Unashamed of Jesus: Pastor Travis Johnson on Bold Faith in a Compromising Culture
About this episode
Pastor Travis Johnson, senior pastor of Pathway Church in Mobile, Alabama, joins Philip Cameron to unpack why the American church has traded prophetic boldness for cultural approval — and what it costs us when we do. Drawing from his new book Unembarrassed of Jesus, Travis traces his own "radicalization" as a pastor: from a Miami park shutting down a church baptism and demanding the congregation move to before 5:00 AM, to being canceled by his city council in 2023 over a prayer — only to stand at the White House the following year helping establish the Religious Liberty Commission. Travis argues that the church hasn't been getting involved in politics; politics has been getting involved in the church. "It's either bold faith or it's no faith," he says plainly. He warns that incremental compromise — quietly dropping convictions one by one to avoid offense — has produced "church light, diet Christians" who round off every corner to build a crowd while losing the ability to make disciples. He also shares a vivid illustration about following the wrong truck on the interstate as a picture of how cultural noise drowns out the voice of Jesus. Pathway Church has grown from one campus and two services to five campuses and seven services, with a global reach across Southeast Asia. Get the book at Amazon or text JESUS to 877-856-0444. Connect with Pastor Travis Johnson on Facebook and Instagram at @PastorTravisJohnson.
Part of our Courage collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“If you lose your courage, you'll lose your voice, and if you lose your voice, you'll lose your relevance.”
“As the truck got farther, the noise around me — the culture, the ideological voices — got louder, and Jesus' voice gets smaller. And in a world of TikTok prophets that are spinning up all kinds of things, there are so many of us that we don't even recognize what the truth is anymore.”
“The giant I was facing in 2023 became the platform that I would stand on in 2024.”
What's Discussed
Pastor Travis Johnson, senior pastor of Pathway Church in Mobile, Alabama — with five campuses, seven services, and a global reach across Southeast Asia — joins Daily Faith to discuss his book Unembarrassed of Jesus. He recounts being shut out of a Miami beach baptism, canceled by his city council in 2023 for a prayer, and then standing at the White House in 2024 for the signing of the Religious Liberty Commission executive order. Travis contends that incremental compromise has produced 'church light, diet Christians,' and that the Johnson Amendment has been used as a convenient excuse for pastoral silence. His core conviction: 'It's either bold faith or it's no faith.'
- Travis Johnson's Call to Bold Pastoral Ministry
- Miami Beach Baptism Shutdown and Radicalization
- City Council Cancellation and Standing Firm
- Politics Invading the Church vs. Church Avoiding Culture
- Following the Wrong Truck: Losing Jesus's Voice
- Incremental Compromise and the Church Losing Its Mark
- Pathway Church Growth and Global Impact
- How to Get Unembarrassed of Jesus
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Welcome to Daily Faith Today. My name is Philip Cameron, and we are so glad you are with us. Wherever you watch this program, we'd love to hear from you, getting contact with us. There's a real easy way — Daily Faith TV is like our home base, and you can go on there, find out about our program, find out about our outreaches, find out about all the past shows. We've kind of dealt with almost everything you could imagine on Daily Faith over the last seasons.
Philip:And we are here today. I've got a great guest that I feel with in my spirit is gonna speak to your heart. If the trumpet doesn't sound a certain sound, the Bible says, who will prepare for war and who will go forth for war? And the church has lost its trumpet. We've lost our voice. I was watching Charlie Kirk one day and someone asked him about Donald Trump being pro-life. And Charlie got mad and he says, let me tell you, it's a smear on the church that God's gonna send Donald Trump to talk about abortion because the church is too afraid to speak about it. And that, sadly, is the truth. We've become so seeker-friendly, we just wanna make everyone love us. Please love us. We'll twist ourselves into a pretzel. Just love us. And that's not what the church is on the earth for.
Philip:And we are just so excited to have Travis Johnson with us. He pastors Pathway Church in Mobile, Alabama, and has written a brand new book entitled Unembarrassed of Jesus. And you're gonna love this man. And I believe as he speaks, God is going to use his voice to convict us to stand up for the Lord Jesus.
