Robert Johnson knows his life could have taken a very different turn.
After decades as the pastor of Ebenezer Presbyterian Church in New Bern, the still youthful spiritual leader fought back tears as he discussed one of the hardest decisions of his life — to step down from the pulpit in May after 43 years of service to not only his church but the greater New Bern community as well.
“I just feel blessed,” said Johnson, taking a rare moment to relax last Tuesday. “I was all about serving the people of this congregation and this community. From day one until today it has been a rich and rewarding spiritual experience.”
But as a young boy, the path that eventually led him to New Bern was far from certain.
Johnson was born in the small town of Due West, S.C. into what he described as a strong Presbyterian-based community. When he was a child his grandmother, Hattie Thompson, told his mother that one of her three sons would become a minister.
But few, Johnson said, would have predicted that calling would fall on him, a mischievous young man who had a streak of “the devil” in him, he admitted.
At age six, however, Johnson’s future changed dramatically when he was struck by a car and left for dead on the side of the highway. He was saved through the generosity of a nearby business owner who witnessed the incident while hanging curtains in her store window.
“She put down the curtains and came out and covered me up,” he remembered. “Then a young policeman came and saw I was still breathing a little bit and rushed me to a hospital 17 miles away. The doctor told my mother if I had gotten there five minutes later, I would have been gone.”
Johnson said he missed a year of school while in recovery, a time he used to reflect on his life. The call to ministry became clear to him as soon as he was back on his feet, he remembered.
“I thought I was going to die and I knew God had saved me for a purpose,” he explained. “I felt I needed to pay him back.”
As other seekers have done before him, Johnson went into the wilderness to look for answers.
“At first my soul was troubled, so I went into the woods beyond the graveyard, in a quiet place, and had a face-to-face talk with the Lord,” he recalled.
The experience set the young man on a path he has held to tirelessly ever since. In 1978 he received a Master of Divinity degree from Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta. After the dean of his school suggested he serve on the East Coast, in May of 1980 Johnson, at age 28, accepted the pastorship at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church in New Bern. Dating back to 1924, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the city’s only African American Presbyterian church.
From the beginning, Johnson said, his vision for the church has been one of active service in the community, of a congregation that says yes when other institutions say no.
“I told the congregation we’re not going to sit on this corner and just stay here to ourselves,” he said. “We’re going to mingle and become involved.”
Opening doors and hearts for those in need
One of the earliest examples of Johnson’s devotion was the role his church played in the development of Religious Community Services, the New Bern nonprofit that provides critical services for those in need. RCS operated its soup kitchen out of Ebenezer Presbyterian’s basement for several years in the early 1980s.
“We said yes to them and we saw how the people were blessed by coming here. They didn’t come for just a meal but because they needed a listening ear, they needed to lean on someone in going through their struggles,” he said.
Johnson would go on to serve as RCS’s first Black president before taking over as supervisor of the nonprofit’s Family Home and overseeing its 24-hour emergency hotline.
For Johnson, it was the beginning of a commitment to the community that would stretch over the next four decades and earn him the moniker of “New Bern’s pastor.” While his accomplishments and acts of service are too numerous to list in full, some of the highlights include:
-In 1983 he was a founding member of Martin Luther King Jr. Outreach Ministry and served two terms as president.
-For the last 30 years, Johnson has served as the staff chaplain for CarolinaEast Medical Center, the longest anyone has stayed in that role in the hospital’s history.
“It’s given me the opportunity to minister to families, patients and staff on a one-to-one basis. It has been a blessing to them as well as to me,” Johnson said.
-Beginning in 1995, Johnson chaired the New Bern addiction counseling and recovery program Phoenix House. The experience led Ebenezer Presbyterian to host the Clean Freedom Group, which held recovery meetings there from 2013-2016. Today, Phoenix House oversees two homes, one for women and the other for men.
-In 1998 volunteers from Ebenezer Presbyterian began an afterschool program to mentor students from J.T. Barber Elementary School and help them with homework.
“Each of those students we helped made the honor roll,” he recalled with a smile.
One of Johnson’s most lasting legacies will be his role as president of the Duffyfield Phoenix Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for improvements in both the historic Duffyfield community’s physical infrastructure and the quality of life of its residents.
“There is a lot that needs to be done to bring Duffyfield up to par,” Johnson commented. “It’s going to take the whole city coming together and investing.”
Somehow, Johnson also found time to get married. In 1992 he wed Martha Kornegay and is the proud father of two sons, Robert Emmanuel and Jordan Isaiah.
How does he find time to do it all and still sleep? Laughing, Johnson said it was never in the cards for him to be a part-time provider.
“I just couldn’t see being an effective pastor to the church and the community and the hospital without giving my full time and all that I have,” Johnson said. “I’m just thankful God has blessed me with the energy and the health.”
Johnson will perform his last sermon as pastor of Ebenezer Presbyterian on Sunday, May 7, the exact date 43 years ago that he took on his first leadership role at the church. He said he also plans to step back from his other duties with the various organizations he still works with in New Bern.
“I felt in my soul that I needed to exit on the date that I was installed,” he said. “Coming here has been so significant to my life that it seemed like the right thing.”
“But,” he added, breaking into the smile that’s been seen in pulpits, board rooms and soup kitchens across New Bern for decades, “God isn’t through with me, I’m sure of that.”
By Todd Wetherington, co-editor. Send an email with questions or comments.