About The House of the Lord’s Vision and Purpose

The House of the Lord loves you where you are and walk with you as you become who God wants you to be. Our church's purpose is to glorify God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, by winning the lost at any cost.

We accept them to our local community in God and make disciples of all who choose to follow God, equipping them for ministry in Akron and around the world.

We pray that God would continue to open doors for our community as we seek to minister to the Akron Community, Northeast Ohio, and the world.

About Our Pastor

Bishop F. Josephus Johnson, II, better known as Bishop Joey Johnson, is the presiding bishop of The Beth-El Fellowship of Visionary Churches. He is the organizer and senior pastor of The House of the Lord in Akron, Ohio.

He is a renowned bible scholar, counselor, educator, conference speaker, and workshop facilitator. Bishop Johnson is also a certified grief recovery specialist since 2002.

His experience in leading one of the city’s largest churches for 49 years has equipped him to impart wisdom for issues related to church growth and development, business management, leadership, and team building.

Bishop Johnson is happily married to Pastor Cathy Johnson.

Our Vision

The vision of The House of the Lord is to glorify God by providing saving and restorative healing and support for those in Northeastern Ohio who are consciously hurting, through the Good News of Jesus Christ, offered in a relational environment, so that these people may develop significant relationships with God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and other believers.

We strive to do this primarily through services that are celebrations of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which are built around the Spirit-filled preaching of the Word of God and a sense of the presence of God.

This is experienced in two predominant impressions:

God’s transcendent greatness - experienced as a sense of awe or excitement when we sense He is present.
God’s immanent closeness - experienced as a sense of God’s love often manifests itself in a corporate worship experience with sensations of community and love from other people in the community.

This sense of the presence of God would be accompanied by a freedom to express mature emotions, which would result in the conviction of sinners who are present and Christians who are built up, committed to Christ and His church, challenged to grow towards His vision for them, and demonstrating all of this in evangelism.

We also strive to realize our vision through Christian Education and discipleship. This entails maturing people in the image of Christ through Sunday School, educational events, and one another's ministry of believers.

These believers exercise their spiritual gifts, through the power of the Holy Spirit, one-on-one and in small groups. Through these acts, the local body of Christ may build itself up in love.

We continue to pray that God would open doors for our continued expansion as we seek to minister to the Akron Community, Northeast Ohio, and the world.

Our Purpose

THOTL, where: “We love you where you are and walk with you as you become who God wants you be”

“We” – a collective body of believers who are all called to work publicly and /or privately to achieve the intentions that God has for this local community
“We love” – because God is love and as His church, we must love to be an accurate reflection of Him and His love for the entire world (1 John 4:7-11, John 13:35, Matt 22:37-40, John 3:16).
“We love people where they are” – Location: We go out into the world to find people to love just as Jesus did when He came out into this world and found us (Luke 14:23, John 6:44, John 12:32). Condition: We love people just as they are without judgment and full of grace in recognition that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23, Matt 25:35-40)
“and walk with you” – by entering and remaining in relationships with them even when we’re hurt and disappointed because 1) we believe each person is worth it and 2) because God didn’t walk away from us, despite the mistakes we’ve made, so we’re committed to not walk away from others (Gen 2:18, 1 John 4:7-11, John 13:35).
“as you become who God wants them to be” – we believe that we can only reach our full potential by being in Christ and becoming more like Him. Therefore, we commit to preaching the gospel to see souls saved and commit to providing discipleship mechanisms to allow each person to grow into the person God wants them to be. (Luke 4:18-19, Matt 28:18-20, 2 Tim 3:16,)

Our Motto

Loving, Inspiring and Hospitable

What do we mean when we say Loving, Inspiring and Hospitable? This is how we are called to live out the reality that relationships are everything. Relationships are everything is the foundation we are building upon by being a church that is loving, inspiring and hospitable.

Loving: Love is the quality and main characteristic that defines our relationships with each other. Love also motivates us to minister to the needs of each other.
Inspiring: This defines our relationship with God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We want our relationship with God to be so genuine and authentic that it inspires us to serve and walk with people who desire the same relationship with God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Hospitable: This is about making room for strangers. There is a place at The House of the Lord for you because we will make room for you.

Our Distinctives

There are many churches in any town, city, county, state, or region of the United States of America.

Although the diversity of churches can be confusing, especially when they fight against one another, we believe that God has allowed such diversity in churches⎯because there is such a diversity of people.

Since churches are made up of people, they are − in a sense – like people, i.e. each church has its own personality and identity. To get along with people, you have to learn their idiosyncrasies, personality quirks, and distinctions.

The same is true of churches. Particular distinctions make each church different from every other church.

In order to minister and serve the Lord effectively, you must be united with a local church. That is the New Testament pattern.

To work effectively in a local church, i.e. a local manifestation of the body of Jesus Christ, it is important that you understand the distinctions of the local church where God has placed you.

It is with this understanding and motive that we set forth the distinction of The House of the Lord.

The House of the Lord is a church working to be a:

Evangelistic Church

Bible-Believing Church

Bible-Teaching Church

We don’t just believe in the Bible, but we are committed to teaching the principles found in the Bible and not being driven to teach a watered-down version of the Gospel to simply teach what the culture wants to hear.

We teach the entire counsel of the life-changing Word of God and encourage each member to practice these principles for transformation to occur in their lives (2 Timothy 3:16, Matt 28:18-20, Gal 2:20).

Relationship-Centered Church

God is a relationship unto Himself (i.e. The Triunity of God). Therefore, we believe that relationships are central to God’s church.

We intentionally strive to foster a sense of fellowship, communion, and intimacy within our church where each person feels welcomed, connected and cared for regardless of issues from their past or present struggles they may be dealing with.

(Gen 1:26, John 1:1, Gen 2:18, Gal 2:20, 1 John 4:16, Matt 22:37-40, 2 Cor 1:1, Mark 10:41-45).

Loving Church

Generous Church

Generosity is one of the most supreme external characteristics of God. Therefore, we seek to be a generous church. Among many things, we should be generous with love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. We also believe we should be generous with our giving.

Generous giving is a principle found throughout the New Testament which is consistent and flows out of the Old Testament.

The New Testament church is instructed to give proportionately to how we have been prospered by God (1 Cor 16:1-2); with a cheerful attitude and not under compulsion based on what each person purposes in his heart (2 Cor 9:7-8, 2 Cor 8:3-4); and in a faithful and systematic manner (1 Cor 16:1-2).

Faith-Operated Church

We have faith, not in the world or ourselves, but we have faith in God. This is not an American faith that is simply a blind belief in something that cannot be proven. We have biblical faith. We operate by faith, which requires knowledge, belief, and action.

So we don’t just believe and teach the Word of God – we commit to fully rely upon and have trust in God for the realization of what God intends to do at and through The House of the Lord.

Spirit-Empowered Church

Just as Israel, the First Testament covenant people of God, could never reach its divine destiny and calling through human might and intuition, we believe that The House of the Lord can never reach our divine destiny, live out these Distinctives, or attain our mission and vision as a church on our own.

We believe that this can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit who gives us future power for present use (i.e. the power of the kingdom of God in operation on earth right now) in order to advance the reign of God.

Therefore, we believe that “we need a good dose of the Holy Ghost.”

Because it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we will be an evangelistic, bible-believing, bible-teaching, relationship-centered, loving, generous, and faith-operated church powerful enough to transform our local community and the world (Zech 4:26, Acts 1:8, Acts 3:12).

The By-Laws at the House of the Lord is a summary for the membership providing information and guidance in doctrine and principles as together we serve the congregation of the House of the Lord.