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July 9 Today in OPC History

John and Diana Johnson

 

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania in 1953, John Hays Johnson Jr. met Diana McNichols while students at Bob Jones University in 1975. John, who served on a summer mission trip to Iran in 1974, changed from pursuing medicine to pursuing the ministry before he graduated in 1975. Two years later, he married Diana on this day in 1977. Receiving his master of divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1981, John was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in America in June. He served as assistant pastor of Fifth Street PCA in Tyler, Texas, until 1983 when Tyler Presbyterian Church, a new denominationally-unaffiliated congregation, was formed in Tyler. In July 1983, Orthodox Presbyterian pastors John Hilbelink and Glenn Black met with the Johnsons and the congregation. John was received into the OPC on September 1983 by the Presbytery of the Dakotas. On January 4, 1984—the same day John was installed as pastor—Tyler Presbyterian Church became an organized Orthodox Presbyterian church. He has served for thirty-two years as pastor of Tyler OPC, including through two building projects. Since 1997, John also has worked part-time as a chaplain in the workplace, including at banks, manufacturing and trucking companies, and on the oil field.

Within the Presbytery of the Southwest, John has served as moderator, stated clerk, archivist, and on committees, including Christian Education, Home Missions, Fraternal Relations, Bills and Overtures, Candidates and Credentials, and Young Peoples. He also directed their Youth Camp for four years and was part of the overseeing session of the OP congregations in Fort Worth, Denton, Dallas, and Longview, Texas. With a lifelong interest in foreign missions and encouraged by the late OP missionary Arlena Mahaffy, John also taught a course at Knox Theological College in Mbale, Uganda, in 2013.

Over the years, Diana, along with John, served in the leadership of their community’s homeschool association, taught seminars, and managed the homeschool department at a Christian bookstore in Tyler for more than twenty years. Diana wrote two books on homeschooling and has taught in two Christian schools.

 

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