ChristianWeek

KITCHENER, ON—As a child playing church with her siblings, Susan Johnson was relegated to the sidelines. Her denomination didn’t ordain women and her brother always got to play the “pastor” role.

Now, decades later, Johnson is taking charge as the national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), a first for the denomination. Those early games stirred a passion for ministry in Johnson, who comes from a long line of ELCIC pastors on both sides of her family, including her father. By the time the denomination began ordaining women Johnson was well into a career as a high school music teacher.

“A lot of people said ordained ministry was something I should consider. I closed my ears for a number of years,” says Johnson. “But the voices got louder around me. And the internal voices got louder.”

Johnson finally listened, earned her master of divinity from Waterloo Lutheran Seminary in 1992 and then served in a London parish. In 1994 she was appointed assistant to the bishop in Kitchener’s ELCIC Eastern Synod office. Along with overseeing various denominational programs, Johnson represented the bishop to a number congregations—the aspect of the ministry she enjoyed the most.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity and joy to meet so many faithful Christians spread out over our territory,” she says.

From April to September 2006 Johnson served as current Eastern Synod bishop Michael Pryse’s commissary—or stand-in—during his sabbatical.

Big surprise

But substituting for Pryse didn’t prepare her for the surprise of being elected as national bishop at the national convention in June 2007—or for her eventual move to the denomination’s head office in Winnipeg to assume her new role September 1.

“I don’t think there was anyone more surprised than me,” says Johnson, the first person elected as national bishop who wasn’t already serving as a bishop. “I’m naturally emotional and burst into tears, as I’m wont to do, and then I was totally amazed.”

When introduced by the outgoing national bishop, Raymond Schultz, Johnson says she felt overwhelmed as she faced “the sea of faces of people I love and care about.”

Johnson does have leadership experience at the national level. She served as the vice-president of the ELCIC in 2001, a term she completed in July 2005.

She also brings a wealth of connections and experience having served as the ecumenical canon to the Anglican Church of Canada’s Niagara Diocese since 2003, an advisor to the Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) since 1998 and a member of the North American Regional Committee for the LWF since 2005.

Johnson calls the ECLIC’s joint communion with the Anglican Church and its membership in the LWF “a big piece of the work.”

“I’m glad and blessed to start out this new ministry with that background,” she says.

Besides getting to know and develop good working relationships with the national council and conference of bishops, Johnson intends to continue the trajectory Schultz began.

“I want to make the theme ‘church in mission for others’ as real as possible. I can’t imagine anyone choosing the opposite, ‘church in mission for ourselves’ but the reality is these days the faith community is struggling with people and financial resources,” says Johnson.

“The human temptation is to turn inwards instead of reaching out.”