F. Willis Johnson currently leads Living Tree Church in Columbus Ohio. Prior to starting Living Tree, he was senior minister of Wellspring Church in Ferguson, Missouri, where thousands have been influenced by his prophetic, faith-filled reflections and strategies on social justice and racial understanding. He counsels bishops, general board agencies, conferences, and local churches across the country. He has also served in professional ministry in Indiana and North Carolina for the last 15 years. Johnson’s writing and lecturing credits range from TIME Magazine, National Public Radio, universities, and seminaries to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History Culture. He has been adjunct faculty at Drew Theological School, Methodist Theological School of Ohio, and Eden Theological Seminary.

Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community, equips pastors to respond with confidence when crises occur, lower their own inhibitions about addressing this topic, and reclaim their authority as prophetic witnesses and leaders in order to transform their communities.

This book provides practical, foundational guidance, showing pastors how to live into their calling to address injustice, and how to lead others to do the same. Holding Up Your Corner prompts readers to observe, identify and name the complex causes of violence and hatred in the reader’s particular community, including racial prejudice, entrenched poverty and exploitation, segregation, the loss of local education and employment, the ravages of addiction, and so on.

Preaching Black Lives (Matter) is an anthology that asks, “What does it mean to be church where if Black lives matter?”

Prophetic imagination would have us see a future in which all Christians would be free of the soul-warping belief and practice of racism. This collection of reflections is an incisive look into that future today. It explains why preaching about race is important in the elimination of racism in the church and society, and how preaching has the ability to transform hearts. While programs, protests, conferences, and laws are all important and necessary, less frequently discussed is the role of the church, specifically the Anglican Church and Episcopal Church, in ending systems of injustice. The ability to preach from the pulpit is mandatory for every person, clergy or lay, regardless of race, who has the responsibility to spread the gospel.

For there’s a saying in the Black church, “If it isn’t preached from the pulpit, it isn’t important.”