It was really sad to hear that Tony Johnson passed away last Saturday after fighting an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease. Tony and Karen joined our team in our early years and headed up our children’s work and oversaw the youth.
Tony had a great passion for children, and developed a programme for us called Touchdown All Stars. It incorporated Sunday services and a holiday programme that attracted up to three hundred children each day. It found huge favour with our community and resulted in many families coming into the church.
Tony also developed a model of mentoring our youth as leaders in this programme, and many of those early Touchdown leaders are now church leaders. He was an outstanding leader.

Tony and Karen were generous supporters and encouragers in the building of the East church. At one stage the contractors, Canam Construction, offered us up to twelve of their top carpenters for free; we only had to supply materials. The problem was that we didn’t have any money until Tony and Karen stepped up and gave us a generous gift.
Karen and the family also made a huge contribution to our music. We are indebted to them. Tony was a great husband, dad and servant of God.