Senior Pastor Rev. Siegfried S. Johnson is an Elder in the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church.  Previously, Reverend Johnson served three other charges in the Arkansas Conference; Warren First United Methodist Church (2002-2006); Fordyce First United Methodist Church, a charge including the Kingsland and Chambersville UMC churches (1998 - 2002) and Wesley United Methodist Church in Pine Bluff (1995 - 1998). 

An Arkansas native, Reverend Johnson lived Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1985 to 1995, where he pursued advanced degrees in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan.  He worked as a Research Assistant for General Editor David Noel Freedman’s Anchor Bible Dictionary project, authoring numerous articles in addition to his research tasks.  His studies in biblical Hebrew widened to include other Semitic languages and literature, especially Akkadian and Ugaritic, with an emphasis on the mechanisms of narrative structure.  He earned the Master of Arts degree from the University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School in 1989, and was made a doctoral candidate in 1990, choosing shortly after to leave academia in order to focus on a career in ministry. 

Rev. Johnson’s interest in the Ancient Near East began while at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, from which he earned his Master of Divinity degree in 1984.  Honored by the faculty of that institution by being chosen from among all other biblical language students as the recipient of the American Bible Society Award for Excellence in Biblical Languages, he has continued, while in the pastorate, to pursue his passion for the languages and culture of the biblical lands by partnering with Education Opportunities in leading 10 pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other places where our faith emerged.   

Rev. Johnson began preaching in 1974, and in addition to being online through the church’s website, his sermons have often been published by Seven World's Corporation of Knoxville, Tennessee in their quarterly journal, Dynamic Preaching.  One of his sermons, "I Wish Life Came With An Eraser," was selected by the editors of Seven World's as co-winner of the 2001 Best Sermon Contest.

Reverend Johnson and Sherry Oxner married on March 8, 1975.  Siegfried and Sherry have two daughters, Page Johnson and Ashley Wagnon, and two granddaughters, Christian Taylor and Sarah Evelyn Wagnon.