Johnson retires after 21-plus years as pastor
(Photo by MIKE TURNLUND) Pictured, from left, are Barry Johnson, Kevin Carlson, and Greg Barnes. After twenty-one and a half years at the helm of New Song Bible Church, pastor Barry Johnson stepped down.
After twenty-one and a half years at the helm of New Song Bible Church, pastor Barry Johnson is stepping down. On Sunday, March 31, Johnson delivered his final sermon as senior pastor.
New Song Bible Church was founded by Johnson and a group of committed families in 1998. Lacking a building of their own, the congregation met at the Sagle Senior Center. Four years later, the familiar “log house” church building on Highway 95 in Sagle became available and the New Song Bible Church congregation took possession and has been there ever since.
Johnson is not going to be idle in his retirement. Asked what his plans were, he admitted that he would do a “little more” fishing, but that he was still focused on being active in ministry opportunities. While he will continue to teach biblical doctrine and theology courses for rural pastors and laypeople through the Rocky Mountain Bible Mission, he is especially interested in helping to aid his wife, Cari Johnson, who has an active and ongoing ministry with Partners International — a Christian education and church-planting organization for women and families in the poorest third-world countries. Retirement would also allow Johnson to visit and minister in Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he had previously served as a missionary in the 1980s.
Johnson also wants to spend more time with his 17-year-old son, Joel Johnson. The Sandpoint High School junior is an avid and successful golfer and Johnson thought that retirement would be a great time to “reacquaint” himself with the sport and allow him to spend some time on the links with his son. Johnson and his family will be remaining in the area.
Johnson and the New Song Bible Church leadership have been proactive in preparing for his retirement. The pastoral mantle will be passed to two current pastors, Greg Barnes and Kevin Carlson. The church will maintain both its active outreach to the Sagle community and its local traditions, such as the church’s popular “spring yard sale” that coincides every year with Sandpoint’s Lost in the ‘50s event.
During his two-plus decades of pastoral work in Bonner County, Johnson said that he was “very grateful for the cooperative spirit of the other churches in the area and to the other ministers for holding each other up in the ministry.”
Congratulations Pastor Barry on your retirement; you will be missed!