Every Asbury student knows his name — it typically follows an email titled “This Week at Asbury.” Brad Johnson is a legend among Asbury students who does much more than just send his famous emails.
As Asbury’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Johnson is in charge of messaging and public relations. He deals with all kinds of advertising, media and communication to the public. Johnson is involved in many different departments and interacts with all people on campus.
“I tell people all of the time that I have the best job on campus because there isn’t a student group, department or office on campus that I don’t have an opportunity to walk alongside in some way each year,” said Johnson. “Not many people on campus have that same, wonderful, blessed opportunity I’m so thankful for.”
After working in various different positions across the communication field, Johnson came to Asbury nine years ago when he felt a call from God.
“I was working my dream job, but also doing inner-city service and going on international mission trips,” said Johnson. “I kept hearing about Asbury and the good work it was doing in those areas, so I looked into it via an acquaintance at the school. As only the Lord can do, the director of marketing position opened up the very same week that I told him I felt a strong calling to serve at Asbury in some way. I feel truly blessed to have had such a clear calling and the opportunity to follow it in faith.”
Along with his work in communications at the university, another major aspect of Johnson’s life is ministry and service. He has been involved in ministry both within the Asbury community and the surrounding area. His weekends are dedicated to serving others and spreading the gospel, which he says he feels is as important to his calling as his job at Asbury.
In the surrounding community he runs the homeless ministry Church Under The Bridge in Lexington, which takes place on Sunday. He is also a board member and coach for Miracle League, a sports league for children with special needs. Johnson has led three mission trips, to New York City, Chicago, and Jacksonville, with groups of Asbury students. He encourages Asbury students to participate in other ministries like Miracle League and Church Under The Bridge.
“Every fall and spring, AU’s baseball and softball teams take a weekend to volunteer and serve as ‘buddies’, [or] mentors on the field, with the kids,” said Johnson. “In fact, the baseball team is coming to the games on Sept. 7 to volunteer. There is an Asbury Day at Church Under The Bridge where dozens of Asbury students volunteer to serve the homeless, an AU worship band performs and AU students/staff deliver the sermon.”
Johnson said that although education is obviously a vital aspect of the Asbury experience, spreading the love of God is of the utmost importance and he wants to demonstrate this and inspire others to do the same.
“We hear the words ‘faith and works’ a lot, but I’ve always preferred to say ‘faith put to work,’” said Johnson. “At Asbury we can have high GPAs, we can have wonderful graduation and employment rates, but just as important is our ability as students, faculty and staff to go into the world and be more than a degree and salary. Someone said to me the other day, ‘If you lined up all of the churches in Lexington on one road, big numbers, beautiful buildings… if Jesus were in town, I think he’d stop at this one, the one with 150 homeless worshipping Him outside despite all of their hurdles.’ To see Asbury students at that church every semester is what ‘faith put to work’ means to me.”
