Sugar Ray Thomas
Pastor of the Good Tidings Chapel in Hinds Town, Pastor Norman Washington Johnson has given 50 years of his life to impacting people positively.
And at the age of 68, Pastor Johnson said he would do it all over again in God’s will serving his community, church and the schools.
“People ask me how I do it, but if you’re going to ask me how I did so many things, I will tell you I believe with all my heart that I was called by God to serve and I believe in what Dick Warren says in the Purpose Driven Life that the whole purpose of man is to serve God, serve your fellow men and prepare for eternity with Him and that’s my belief,” explained Pastor Johnson in an interview with the North Coast Times.
The 2017 Governor General’s Achievement Awardee for St. Ann said that his upbringing contributed to his love for giving of himself to others.
“My parents and my grandparents were givers… I inherited public service from my upbringing. It was a way of life for the family in which I grew. My siblings all over the world are just like me as wherever they go, they serve,” Pastor Johnson explained.
UPBRINGING
Pastor Johnson was born in Old Harbour, St Catherine on an election day, on December 20, 1949 He was born to parents Stanley and Ivy Johnson and was one of 12 children, who grew together.
“I grew up in a moderate income family. My father was an outstanding butcher and my mother was a homemaker of everything including suits. She was a brilliant woman with a passion for reading, which she shared with her children. She along with one of my sisters taught me to read and write,” he reminisced.
He attended Old Harbour Primary School, then Vere Technical High School, where according to him his love for English Literature and Language continued.
ACCEPTANCE OF GOD
Pastor Johnson pointed out that he got baptized at the age of 15. “I accepted God and my parents supported my decision and I have not been out of the church since.”
With his father being an Anglican, his mother a Roman Catholic, a set of grandparents being Methodist and other relatives associating with other denominations, Pastor Johnson explained that he grew up among the churches “knowing the details of every church as they were in those days.”
Out of this early interaction with the churches, Pastor Johnson’s over fifty years of active involvement and service to the Christian Faith would see him working with the Moravians, Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Church of God and other denominations.
MOVE TO ST ANN
Pastor Johnson’s move from Old Harbour to the garden parish of St Ann came from him being sent from Vere Techincal High School to replace a student at the farm division at Reynolds Jamaica Mines.
“When I arrived, the then farms manager, Mr C. Douglas Gill looked me in the eye and said ‘Johnson let me tell you something, your principal sent you here and I have confidence in his wisdom. Listen to me now as your boss. You can be a man at 17 or a boy at 50. It depends on your attitude towards life.’ The words of that man C. Douglas Gill still echo daily in my head,” he recollected.
“I joined the staff, as a trainee supervisor, continued my training in agriculture, this I credit to Reynolds sending me overseas,” explained Pastor Johnson.
CAREER
Norman Johnson spent 20 years working with Reynolds Jamaica Mines.
He has also studied life insurance, social work and salesmanship. He has also worked with life insurance company, Island Life and then worked with HEART Trust/NTA and Solidarity programme, giving him a varied and full life experience.
He later worked as a salesman for a number of agricultural firms and establishments across Jamaica, before dedicating himself full time to the Church.
WORK IN THE CHURCH
In reflecting on his over 50 years of worship and membership in the Christian Brethren Assemblies of Jamaica, Pastor Johnson explained that he arrived in St Ann a believer in fellowship. He was a member of the Steerfield Gospel Chapel from 1967 to 1972. It was after marriage to his wife, Rosmarie in 1972, that he went to Bethesda Gospel Hall in Golden Grove to worship.
Pastor Johnson went there and started a youth church group which has grown immensely over the years. He has also given committed service as a youth director, playwright and producer for local productions, secretary, treasurer, Sunday school teacher, deacon and elder.
It was while at Bethesda Gospel Chapel, that a number of the elders at the Good Tidings Chapel in Hinds Town passed and the last of the founders of the chapel was over 90 years of age and his health was failing.
Pastor Johnson explained that he believed that he was “called by God to take up the mantle” at Good Tidings Chapel. He explained that he has been there for over 12 years.
“So far we have turned it from a little meeting place to a chapel that accommodated the 2016 parish convention. Every day we see an increase in our membership,” he said.
Pastor Norman Johnson is the parish chairman of the Christian Brethren Assemblies of Jamaica in St Ann and is a board member of the Northern Eastern Missionary Conference of churches. He has also documented and published the history of the Christian Brethren Faith in St Ann in a book titled ‘Living Echoes’, in August of 2014.
SERVICE TO OTHERS
He is chairman for the school boards of Golden Grove All Age School and Prickly Pole All Age School. He is also a past board member of the Ferncourt High School.
In other areas of youth development, Pastor Johnson has worked on project management in communities, given motivational speeches and also played an integral role in youth mentorship and the development of social graces among young persons.
Pastor Johnson has also been dedicated to helping the elderly by advising and assisting them to access and benefit from public programmes.
His public service has also been seen through his role as a justice of the peace (JP) since 1984. Through his function as a JP he has been involved in roles such as, conflict resolution, served in the court of Petty Sessions, Children’s Court and Drug Court.
For his continued dedication to his church and his community, he was awarded the Governor General’s Achievement Award for the parish of St Ann in 2017.
“I have never asked for material gains. I have never asked for earthly honor. This is the first time in 50 years I’ve been called by the highest office of the land to say you have done a god job. I was just doing God’s will,” Pastor Johnson said humbly.
FAMILY LIFE
Pastor Norman Johnson has been married since 1972 to Rosemarie ‘Rosie’ Johnson. Interestingly, Mrs. Johnson was recognized by the North Coast Times as a Woman of Worth (WOW) in 2015 for her years of service to the tourism sector.
Their union has produced two children. Mr. Johnson said that their son, Mario, “sadly suffered his demise at the hands of criminal elements.” His daughter, Marissa, a graduate of Northern Caribbean University (NCU), is also a justice of the peace and is the dean of discipline at Ferncourt High School.
When not busy with church and his outreach work, he occupies himself with his farming, rearing his own animals, gardening at home and church and is a passionate domino player. He is also surrounded by books and is an ardent reader.
Pastor Johnson believes that God has given him “the wit, the knowledge and the skill to teach moral values.”
DOING A GOOD DEED
What has disappointed Pastor Johnson about St. Ann today is “the total lack and disregard of respect for each other, honesty, decency and the increased criminal element.” He said that he grew up in a peaceful St Ann in the past, so each day he does a good deed with the hope of creating a better society.
“If I could change minds for a better way of thinking for a better society, get the young men off the street and get the young women to be upright pillars of integrity, (then) if I can change such lives and see the results of such lives, I will go to my maker a happy man,” said the North Coast Times’ 2017 Gentleman Empowering and Motivating in Society (GEMS), Pastor Norman Washington Johnson.
