Craig Marvin Johnson
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Craig Marvin Johnson
Rediscovering Worship, Community, and Growth in the Gathered Church
by Craig Marvin Johnson
Online worship can carry sermons, songs, and encouragement far beyond the walls of a church. It is a genuine gift during illness, travel, caregiving, recovery, and other seasons when gathering is impossible.
But watching a service is not the same as sharing life with the body of Christ.
In You Can’t Get That Online, Craig Marvin Johnson explores what a screen cannot fully provide: shared worship, authentic fellowship, personal accountability, side-by-side service, embodied care, and the transforming experience of being known within a local church.
This is not an argument against technology. It is an invitation to something deeper.
Streaming connects. Gathering transforms.
Streaming has changed the way churches reach people. It carries biblical teaching into homes, hospital rooms, hotel rooms, and places the gathered church may never physically reach. It serves the homebound, the traveler, the caregiver, the recovering patient, and the person who is not yet ready to walk through a church door.
Streaming is a gift when it overcomes distance. It becomes a danger when convenience begins creating distance.
In You Can’t Get That Online: Rediscovering Worship, Community, and Growth in the Gathered Church, pastor and author Craig Marvin Johnson offers a thoughtful, compassionate case for the irreplaceable value of gathering with the body of Christ.
You can hear a sermon online, but you cannot fully experience the conversation that follows. You can watch others worship, but your voice is missing from the gathered praise. You can receive encouragement while remaining unknown. You can observe ministry without discovering the joy of serving beside others. You can send a message of support, but some burdens require a personal visit, a shared prayer, or a hand placed gently on a shoulder.
Through Scripture, pastoral insight, and practical application, this book explores seven essential dimensions of biblical community:
The power of physical presence
Authentic fellowship
Serving side by side
Accountability and encouragement
Corporate worship
Bearing one another’s burdens
Living as a fully connected member of Christ’s body
Written for believers, pastors, ministry leaders, small groups, and churches seeking to use streaming wisely, You Can’t Get That Online invites readers to move from watching to participating, from consuming to contributing, and from following a church online to truly belonging within a local body.
This book does not shame those who cannot attend in person. It honors the ways technology helps overcome unavoidable distance while lovingly challenging those who have allowed convenience or habit to replace Christian community.
Come to worship with open hands and an open heart. Come ready to listen, learn, serve, encourage, worship, and belong.
Move beyond watching church. Experience the life of the gathered church.
I am a father of 6, happily married. Living in Rocky Point North Carolina.
I have always loved music and writing and the creative process. In my work I have opportunity to write music and other content. The books here on my page represent long standing projects that are finally coming to fruition. My wife and I moved here from Iowa in 2023 with our two youngest children. I answered the call into full time ministry. I am now the Pastor of Worship and Discipleship at Wrightsboro Bapist Church in Wilmington, NC. My passion is music and worship and I love to see people respond to the gospel.
A True Story of God's Mercy
God said, “Go to Nineveh.”
Jonah went the other way.
He boarded a ship bound for Tarshish—but no distance, storm, or raging sea could carry him beyond God’s reach. When Jonah was thrown overboard, the Lord appointed a great fish to rescue him. Yet Jonah’s hardest lesson would come after Nineveh repented.
Filled with cinematic artwork and faithful to Jonah 1–4, Jonah and the Whale tells the complete biblical account—from Jonah’s call and flight to God’s final question about mercy.
The included CrossTalk Kids teaching guide helps children and families read Scripture, think deeply, talk together, pray, and discover how Jonah’s story ultimately points to Jesus.
A True Story of Faith and Courage
aniel's courage did not begin in the lions' den.
Long before that dangerous night, Daniel had learned to trust God in the choices he made every day. Far from home and surrounded by people who worshiped false gods, he prayed faithfully, worked with excellence, told the truth, and chose obedience even when it cost him something.
Then a jealous plan made prayer a crime.
Daniel would have to decide whether he would protect himself or remain faithful to the God he loved. What followed revealed not only Daniel's courage, but the power and faithfulness of the living God.
Richly illustrated and rooted in Daniel chapters 1 and 6, *Daniel and the Lions' Den* helps children discover that small choices of faith prepare us for life's biggest moments, God is greater than anything we fear, and Daniel's deliverance points us toward Jesus, our greater Deliverer.
**Faithfulness is built one day at a time.**
Why worship isn't a spectator act
Worship is a full-body, full-heart, full-out connection with God and each other.
Moving beyond personal preference to authentic church growth
Everyone has preferences.
That statement is obvious, but it is important.
We have preferences about food, clothing, music, schedules, furniture, temperature, lighting, automobiles, neighborhoods, sports teams, and vacation destinations.
We prefer certain colors.
We favor particular styles.
We enjoy some experiences more than others.
We are drawn toward what feels familiar, meaningful, comfortable, or beautiful to us.
