City Council Commends Pastor’s Work

CANOGA PARK —  What is believed to be the only black church in the west San Fernando Valley, which meets in a rented Canoga Park storefront, has struggled along with little notice since its founding in 1992.

But the Full Gospel Church of God in Christ will have a special service Sunday afternoon to hear the reading of a Los Angeles City Council resolution commending the small congregation and Pastor Ford Johnson for their counseling work, food distribution, and aid to drug abusers.

Just under 6,000 African Americans--only 2% of the population--lived in the U.S. Census areas of Canoga Park, Woodland Hills, Winnetka, Reseda and West Van Nuys in 1990.

“I bet all of them have been through our church at one time or another,” Johnson offered in an interview Friday. “At least it seems that way,” said Carolyn Johnson, his wife, who serves as the congregation’s evangelist.

On a typical Sunday morning, however, only 30 to 75 people are sitting in the nine rows of cushioned pews for services, they said. Far fewer show up for Wednesday and Friday night services.

The couple conceded it is difficult to keep the church going. When they are working, it is their own earnings that pay the bills. Both have suffered ailments that have prevented them from working in recent years, they said.

Only recently did Carolyn Johnson obtain forms to apply for federal and state tax-exempt status for the church, although she has not yet submitted them, saying she is daunted by the complicated paperwork. Potential donors cannot claim their contributions as tax deductions unless the place of worship has been granted government recognition as a nonprofit organization.

In the meantime, the Johnsons sought some public recognition for the church from the City Council, and got it from Councilwoman Laura Chick in a resolution dated Friday. The commendation will be read at 3 p.m. Sunday at the church, at 7251 Owensmouth Ave., across the street from the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce and a public library.

The resolution particularly cites Johnson’s “ministry to the disadvantaged,” which often takes him many miles beyond the West Valley.

“He does good work,” said Dr. David Hernandez, lead physician at the Family Health Care Clinic in Winnetka. Johnson’s church met in a building next to the clinic for several months before the building was sold, forcing a move in June to its present location.

Johnson is “a simple man, but one with a deep faith who helps people,” Hernandez said. Johnson regularly solicits surplus bread from supermarkets to distribute to the needy, he said, and once the two of them drove to Tijuana to deliver food and clothing to a convent there.

On most Saturday mornings, Johnson takes donated bread to downtown Los Angeles for the homeless.

“No matter what he’s doing, he goes out,” said Michelle Vallejo, a medical office receptionist in Northridge who has had help from Johnson on her own weekly charitable trips to the inner city. “He’s not one who just talks about doing it,” she said.

The Johnsons moved to Los Angeles in 1988 from Detroit, where the pastor has two preacher sons from a previous marriage. He had been to the Valley visiting two nieces, but heard “a little voice” urging him to return for a ministry in California. He served as an assistant minister in San Dimas, but when his wife got work in Woodland Hills, they settled there.

A few years later, they took a leap of faith and started holding services in a tiny building on the corner of Canoga Avenue and Wyandotte Street. Though the Johnsons said that drug users roamed a nearby street in the four years they were there, the church never experienced a break-in.

The congregation is affiliated with the Church of God in Christ, the nation’s largest black Pentecostal denomination, which includes Bishop Charles Blake’s 15,000-member West Angeles Church of God in Christ and Grammy-winning composer Andrae Crouch’s Christ Memorial Church in Pacoima.

As such, the Full Gospel church believes in all the “gifts of the Holy Spirit” of that tradition, including healing and speaking in tongues, and has a heightened expectation of supernatural phenomena.

“We are open at noon every day for anyone who wants counseling or prayer,” Pastor Johnson said. “We’ve healed dope addicts by laying on of hands--and some had no withdrawal pains,” he said.

The minister, now 60, underwent surgery for a life-threatening ailment two years ago, which he only reluctantly talked about. He said doctors tell him he has recovered.

“I don’t want pity,” he said. “We have been blessed by God without having to beg for money.” Johnson switched the subject quickly.

On Thursday, Johnson drove to a Pasadena hospital to answer a request for prayer. “Sometimes people give me gas money; I don’t ask,” he said. “We just leave ourselves open without a price.”