Philip:35 years ago, my dad called me from Scotland and he told me there were babies dying in a country called Romania. I'd never heard of it apart from Nadia Comaneci, the gymnast. That was all I knew. And he kept nagging me to go with him. So I did, and went into this orphanage — orphanage number two in Timișoara. Little did I know that I was about to start a 36-years-so-far journey of my life. And I went into this place. It was horrendous — malnourished, starving children dying, rocking in their cribs because no one ever held them in their arms.
Philip:And I was upstairs following after him, into salon number five. And in salon number five, out of 30 kids, I saw this one little boy standing — filthy, naked from the waist down, covered in his own waste. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me that day and said, that's your son. As clearly as you are hearing my voice, I heard His. And I went into the room and I kind of picked my way down in between these tight rows of cribs. And I picked him up and I said, I don't know who you are, but whatever it takes, I'm going to adopt you. Little did I realize that I was adopting all the other kids in the orphanage that day. Their cribs were painted with lead paint. They had no heating. It was the most unbelievable place I've ever been in.
Philip:And that began an amazing journey. This has lasted now 36 years. And in the last 25 years, my father sent me to a place called Moldova. And there was an orphanage there — it was told in the British press as the dying rooms of Moldova. I got there on the 11th of December and 16 children had frozen to death by the 11th of December. And we rebuilt places and put in heating systems. And we now work primarily in an incredible place called Vara Village. It's a village of homes where young kids that are leaving the orphanage are in terrible poverty in villages in Moldova, and are at risk of being trafficked by human traffickers. They get these kids and offer them a false job, and they end up using them 30 to 50 times a day.
Philip:One of those girls you look at right now is worth $300,000 a year to a trafficker. And we take them to this incredible village of homes called Vara Village, put them back in school, and they have become missionaries. The most amazing miracles take place. And in fact, yesterday I got a video from one of our outreaches to this little village, and they just sent me a short thing on their phone saying, we're in this village sharing the gospel with these kids. And just recently they sent me a video of them in one of their outreaches. And you'll see it yourself — let you be a part of a miracle. Watch this.
Philip:Amazing — going in the darkness. Some of those villages are so forgotten. No street lamps, no sidewalks, no roads, outhouses with a well on the corner. And they live in this dire, grinding poverty. And that's where the traffickers play. That's where they find these kids with no hope, no chance of getting an education. And we take them into Vara Village and re-enroll them in a university or a college or a vocational school where they learn to sew or bake, and to watch what happens when the gospel touches a wee girl's heart, a wee boy's heart — it is absolutely amazing. They come in as orphans and they become sons and daughters, and then they become missionaries. And constant outreach takes place.
Philip:The reason why it's called Orphan's Hands is because the hands of the orphan go out. And we've learned one thing — you can't say be warmed or be fed or be clothed when you go there. You feed them and you clothe them and you bring heat for their house, and their hearts open to the people that carry the gospel message. And we are seeing the most amazing things take place.
Philip:Last year, a horrible thing happened to us. Vara Village is for kids 16 and older. And we had a young girl brought to us by the mayor of one of these villages — a horrendous family situation. And he asked us if we could take her into Vara Village. And we knew the rules are that you can't be under 16. But the dire situation she was in caused our workers back there to say, we will make a space for her. And she came in, she began to open up and sing and be part of the Bible studies and be part of the outreaches. And when the local people discovered that we brought her into our home, they made us put her back, and we drove her back to hell.
Philip:And within a week of her being back in the village, she was gang raped by 10 men, lost her mind — completely lost her mind. And since then we've been looking, and we found a place. And we've just purchased — we've just paid for them last month — a place with two homes and a barn, which is part of a farm. And we're going to, as we speak, beginning to fix up these homes. They take in young kids between the age of four and 16. And we've learned one thing very quickly, that looking after a 4-year-old is much more intense than looking after a 16-year-old with all the government rules.
Philip:And we need people to help us open these homes. If you can give a capital gift to help us rebuild the inside — this one is almost finished, the other one is a long way to go. But that one didn't have any heating systems, so we're tearing the floors up and putting in underfloor heating even as we speak. But we are looking for 300 people to give a dollar a day to help us open these homes. We can save a life for a dollar a day.
