Archive: Inner City Dad

Keith Johnson and His Vision for a Neighborhood

By Rober Moeller

It was a hot, sticky July night in the inner-city. The atmosphere was cordial, but guarded, among the racially-mixed audience that had gathered to hear a Christian musician. Without warning a middle-aged man, obviously intoxicated, jumped on to the stage, grabbed a microphone, and began singing a rambling rendition of a familiar gospel song. The white musician put down his guitar, took a step back, and glanced nervously around as if to say, “someone please help.” But the concert organizers were equally unnerved. They knew that one wrong move on stage could touch off an ugly scene.

As the crowd held its breath, a young black teenager appeared on the stage out of nowhere, walked over to the intoxicated man, shook his hand, and quietly led him off the stage.

You could almost hear the sigh of relief go up from the crowd. The music resumed, and the tensions on the blacktop quickly dissipated. The concert, and the church’s image in the community, had been rescued by the quick-thinking actions of a 17-year-old named Keith Johnson. Today, 15 years later, Keith Johnson is still a reconciler within his community and church. He is now the associate pastor of the lively and energetic Park Avenue United Methodist Church in downtown Minneapolis.

Keith and his wife, Andrea Thurston, are working to model the joys and struggles of Christ-centered family life with their three boys, Kyle, Taylor, and Andrew.

“The task of role-modeling is not one that comes naturally,” says Keith. “I was raised in a single-parent family. I’ve struggled to learn what it means to be an effective and involved husband and dad.”

Overcoming difficulties is nothing new to Keith. He has overcome a fatherless home, a predominantly white culture that treated him either as a novelty or a nuisance, and a depressed neighborhood that dared anyone to do anything more than just survive.

A father’s leaving home is an emotional earthquake, difficult to measure except in seismic terms. Keith’s dad left when he was seven-years-old and it registered a 9.0 on the family’s Richter scale—destroying the security and stability of his home.

“I felt as if I were on an island by myself, with enormous responsibilities,” he remembers. Two things were clear—he was now on his own, and he was now the man of the house.

Prejudice at the Pool

Minnesota is primarily a Scandinavian culture where the telephone directory has thousands of listings for the name Johnson. But to be black and named Johnson puts you in a category all your own.

Keith recalls being part of an experimental program that sent young minority children into the Minnesota countryside to experience farm life during the summer.

“When we would go into town, people would gather around me and just stare. I suspect several of them had never seen a black person before. One woman stepped up with a camera and took a picture of me before I knew what was happening.”

But at times, simple curiosity changed to raw prejudice. “The second summer I was out in the country I went swimming with the white family I was living with. As soon as I climbed into the pool, everyone else started climbing out. It’s the first time in my life I had ever been called a ‘nigger.’ Even though the neighborhood I came from was poor, I was relieved to get back home and just be one of the kids again.”

In junior high, Keith ran into someone that would profoundly change his life. As he was walking down the hall one day, he noticed a girl reading a book. Her name happened to be Angel.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The Bible,” she replied. “And it says that if you don’t become a Christian you will go to hell.”

Not surprisingly, Keith was shaken up. He asked what he needed to do to become a Christian.

“Go home and ask Jesus into your heart,” she said matter-of-factly.

Keith took her advice seriously. He went home, got on his knees and prayed, “God, I don’t know who you are. But Angel says that I need a ticket to heaven. So I’m going to invite Jesus into my life right now. Please come in.”

With little more than the advice of a ninth-grade girl to steer him toward God, Keith Johnson met Jesus Christ. While working the next day at a super market, Keith noticed that a woman had dropped a $20 dollar bill on the floor. He picked it up, went over and tapped the woman on the shoulder and said, “Here, you dropped this.” She was so surprised she just took the money and walked out. The next day at school he found Angel and said, “I’m a Christian! I found $20 dollars and gave it back.”

The next winter Keith received a brochure in the mail from Park Avenue UM Church announcing a trip to Florida for teenagers. This trip would be Keith’s first church experience. He remembers looking around the bus and seeing something very unusual; black and white kids sitting side by side. “I sensed a great openness and love toward me from the staff,” he recalls. “This church was different.”

Slowly Keith began to take on leadership responsibilities in the youth program at Park Avenue. “I remember sharing the gospel with a young man sitting on the top of the church bus one day,” says Keith. “He prayed to receive Christ while perched up there on the roof. It was a tremendous experience to realize that God could use me.”

Leaving Pharaoh’s Court

When Keith graduated from high school, he attended a Christian college far from the city. Although he enjoyed his new suburban surroundings, the call of God began to disturb his peaceful life.

