had not yet repaid the 2008 TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) loan from the federal government when it sold First Family Church’s loan to Blue Valley School District. The bank paid back its $3.5 billion in the spring of 2012. 2011 marked a dramatic increase of church property foreclosures; 138 churches were sold by banks compared to just 24 in 2008.

Some of Johnston's relatives also served on staff at First Family Church, making up about ten percent of the nearly one hundred employees. Wife Cristie Jo Huf Johnston, a native of Zeeland in southwestern Michigan, whom he met on an evangelistic tour in the fall of 1978 and wed five months later, was the director of Open Arms & Chesalon Comfort Circles. Their only son, Jeremy Johnston, was the executive pastor and the chief operating officer of the media. The older son-in-law, Christian Newsome, husband of the Johnstons' daughter, Danielle, was the associate pastor of family and youth. Danielle was contemporary worship leader. The younger son-in-law was pastor for preteen boys; his wife, Jenilee, the Johnstons' younger daughter, held similar duties for girls. Joyce Johnston, Jerry's mother, was an executive secretary of the church. Christian and Danielle Newsome left First Family Church in 2011 before the bank's foreclosure to begin a new congregation in Lee's Summit in western Missouri.

For a year afterward, Johnston was the founding pastor of a second congregation, New Day Church KC, which was located, respectively, in two school buildings in Olathe near Kansas City, Kansas. The church closed in September 2012. The Johnstons were living in Branson, Missouri, rather than Olathe, and a blog claimed that New Day Church paid their commuting expenses each weekend even as the congregation continued to lose money.

Media

In 2012, Johnston transitioned out of full-time pastoring and was hired by Crossroads360 as a host for the daily television show 100 Huntley Street. Johnston has also partnered with his son, Jeremiah J. Johnston, Ph.D., in Christian Thinkers Society. The elder Johnston is the director of the ministry, which now has speaking events all over the country, as well in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Over the years, Johnston has been a guest on many public affairs television programs, including Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, ABC's World News Tonight, Deborah Norville, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Nightline, MSNBC's Scarborough Country, The 700 Club and CNN's former Crossfire series, once co-hosted by Pat Buchanan. He has also been quoted in numerous national and local publications, including the New York Times and USA Today.

Jerry and Cristie (formerly spelled "Christie" and "Chris" on their marriage license) Johnston have together executive produced seventeen documentary spiritual films, which have been distributed globally to television networks and churches. Johnston has led more than 125,000 individuals to acceptance of salvation in Christ. Johnston is now a member of the executive council through his appointment as a vice president of Houston Baptist University under the president, Dr. Robert Sloan, Jr.

Books