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REVEREND DR. JOHNNIE W. SKINNER SR. PASTOR'S  MESSAGE

We will begin celebrating the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025. As we journey through the season of Lent, we can’t help but worship and praise God for all that He has done for us.  Lent is a time to prepare for the death and resurrection of Christ. As early as the tenth century, the use of ashes was employed to remind true worshippers of the essentials of genuine repentance: “the dying of the old self and the coming to life of the new.” As Christians, our new life with Christ involves daily surrendering the old life. We acknowledge our mortality and our sinfulness by the symbolic imposition of ashes. It is during this process that we acknowledge our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Christ. It is my hope that you will begin and end this season with regular periods of self reflection and self-examination: reflection and meditation on what Christ has done for us—His death, burial and resurrection—and what our response is or should be. Will we end this season of Lent with a recognized gratitude for what Christ has done and made possible for us? After our reflections upon Christ and our self-examination, will you be moved to repentance, confession or a desire for a closer walk with Jesus? I hope your answer is in the affirmative!

Rev. Dr. Johnnie W. Skinner Sr. & wife Andrea Skinner

Reverend Dr. Johnnie W. Skinner was born in Harlem, New York to the late Reverend Alester J. Skinner and the late Georgia Skinner. He was raised in Harlem, New York, and educated in New York City.  Dr. Skinner graduated from Nyack College (NY) with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy. He received his Master of Divinity Degree from Union Theological Seminary (NYC), and earned his Doctor of Ministry Degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, as a Samuel DeWitt Proctor Fellow. 

During his ministerial career, Dr. Skinner served for seven years at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, under the senior pastorate of the late Dr. Gardner C. Taylor. Dr. Skinner served seven years as pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio.  On February 15, 1991, Reverend Dr. Skinner accepted the call to lead Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Knoxville and has been with us ever since. 

John 15:13 KJV
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."