Philip:And if you'd like to help us and be a part of this miracle, you can make a check and send it to Orphan's Hands, PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. You can also go to Daily Faith — there's a giving page there. And you can also go to — really simple — if I were you, I would use an 800 number, because I'm not good at computers, but I would dial 833-Daily-Faith. There's a real live person waiting to talk to you. And you can call up and say, Philip, I wanna help you open this new house for little kids.
Philip:And if you do, you and I will partner in the most incredible miracle — that these kids won't have to be brought up in poverty, in the abuse that they suffer. Moldova has the highest alcoholism rate in the world. More people, percentage wise, are alcoholics in Moldova than anywhere else on earth. And please pray for the Lord to allow you to help us help them find Jesus. I'd really appreciate it.
Philip:I'm delighted I have Travis Johnson with us today. He pastors Pathway Church. But he's written a book that intrigues me. And in fact, I spoke to him just a few moments ago and I said, Travis, I should have written this book, because it is so pertinent and up to date as to what we're watching and witnessing in the church. The church is losing its first love. We've become — I don't know if this is a Scottish word — wishy-washy. Do you use that word over here? When someone's wishy-washy, they're neither one way or the other. And I'm just so delighted to have him with us today. The name of the book is Unembarrassed of Jesus. And Travis, it is a delight to have you. I know you're a busy man, but I'm delighted to have you take a few minutes to be with us today on Daily Faith.
Travis Johnson:It's really great to be with you, Philip. And if I could just say, I'm so blessed at this point in the show — the scripture says that pure and undefiled religion is to care for the widow and the orphan in their time of distress. And I just thank God for you for demonstrating that — a lifetime of service to people that are very dear to the Lord.
Philip:What's amazing with those kids, most of them are raised by their grandparents because the parents are either incapacitated drunks, or they've left to go to Germany or France, and they say, we'll come back and get you, we'll bring you to — and once they get there, they discover the price of living is so high that they end up just becoming slaves to paying the bills every month. And the kids have been forgotten. So grandma is left with a bunch of kids with no money, no food, no supply. And we love what we do. Tell us — tell us what brought you to the point. This book is really fascinating me. Tell us about what God did in your heart to make you write this book, because it's needed today.
Travis Johnson's Call to Bold Pastoral Ministry
Travis Johnson:Well, Philip, I just wanted to be a good pastor. I wanted to preach the gospel. I wanted to pray with people at altars. I wanted to dedicate babies, baptize people, and not get involved in a bunch of drama. But what I found out is, if you don't get into these cultural issues, they will get involved in you. And so little by little, as a pastor — I guess I'm a senior pastor now for about 27 years — I got radicalized along the way. One big thing was we were a church plant in Miami, Florida — Homestead, Florida, south Miami.
Miami Beach Baptism Shutdown and Radicalization
Travis Johnson:And we had about 400 people in a movie theater. We were meeting there. We had no baptistry, so we would baptize people out at the beach. And so one particular day, one of the Miami parks shut down our baptism — people cursed our pastors out and our people out. And I ended up being contacted by national news organizations and religious liberty law firms saying, hey, let us sue Miami, they're our favorite people to sue. And I said, well, let me try and work this out. Bottom line — they were discriminating against us because they said what we were doing was offensive to people.
Travis Johnson:I did ask, I said, hey, have you seen what people wear on Miami beaches? And a number of other things. They said, well, if you want to baptize, it has to be before 5:00 AM. So I began to be radicalized. And you know, a little earlier when you and I were talking, you said, if you lose your courage, you'll lose your voice, and if you lose your voice, you'll lose your relevance. And that's when I began to find that out. And so we made a decision that we were gonna stand. I told the Miami-Dade leaders, hey, listen, we will cooperate with whatever it is you decide to do, but we're just a church plant. We don't have a big advertising budget, but we could use the publicity if you decide to arrest us when we come back out for our next baptism. And really, at the end of the day, they blinked, we continued to have baptisms. And I just began to be radicalized.