“I began feeling a burden for the community I had grown up in,” he recalls. “Like Moses who decided to leave Pharaoh’s court, I knew I needed to go back and live with my people who were in need.”

As Keith’s love for his community blossomed, so did his love for Andrea, a beautiful young woman he had met on his Florida trip. “I fell head over heels,” he remembers. It was easy to understand why Keith had become so attracted to Andrea. Her grace and beauty had twice earned her the title of runner-up in the Miss Teenage Minnesota Pageant.

Shortly after Andrea and he were married, Keith took a sales position with a major corporation. Keith’s energy, gentle way with people, and natural charisma earned him promotions.

One day a district sales manager offered him a position that in three years would boost his salary to $70,000 a year. But there was a catch. The manager told him point-blank, “For two years, you’re going to have to give your heart and soul to the company.” With the birth of their first son only weeks away, Keith couldn’t see sacrificing his family for a career jump-start. He turned it down.

God again reminded him of his old neighborhood, prompting him, along with Andrea, to pray for an opportunity to return. Not long after that, Keith became program director for a ministry to teenagers in Minneapolis.

Sensing the need for further theological training, Keith resigned his position after three years and enrolled at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. As the weeks unfolded, Keith discovered that God had more in mind for him than just studying theology.

“The Lord began to dig down deep into my life and deal with the scars and pain of my childhood,” says Keith. “God began challenging me, an adult child of an alcoholic, toward honesty, truth, and confession. Then, on a Palm Sunday during a private spiritual/retreat, God specifically called me to the pastorate.”

As graduation time grew near, both Keith and Andrea knew home, not as teenage kids from the neighborhood this time, but as a husband and wife team committed to preaching the gospel and serving the community for Jesus Christ.

De-mythologizing Black Families

One of the first challenges Keith has taken on at Park Avenue is dealing with the myths and misconceptions regarding black families in the 1990s.

“One major misconception is the idea that urban families don’t care for their children as much as suburban parents do,” he says. “People need to realize that inner-city moms and dads do care. If they’re not home to take care of their kids, it isn’t because they’re apathetic, it’s because they’re struggling to survive. Urban folks do care, but because of their economic plight, many are forced to work day and night just to stay alive. That does not leave much time for parenting.”

Another myth Keith challenges is the idea that strong, black fathers don’t exist in the city. “They do in fact exist,” he asserts. “There are several black fathers in our church who are doing a marvelous job of raising their families.”

Keith and his wife have found particular encouragement from an older African American couple at Park Avenue, Bill and Beverly Cottman. “They’ve done a wonderful job of raising their children,” says Keith. “They could appear on any talk show and give advice on the right way to raise kids. As far as I’m concerned, they’re experts on the subject.”

Keith rejects the idea that there is a great difference between urban parents and their suburban counterparts with regard to their value systems. “We value monogamy, chastity, and honesty—so-called traditional values—just like everyone else. What’s usually lacking is available role models to show how to instill these values in our children.”

“I’m trying to address the needs of African-American families,” says Keith. “I called together the African-American men of the church to fellowship and talk with one another. In light of the Rodney King incidents, I felt it was important we discuss what positive steps we could take in the community.”

Keith and fellow black staff member Chris McNair are working to mobilize the black males at Park Avenue to become involved in the lives of young boys who have no father at home. Chris has begun a program called “Simba” (Young Lions) where young boys in the neighborhood are connected with older black men from the church who serve as mentors.

Doing It Right This Time

Keith realizes that if he is going to be the kind of father his boys need, it will require vigilance and sacrifice. “I guard my day off. One morning a week I care for our two year-old. One Sunday a month I sit with my family during the worship service. One day a month I actually spend time at school in the classroom with my children. Perhaps most important, every Monday night Andrea and I go out for a date.”

Remembering his own experience of growing up fatherless, Keith is determined to give his own boys a different life from the one he had known as a child. He views it as an opportunity to do it right this time, “God has given me the chance to replay the joy and excitement of the childhood I missed. My goal is to enjoy them, and to shape three future fathers and grandfathers who will be a blessing to their families, the society, and the church. But without Christ, I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m on a journey,” continues Keith. “I didn’t have good role models. I didn’t have people to show me the way. But God is meeting that need through the body of believers. As the Scriptures say, ‘God sets the lonely in families’ (Psalm 68:6). I’m thankful for the larger family God has placed us in at Park Avenue United Methodist Church. It’s a tremendous learning experience.”

Robert Moeller is a contributing editor with Leadership Journal and president of the Wordsmith Group, Inc.