Today we’d like to introduce you to Rollie Johnson.
Hi Rollie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am an odd duck to be sure, a bit of a misfit, and someone who operates outside the boundaries of doing things the standard way. Part audacious maverick, part rebel, part child-like goofball, I am an adventurer at heart. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to make a living for the past 42 years by following my passion for the outdoors and adventure by leading others to discover the joys of reconnecting with our Creator through His Creation (my personal mission statement). And I have done all of this through an even stanger vehicle… the church. I have served three congregations over all these years and the past 28 of these have been at First Lutheran Church in Fargo North Dakota. (Oh… I do have other responsibilities such as preaching, teaching, leading worship, men’s groups)
I have led extended 10-day backpack trips to the mountain wilderness areas of Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and of late, the spectacular Maah Daah Hey trail in our very own western North Dakota. Hard-core Winter Camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has also been a staple offering. Rock climbing is another fabulous teaching vehicle I use to make faith come alive and become more real for youth of all ages. Sometimes I’ll use our local indoor climbing walls to teach our “In search of Faith and Footholds” class or we’ll take it up a notch by offering climbing trips to Taylors Falls, the North Shore’s Palisade Head, Wyoming’s Vedauwoo, and the ultimate experience of climbing the 800’ Devil’s Tower. My theory is if you want to help people of any age learn about trust and faith… get them on a rock climb! We also offer our “SOLO” trip where I teach primitive, Native American living skills like bow drill fire making, flintknapping, cordage making, and shelter for 5 days, then the participants are dropped off in a large semi-wilderness area for a 48-hour solo. We also offer extended 10-day wilderness canoe trips to the BWCAW, Quetico, Woodland Caribou, and the Upper Missouri River in Montana.
One of my many passions and hobbies has been building cedar strip canoes. In 2004 I had a vision of helping kids build a canoe so that they could experience the joy and pride of creating with their own hands to create a beautiful canoe that is both practical and aesthetically pleasing. I prayed and dreamed but couldn’t really figure out how to build multiple individual canoes. Obstacles of expenses, who would own it, and a workshop big enough kept bringing me to a dead-end. But I kept praying, prayed some more.
Let me back up. In 1977 between my jr. and sr. years of high school I went on a 70-day, 1,300-mile canoe expedition with the organization Expeditions of North America. This trip was made with six other high school students and two adult guides. The 9 of us spent 10 weeks traveling in a 300 lb, 26’-long fiberglass, Voyageur North Canoe.
This 2 ½ month-long expedition had us retracing an historic route of the voyageurs. We began on the western edge of the Boundary Waters on Crane Lake and proceeded to travel north and west through Namakan, and Rainy Lakes. Then down the Rain River, and up and across Lake of the Woods, down the Winnipeg River Chain, then up and across the 300-mile-long Lake Winnipeg, up and across Cedar Lake, up the Saskatchewan River, and ended near the Churchill River at Pelican Rapids in northeastern Saskatchewan. This trip had a profound and lasting impact on my life.
So back to canoe building. As I prayed and dreamed of how to do this, my vision morphed into; “what if we could have kids build giant 26’ north canoes? We could work side by side together, the church would own the canoes and then we could offer a wilderness canoe trip in the very boats we built! I did extensive research and lots of phone calls trying to find a design for a similar canoe to what we used on our 1977 expedition but found nothing. So with lots of prayers, trial and error, and a whole lot of faith, I along with a good team of adults created our own plans.
Well, that dream solidified and grew into our 2004 First Lutheran Canoe building project where we built 4 north canoes side by side. We repeated that same project in 2014 building another 4 boats. During each of these 6 months long canoe builds over a hundred people of all ages worked side by side each Wed. and Sunday to birth these canoes into life! And they are spectacular! Gorgeous and sturdy to handle the rigors of wilderness travel. We still own and use the four canoes from our last build. Following the builds we took these magnificent creations into the wilderness of the BWCA, Quetico, and the Upper Missouri River in Montana. It was heartwarming to watch kids and adults take great pride in creating and then taking care of their creations in the wild. When you’ve built something with your own two hands, you naturally take greater care.
Interwoven with all of these journeys, I have become a published writer and author. With over 50 magazine articles published in various outdoor and hunting magazines, these excursions have given me tremendous adventures to write about. I have also published three books in my Paying Attention trilogy. These books are a compilation of four hundred plus short Devotionals I’ve written helping people to see God as revealed in Creation/nature and helping them to find Him in the ordinary and common of everyday life. I believe that all of us are spiritual beings at heart, but many people have been turned off by organized religion, overzealous pastors/priests, the hypocrisy of many churchgoers, and boring/lifeless/irrelevant/archaic/traditional churches and youth programs.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work on this planet is to help people draw closer to their Creator by helping to immerse themselves in Creation. Most of us race through our days at a hectic and frantic pace oblivious to the Godly and divine in our midst. We are tuned in to the latest electronic gizmos and out of tune with the holy and sacred that moves in and around us throughout our days. Our fast-paced, technology-dependent world tells you to buy more, do more, and get more. Yet most of us feel more empty, more tired, and less connected to our Creator and one another.
Most folks are empty, anxious, and stressed. Our hectic, fast-paced modern world filled with convenience and incredible technology, has left most of us asking; “Is this really all there is?” Most of us are drowning in abundance of both opportunities and material possessions, yet feeling unfulfilled, hollow, and longing for purpose, meaning, and direction. We are searching for what the world cannot give. We try to fill the “God Hole” in our soul with everything but the real thing. We are waiting and wanting to see God move in big, dramatic, and remarkable ways and when that doesn’t happen, we assume God is not here, that He is distant, or is only available to others. I want to help people move back to a deeper relationship with Creation and through these experiences grow closer to our Creator.
If you’re looking for a good book filled with all sorts of crazy adventures and a very unique writing style, check out my Paying Attention series. But don’t expect the typical preachy, churchy vocabulary, or religious jargon of most faith-based books. These books are real, down-to-earth, blunt, honest, and practical. I invite you to go deeper with God by seeing Him everywhere and in our common world. We all need to learn to pay attention.
We’re always looking for lessons that can be learned from any situation, including tragic ones like the COVID-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I love motivating and inspiring others, whether through these wilderness adventures, preaching, teaching, and counseling at church or through my sideline business of school and corporate retreats that I lead. These extremely high-energy, participatory, and interactive retreats motivate and encourage others to serve others rather than just doing the daily grind to get by, climb the corporate ladder, or make more money to buy more things. These retreats and speaking engagements get participants to look deeper at their lives and help them see that living for themselves is a dead-end, lifeless, trivial pursuit. These retreats also help students and coworkers to connect in deeper, more meaningful relational connections. The loneliness and isolation factor in our world, especially coming out of Covid, is epidemic. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in middle school or middle-aged! We all need and crave more profound, more meaningful connections in our lives. Interwoven with all these journeys, I have become a published writer and author. With over 50 magazine articles published in various outdoor and hunting magazines, these excursions have given me tremendous writing adventures. I have also published three books in my Paying Attention trilogy. These books are a compilation of four hundred plus short devotionals I’ve written, helping people to see God as revealed in Creation/nature and finding Him in the ordinary and common of everyday life. All of us are spiritual beings at heart. Still, many people have been turned off by organized religion, overzealous pastors/priests, the hypocrisy of many churchgoers, and boring/lifeless/irrelevant/archaic/traditional churches and youth programs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Rollie- Johnson/author/B06XG2VV8J?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rollie.johnson.3/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rollie-johnson-b7023423/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yyussk-wLA&t=44s
