From the time he was five years old, Rev. Davis Johnson ’16 knew that he wanted to be a pastor. Inspired by Rev. Dr. Jim Hughes and Jason Sansbury, the senior pastor and youth pastor who built him up during his formative years at Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, Davis came to BSC in 2012 with a strong sense of calling to vocational ministry.

“A big reason I chose BSC is because I was able to meet every week with other students who were discerning a call to ministry, and had opportunities to connect with church leaders from the community,” he says. “Laura Sisson ’79 led the discernment group at the time, and it helped me to have these weekly conversations where I could apply what I was learning in the classroom to understanding how big moments in our lives change the way we think fundamentally.”

Throughout his time on the Hilltop, Johnson was an involved member of BSC’s Pre-Ministry Covenant Group. Now led by BSC Chaplain Julie Holly ’01, the Pre-Ministry Covenant Group is a scholarship and discernment program that gives students the opportunity to discuss theology, practical ministry issues, and spiritual discernment with other students exploring a ministerial calling. These discussions culminate in a summer study project that includes assigned readings, an extended response paper, and a yearly retreat.

In 2016, Johnson graduated from BSC with a degree in religion and human rights and conflict studies. He also received BSC’s Crawford and Bette Owen Seminary Award, which recognizes a graduating senior who has been accepted to a UMC-affiliated seminary and who intends to be ordained.

In his first year at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Johnson served as chaplain of the diagnostics and intake department of a women’s prison in northeast Georgia. In that role, he counseled newly incarcerated women as they came to terms with that reality. The following summer, he partnered with Brentwood United Methodist Church as a missions consultant. The position took him to South Africa, where he worked in a seminary that partnered with a day school and a crisis center. Both experiences heightened his passion for ministering to people in unconventional situations.

“One of the things I pay attention to as a pastor is how people respond to the pressures in their lives. It’s easy in those situations to get wrapped up in what you wish would have gone differently, or to overemphasize a sense of shame. But, just like with the women I worked with at the prison, the people who are able to grow the most are the ones who can come to terms with who and where they are and see themselves in healthy ways.”

Now the associate pastor of youth and elder care ministries at Anniston First United Methodist Church in Anniston, Alabama, Johnson continues to see how he has been called to work with people groups in need of extra support. “I work with two groups that get overlooked in the church: the young people and the folks that can’t get out as well as they used to anymore,” he explains. “We kind of plan the life of congregational ministries around the most able-bodied and ‘in place’ group. But I think my two groups can learn a lot from each other. The elderly can teach younger people how much we gain by being in place, since their faith is so fundamental to how they think and live. And younger people can teach the elderly that being excited and open to fundamental shifts in thinking is a part of strengthening our faith. My job is to bridge the gap – to show both groups and everyone in between that we can all learn really valuable lessons from each other.”

This story was included in a special religious studies and ministry edition of From the Hilltop, Birmingham-Southern’s alumni email newsletter.

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