The same is true in church.
Your Work As Worship
What if worship did not end when the music stopped?
*AVODAH: Your Work as Worship* is a 52-week devotional journey that brings Sunday faith into Monday life. Through Scripture, practical reflection, prayer, and weekly acts of worship, Craig Marvin Johnson shows how ordinary work, faithful service, relationships, rest, creativity, and everyday responsibilities can become offerings to God.
Your work matters. Your service matters. Your whole life can become worship.
Living from the Identity Jesus Gives Us
If you belong to Jesus, you are already sent.
In *SENT*, Craig Marvin Johnson traces the mission of Jesus across all four Gospels and shows that sharing your faith begins not with pressure, personality, or performance, but with identity. Discover a peaceful, Spirit-dependent way to live as a citizen of God’s Kingdom—present to the people around you, attentive to where God is working, ready to speak of Jesus, and free to entrust every outcome to Him.
A children's book of Creation, Scripture, Song, and the Gospel
The creation account forms a foundation for faith. In Genesis, we are invited to behold God as Creator. He speaks light
into darkness, shapes the skies and seas, fills the land with plants and trees, places lights in the heavens, fills the waters
and the skies with life, creates animals, and makes Adam and Eve in His image.
This book is really three books in one: a children's storybook, a visual song accompaniment, and a Scripture-guided walk
through creation that turns toward the good news of Jesus Christ.
Read it slowly. Let children notice the pictures. Ask what they see. Sing the lyrics. Read the Scripture. Then point them to
the greatest truth of all: the God who made the whole world also made a way for us to know Him personally through
Jesus.
Sincerely,
Craig Marvin Johnson
The Greatest Rescue Mission In History
The account of Noah is found in Genesis 6-9. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, and the people preserved through the flood were exactly eight adults: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives.
For that reason, this retelling keeps Noah’s family as adults and avoids showing children aboard the ark. The ark is also pictured as enormous and strong, reflecting the great scale of the vessel described in Scripture.
Some visual details, such as clothing, tools, and landscapes, are imagined in a historically grounded ancient Near Eastern style to help children enter the world of the story.
A Journey of Knowing Christ, Living His Word, and Making Disciples
Before You Turn the Page...
This book is more than something to read.
It is an invitation.
An invitation to know God's Word.
To walk more closely with Jesus.
To grow in spiritual maturity.
To become a faithful disciple.
And to help others discover the freedom that is found only in Him.
So before you begin…
Pray.
Open your Bible.
Invite the Holy Spirit to teach you.
Then turn the page...
The journey begins now.
Receiving The Gift That Changes Everything
Grace is one of the most beautiful words in the Christian faith, and also one of the most easily misunderstood.
Some hear grace and think only of forgiveness. Others hear grace and imagine softness, as though God has lowered His holiness or decided to overlook sin. Some speak of grace as if it were a permission slip for careless living. Others believe in grace with their theology, but struggle to rest in it with their souls.
Yet the grace of God is far greater, deeper, stronger, and holier than any of those misunderstandings. Grace is not God pretending sin does not matter. Grace is God dealing with sin through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Grace is not the absence of truth. Grace is truth reaching sinners with mercy, power, and love.
Trusting The God Who Never Lets Go
What does it mean to trust God when you cannot see what He is doing?
*Knowing Faith* is a biblical and deeply pastoral invitation to move beyond positive thinking and rest the full weight of your life upon the God who never changes. Learn to walk through uncertainty, remain faithful under pressure, take the next obedient step, and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.
Holding Fast to the God Who Holds Tomorrow
What sustains faith between promise and fulfillment?
*Knowing Hope* explores the confident expectation Scripture offers to people living through waiting, grief, uncertainty, and loss. Rooted in the cross, the empty tomb, and the unchanging character of God, this pastoral guide will help you hold fast to the God who holds tomorrow.
Becoming a People Who Love Because God First Loved Us
What does Christian love require when feelings fade, wounds remain, or truth is difficult?
*Knowing Love* moves beyond sentiment to reveal the holy, self-giving love made visible in Jesus Christ. Learn to receive God’s love, love Him with your whole being, serve His people, forgive wisely, tell the truth, and seek the genuine good of others.
Resting in the God Who Holds Us Together
Biblical peace is more than a quiet life or the absence of conflict. It is wholeness under the good rule of God.
*Knowing Peace* will help you rest in Christ’s finished work, meet Him in fear and anxiety, practice peace daily, pursue reconciliation without surrendering truth, and live as an instrument of His peace.
Rejoicing in the God Who Is Our Gladness
Christian joy is not a cheerful personality or the ability to keep smiling when life hurts. It is the deep gladness of belonging to God through the risen Christ.
*Knowing Joy* will help you receive the good news of Jesus, abide in His delight, rejoice without denying pain, obey with gladness, and live toward the celebration that never ends.