Travis Johnson:And of course, we've all gone through COVID and a number of other things. But in 2023, I was canceled in my city council for a prayer that I prayed. We had a bunch of extremist groups come at us — it's unbelievable for what I prayed. And so there were news outlets that were saying people were asking for me to apologize. So I made an announcement that I was gonna make a statement in church on that Sunday. We have about seven services at five campuses. June is usually a travel month, and so attendance is all down. No — it was packed to the rafters in all services.
City Council Cancellation and Standing Firm
Philip:They didn't want a statement — they wanted to maintain your voice. People wanna hear someone with a voice.
Travis Johnson:Yes. So I stepped up to the platform, I said, hey, they want an apology. Here's what I have to say. I am not sorry. I do not apologize. We don't bow, we stand. And we saw more baptisms that month, more salvations that month than any other month. God blessed in such an amazing way, even after we had been doxed and all of these things. And that's just when I realized that we had given up on all kinds of issues because we deemed them to be political. But it wasn't that the church was getting involved in politics or cultural issues — it was that politics was getting involved in the church. And so we were giving up on the image of God, the sanctity of life, what a family is — this long list.
Travis Johnson:And so we have a lot of pastors and churches that have turned into church-lite, diet Christians. We round off the corners to say things that are palatable so we can build a crowd. And in the process we lose out on making disciples. I think that the Johnson Amendment has been used by the church as an excuse not to get involved — oh, we can't say that, we can't talk about that. We'll lose our 501(c)(3) status, or we just gotta be quiet about that. And instead of it actually working against the church, it's allowed us to say, well, we just can't do that.
Politics Invading the Church vs. Church Avoiding Culture
Philip:An excuse.
Travis Johnson:Yeah, it's an excuse. We can do that. And the truth of the matter is that Trump has rescinded that amendment anyway, so that's no longer in effect. But churches are still squeamish to stand up and nail their colors to the mast and say, this is what we believe. We are unapologetic about this.
Philip:And as you mentioned, the world will get involved. I tell pastors all the time, I'll say, I promise you this — you'll have a gay couple come into the church and say, we want you to marry us, and if you don't, you are offending us and you are discriminating against us. And unless we have a clear voice that we can speak about these things according to what the word of God teaches.
Travis Johnson:I posted something the other day on Facebook — train a child in the way he should go, when he is old — that's what I wrote. And this fellow says, train, question mark. And I said, it's in the Bible. And he says, like a seal? And so I wrote back, the psalm — the fool said in his heart, there is no God. But unless we are so afraid of being opposed that we've turned ourselves into a floppy jellyfish.
Philip:Yeah. And you know, it's really sad — it's not just pastors, it's parents.
Travis Johnson:Oh no, it's a whole — it's across the board. And so if we spend our time trying to please people who are ideologically opposed to our faith, then we stiff-arm the God of all creation. And so, Philip, I'm of the opinion that it works out to this — it's either bold faith or it's no faith.
Following the Wrong Truck: Losing Jesus's Voice
Travis Johnson:And so Unembarrassed of Jesus is really the deconstruction of Peter, and the correlation with the church in America in 2026 is so spot on. I was on my way home from work and my son gives me a call one day, and he said, dad, I have a flat tire. And so I said, well, fix it. He's six foot three, six foot four — he's a giant, he eats everything in the house, a great athlete. I expect him to be able to change a tire and defend himself. But he said, dad, it's not that — the spare is busted also. I said, okay, I'll be right over. He was on the interstate.
Travis Johnson:So I come over, a guy pulls up from a tire shop, says, I'll take it, I'll run it down to the tire shop — jump in your truck and follow me down. So we did. He jumped out on the interstate. I was a little slow pulling out. And so I watched as his truck got smaller on the horizon, so I'm following from a distance. I had my eye there. He mentioned something about the new Dave and Buster's being built, he might have said something about a girl — we're having a good time. The truck pulls off the interstate. I follow him, follow him, follow him. I follow him all the way out of town.
Travis Johnson:Philip, I was following the wrong truck.
Philip:The wrong truck!
