LifeTIMES
A monthly ministry of Lord of Life Lutheran Church of Maple Grove, Minnesota
June 2014
Meet the Johnsons
C
urrently Lord of Life has 8,297 baptized members (many of them children) which corresponds to 3,084 households. Among those, we have 139 Johnsons. The name may be pretty common in the Midwest yet this Johnson family is anything but common. Ron & Kim Johnson, along with their seven (yes, seven!) children, two dogs, and three cats, call Lord of Life their church home. Let’s learn more about this unique Johnson family— What are the names of everyone in your family? Kim: Our family is myself, Ron, Zachary, Tucker, Elle, Emmi, Cooper, Jake, and Max. Our children range in age from 2-17. We also have two dogs: Bandit and Buddy, along with several cats: Whiskers, Stripes, and Puffball. Ron and I both come from smaller families and were raised in a suburban neighborhood. Our families are still close to us. Today, we make our home in a rural setting where we raise longhorn cattle. How did you decide to make Lord of Life your church family? Ron: I was raised Lutheran and Kim was raised Catholic. We decided when we started our family we needed to decide on one denomination.
We went “church shopping” as we tagged it with family and friends. We wanted a community that was open to working together with families in their faith journey...and so we made our church home at Lord of Life. We also wanted an environment where the Bible was taught from a perspective of our living today. It is important to us that our children understand how God’s word relates to living our lives today. We approach life with an attitude of gratitude and want our children to understand how that relates to their everyday living. With such a large family, how do you handle day-to-day tasks? Kim: Here at home we each do have some assigned responsibilities. For other daily responsibilities we encourage the idea, if you see a job
that needs to be done just help do it. We remind each other that it takes all of us working together to help all run smoothly. We all take our turns from dishes, laundry and the 20-minute clean ups around the house. We do laundry daily just to keep it manageable. We cook our meals together daily and do enjoy dinners out as well. Is there time available for each child to develop their own interests or hobbies outside of school? Ron: We do encourage individual interests, and we encourage them to always support each other. It varies on the time of year. Cooper enjoys snowboarding in winter. Jake likes birding and football. Tucker is into stop-motion animation. Zachary is involved in working with our cattle
Taken at the top of Harney Peak, Custer State Park, SD are (left to right): Kim, Zachary, Elle, Ron with Max, Tucker, Emmi, Jake and Cooper (front).
June 2014 “For me to live is Christ” Philippians 1:21a
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