Pastor Jeremy Johnson
Did I just see a snowflake? Wait, what month is it? That’s right it’s the month of May! Butterflies and sunshine. Trees in full bloom and green grass to be mowed. Yeah, that’s the May I remember. This Spring has been very cloudy, and the temperatures have not been very warm. In times like this you could almost assume the sun did not exist anymore.
All of us who live in Minnesota get an unusual opportunity that much of the world does not experience in the same manner. We in Minnesota get to experience all four seasons with their varying temperatures, precipitation, and of course, the transformation of the canvas of the landscape around us. This time of the year is often not only mild in the afternoon, but also very colorful as the leaves begin to change to gold, brown, orange, and other various tones presenting an orchestrated beauty from the hand of our Creator. In contrast to the late spring bloom of green horizons, the sounds of birds, and the grace of a butterfly moving through our garden, we see the signs of the dormancy of winter drawing near.
The long drive was well worth it. When you grow up in a small town you crave excitement, something bigger than the day-to-day rhythm. I was barely old enough to see out the window, but what I did see were giant, orangish-golden beams that stretched much higher than any tree I had ever climbed. The Golden Gate Bridge was beautiful and the road that crossed it seemed to go on forever over the deep blue ocean waters below. So much history lay in this region and the discussions I had with my parents went from the Gold Rush to the more somber discussion about Alcatraz Island. We enjoyed a ride on the hilly streets in the Cable Cars and of course, enjoyed some great Mexican food. The sad sights of the city were the poverty and the garbage in the streets, along with used syringes from hopeless drug addicts that lay along the sidewalks. These things are not in my memory, though my parents did witness such things along the way, the innocence of childhood allowed me to take in the good, the beauty, and the adventure of the vacation.
It was something we decided on a whim, we were bachelors after all, and I was an intern here at Friendship Church. I lived with a family that hosted me during my internship and my friend Spencer lived across the street. He worked for Northwest Airlines and we were going to catch a red-eye flight to Las Vegas, rent a car and drive to Utah and Arizona to sightsee in the land of canyons. The adventures included driving on a gravel, minimum maintenance desert road upon exiting Bryce Canyon, with very little gas in the car and two water bottles to our name. Of course, we realized this when we were too far down the road to turn around, not to mention we had no modern technology of a GPS to guide us. We made it safely to Arizona, but my lunch did not. Let’s just say Taco Bell gave me food poisoning and we drove with the car window open for the next few hours.
As a middle-schooler, I was full of energy and excitement. You would frequently find me spending time outside playing baseball or tearing around the neighborhood on my bike with my friends. Growing up in a small town with the population of barely five hundred people, gave me a limited scope of what it meant to have fun. I think we all understand that this can be both a good and a bad thing, simultaneously. The summer of 1990 was one that I will never forget. My local church of roughly 150 members had hired an intern for the summer from none other than Friendship church, to bring youth ministry to Grove City. Jason’s passion for Jesus was so evident and he challenged us with the gospel consistently. I can vividly remember the day that he spoke into my life a phrase that I never forgot. We were driving in his blue Pontiac Grand Am and he looked at me and said, ‘Jeremy you have the potential to be a strong leader. I want to challenge you to consider the influence you could have on your peers.’ Jason had been laboring hard to win our hearts and he used great wisdom in his approach. What Jason understood is that youth want someone who they can trust, as well as someone who sees qualities in them that they don’t see in themselves. As I look back in time, I can see with clarity the strategy Jason had in mind. He not only wanting to pass on confidence to me, he wanted to see me pass that same confidence on to my peers.
As a child, I learned quickly that jokes and nicknames were a part of our everyday life and identity as the Johnson family. The name that stuck with my dad, Leighton, was that he was “late-a-ton.” Many of my memories as a middle schooler were staying late at church, waiting in a parking lot, or sitting at the Dairy Queen waiting yet again as my dad carried on and on in conversation with someone. He would treat them as though they were lifelong friends and my dad would laugh and smile and give them a hug sometimes. Though I was often annoyed, I would ask my dad, “How do you know that guy?” or “Who was that man?” My assumption was that my dad had met them somewhere before and had just lost touch through the years. More often than not, Dad would explain that he had just met them that day and yet somehow, they had just shared their life story! He would typically pray for them and sometimes shed a tear or two when we left. Through the years, I learned that being late-a-ton wasn’t such a bad habit as long as it was because you were taking the time to know and love people like Jesus would.