Travis Johnson:The wrong truck. And so as the truck got farther, the noise around me — the culture, the ideological voices — got louder, and Jesus' voice gets smaller. And in a world of TikTok prophets that are spinning up all kinds of things, there are so many of us that we don't even recognize what the truth is anymore. And I really believe this — that parents need to gather their kids together and read the Bible every single night, pray every single night, go to church every single time the doors are open, and get really close to Jesus. So that when you have a challenge, you'll hear the voice of the Lord, the voice of the scriptures, very clearly in your life.
Travis Johnson:I think that what the church has done — it has incrementally — if you go from England to France, you go through the tunnel, which is a tunnel under the English Channel. And the French started digging on one side, and the English started on the other side, and they started going towards each other. And if they had been off by just a little bit, what would've happened was by the time they got to where they were, they would have passed by each other. And I believe that the church has suffered from incrementalization — there's a new word I think I've just invented.
Incremental Compromise and the Church Losing Its Mark
Travis Johnson:And what we've done is little by little we've adjusted — well, okay, we won't do that then, we won't offend you, we won't talk about this. And what we've done is we have completely lost the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. And unless we get this thing radically brought back to where we should be, we'll drift out into outer space.
Travis Johnson:Well, and that's what I found when I chose to stand. I don't think that the Lord necessarily picks the most talented people — He was looking for available vessels. And so when I stood up for my own situation in the city hall, the same time next year I was at the White House holding up the executive order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission. The giant I was facing in 2023 became the platform that I would stand on in 2024.
Philip:Isn't that amazing?
Travis Johnson:And with the baptism in Miami, it got shut down. But then about two years later, one of the top leaders — the county manager for all of Miami-Dade County, so like the Michael Bloomberg of Miami-Dade County — was sitting on the second row of my church every single Sunday. And some of the very people that were involved in shutting down that baptism were also baptized in that very place the next year.
Pathway Church Growth and Global Impact
Travis Johnson:And so I would just say to parents, to kids that are trying to reach your parents — stand boldly for Jesus. Love them with everything you have. If you don't, you'll lose your faith. But if you do, you'll change the world.
Philip:I think that's a message that I want to get here, and we're seeing it in our church. Philip, I can't believe what God has done in our church. Tell us — what has happened to a pastor that's unafraid to stand up and be counted? Tell us about your church.
Travis Johnson:Well, a pastor who told the Lord when I was going into ministry, Lord, I'll do anything you want as long as I don't have to speak in front of people — his church has gone from 20 acres to 92 acres, from one campus to five campuses, from two services to seven services. And then we have a global reach of churches all over Southeast Asia. I prayed in front of the People's Palace in Congo in July at the invitation of President Tshisekedi. I stood and declared that I believe there would be peace in Congo because Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Just a little while later I saw President Trump signing this peace agreement and declaring that the Prince of Peace was responsible for the agreement. Only God can do that.
Travis Johnson:And I think that God wants to do that in families, in our cities and our churches. And I just believe that God is raising up a new generation of people that are bold in their faith, and we're believing that what happens in the word of God should happen in our lives. It should happen in our churches.
Philip:Absolutely. There's a reinvigorated church. And Philip, you're a real picture of that. And every time we talk, I just feel so much more strengthened in my faith.
Philip:Same here. I feel today very strongly that someone's watching and they need to get this book for their pastor. This would be a tremendous gift for your pastor — that you could put it in his hands and say, listen, I heard this pastor speak about this, and I really wanna encourage you that you're standing for truth. And it may be the amen that many guys out there getting bugs in their teeth because they're taking a stand are looking for — someone to say, listen, you are a hundred percent right.
How to Get Unembarrassed of Jesus
Travis Johnson:If your pastor preaches the gospel, you amen him as loud as you can. And so many Christians are so polite. And when people make a move against a church, strong Christians ought to stand up and fight. Fight for that. You know, if you have a pastor that lays in the gateway to the sheep pen and he is saying that no wolf is gonna come in and get these people unless it's over my dead body, go and stand with that man.
Travis Johnson:So I would say, if you'd like to get this book, you can text the word Jesus to 877-856-0444. Or you can get it on Amazon. Put the book up on the screen — do we have a still frame? There you go. Unembarrassed of Jesus. And you've got to get this book — I mean this for your kids in school, for you in your daily life. But this will clarify that if we don't stand for something, we are going to fall for anything. And what you're watching is the church falling for anything.
