The congregation at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York selected on Sunday the Rev. Kevin Johnson, pastor of Dare to Imagine Church in Mount Airy, as its senior pastor.

Johnson is scheduled to assume his new role as Abyssinian’s pastor in mid-July, according to LaToya Evans, a spokesperson for the church. He will succeed the late Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, who vacated the role as pastor when he died in October of 2022.

“With profound gratitude, I humbly accept God’s call to serve as Abyssinian Baptist Church’s 21st senior pastor,” Johnson said in the announcement. “This sacred responsibility fills my family and me with joy.”

Founded in 1808, Abyssinian is one of the oldest African American Baptist churches in the U.S. and, through the years, has been known for its social activism and community service under the leadership of pastors like Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the first African American congressman from New York, and Butts, who before his death helped to build the first new high school in Harlem in 50 years.

Abyssinian Baptist church has ministered through the Harlem Renaissance Era, through the American Civil Rights Era, and, more recently, was the first church to collaborate with the government on COVID-19 efforts, according to Evans. The church has also been home to several notable parishioners such as actress Cicely Tyson and the late style icon Andre Leon Talley.

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