Mitchell Spotlights ‘Extraordinary Ministry of Rocellia Johnson’
By Cora Jackson-Fossett, Religion Editor
Published April 7, 2021
The book cover of “An Untraditional Fire.” (Courtesy photo)
The Los Angeles-area faith community is quite familiar with the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Rocellia Johnson. While he passed away in 2018, he left an indelible mark that many still imitate today.
Johnson not only founded Bethany Baptist Church of West Los Angeles in 1958, but he also established Bethany Christian Bible College (BCBC) in 1978 and served several years as executive director of the National Evangelism Movement (NEM).
Throughout his long ministry, thousands of people accepted Christ as their Savior and an equal number accepted their call to preach the Gospel. Johnson influenced countless lives and now, author Harry Mitchell III is relating the tremendous extent of the evangelist’s reach in a new book, “An Untraditional Fire: The Extraordinary Ministry of Rocellia Johnson.
What’s Up?
Monday morning turned out rather nice weather-wise. It was quite still early, with some sweet light as the sun occasionally broke through the clouds. I started with a few images of my favorite crane family. Then after driving around a bit scouting, created a nice bird-scape or two of a Great Blue Heron on the edge of a canal. By the time I walked the pier at about 8:30am there was a gentle breeze from the northwest. There was a silly-tame Turkey Vulture on the pier railing that let me get closer than I ever have to any vulture. I would get really close and the bird would scamper away a few feet. There was a Bald Eagle sitting on the railing farther along. For some strange reason, the scampering vulture made the eagle somewhat comfortable with my presence. I made lots of tight head and shoulders portraits of the vulture but would up deleting every single one because the bird’s back was covered with whitewash. Vultures often poop on other vultures when they are roostin