Philip:Travis, wow. Once again, every time you come here, I leave here thinking, I wish I'd written that book. You get in contact with Pastor Travis. It's really simple — it's Facebook at Pastor Travis Johnson, Instagram the same, at Pastor Travis Johnson. Get in contact with this man, folks. Get associated with him. And this book, I believe, can be a map for your future progress in the Kingdom. Travis, thank you for being with us today. I'm gonna see you this week at NRB — I can't wait.
Travis Johnson:Let's go, let's be bold in our faith. And everybody who's doing small groups in the book or whatever, I just bless you. So thank you so much, Philip. We'll see you soon.
Philip:Thank you for watching Daily Faith. Bye-bye for today.
For over 25 years, the Cameron family has been changing the lives of orphans in Romania and Moldova — from providing running water, flushing toilets and clean wells, to coal for heat, new windows, as well as food and clothing. They champion the physical needs of the orphans in these broken and desolate countries. Many of Moldova's orphans are saved from the horrors of trafficking through homes founded by the Camerons. And in the process, orphans become daughters and sons. They come to know their heavenly Father and are forever changed by the love of Jesus.
God help the Camerons lift these amazing young men and women out of darkness. Now no longer orphans, they want to return and invade that very same darkness with the light of Jesus Christ. The Orphan's Hands equips these daughters and sons to become missionaries. Your monthly gift of $31 will allow us to rescue and take in more girls and boys, saving them from the hell of human trafficking. Your monthly partnership will allow us to care for those in the Orphan's Hands homes in Moldova and Ukraine.
If you want to join Philip and Chrissy in taking care of these precious young people, please contact us today by calling 833-Daily-Faith. You can also give by going online to www.dailyfaithtv.com, or by writing to Post Office Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. So many lives depend on what we do. Thank you for loving the lost.
Common questions
What made Travis Johnson start speaking out on cultural issues instead of just sticking to regular church stuff?
Johnson says he never wanted to get involved in cultural drama — he just wanted to preach, baptize people, and pray at altars. But two key moments radicalized him: Miami-Dade County officials shut down his church's beach baptisms and told him they'd only be allowed before 5 AM because they were 'offensive,' and then in 2023 he was canceled by his city council over a prayer he prayed. Both experiences taught him that if the church doesn't engage cultural issues, those issues will come for the church anyway.
What happened after Travis Johnson refused to apologize for his prayer at city council?
Johnson stepped up to the platform at all seven of his services — which were packed despite it being a low-attendance travel month — and flatly said, 'I am not sorry. I do not apologize. We don't bow, we stand.' He says that month saw more baptisms and salvations than any other month in the church's history, and the following year he was at the White House helping hold up an executive order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission.
What does Travis Johnson mean when he says the church has suffered from 'incrementalization'?
Johnson uses the analogy of the Channel Tunnel — if the crews digging from England and France were off by even a little, they'd pass right by each other without meeting. He argues the church has done the same thing spiritually, making small compromises one at a time — 'we won't talk about that, we won't offend you' — until it has completely drifted from its calling. He calls it bold faith or no faith: there's no middle ground.
Why does Travis Johnson say the Johnson Amendment is just an excuse for churches to stay silent?
Johnson argues that churches have used the threat of losing their 501(c)(3) status as a convenient reason to avoid speaking on cultural and moral issues, when in reality they could have spoken up all along. He also notes that President Trump has since rescinded the amendment, yet churches are still 'squeamish' — which proves, in his view, that the amendment was never the real obstacle.
How does Travis Johnson describe what's happened to his church since he chose to take bold public stands?
Johnson says the church has grown from 20 acres to 92 acres, from one campus to five, and from two services to seven, plus a global reach of churches across Southeast Asia. He also prayed at the People's Palace in Congo at the invitation of President Tshisekedi. He frames all of it as evidence that the giant he faced in 2023 became the platform he stood on in 2024.
Topics
travis johnsonunembarrassed of jesuspathway churchbold faithreligious libertychurch compromisecultural christianity