This is a guest post by Bethany Dzielski from Reach Northeast.

Ken Johnson was a drug dealer who found Jesus in a prison chapel, and today he’s the lead pastor at CityReach Church Raleigh, North Carolina.

Ken grew up in Cleveland, Oh. He never knew his father, and experienced a lot of verbal abuse as a child. As a young teenager, Ken got involved with drugs and nightclubs, and soon became a drug dealer. An informant was supplying drugs to Ken, and the police indicted him on federal drug charges. Ken spent seven years in prison for drug conspiracy.

A desire to change

“Even before going to prison, I knew that something was going on in my heart,” Ken says. He tried going through the religious motions, but didn’t feel any change in his life. He began telling God, “God, if you’re real, please change me.”

In 1993, While Ken was in a prison, there was a woman who preached at the prison chapel services. “This woman preached so powerfully that I walked down to the front for the altar call. I didn’t even understand what I prayed, but I was broken and in tears.”

Ken was transferred to FCI McKean in Bradford, Pa. There, a fellow inmate, named Pastor Pat, won many men to the Lord and began to minister to Ken. In November of 1995, Pastor Pat led Ken to Christ, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. “When he laid his hands on me I felt energy come into me, demons came out of me, and God baptized me,” Ken says.