Our Early History (1973-1983)
Mount Carmel Outreach And The Institute for Christian Apologetics

In The Past:

1973-1974

Our President and co-founder, Kevin S. Johnson, lost most of his friends at age eighteen when he became a Christian and left the secular rock band he had been in for seven years, which was then known as Flight. They had shared a practice room and equipment with musicians who would later comprise the platinum rock group Cheap Trick. Upon exiting the rock world, he started attending First Assembly of God Church in Rockford, Il. He was there whenever the doors were open and he had a voracious appetite for reading Christian books.

During this time Kevin went on his first missionary flight to Mobridge, South Dakota, with his pastor, E. H. Whitcomb, as pilot. Their mission was to build an addition onto the mission school on the reservation there. It was here that he first learned of his father's leukemia and was told that his dad had six weeks to live. As Kevin knew his father was deeply involved in the occult, everyone dropped to their knees on the construction site in mid-day. They asked God to grant Carl Sig Johnson more time to become a Christian and to have a testimony for Christ. Sig lived another nine and a half years and was very vocal for the Lord!

Kevin wanted to use his musical ability for Jesus and put together a small Christian band, but they lacked a keyboardist. His prayers were answered (both for a friend and a keyboardist) when he picked up Joe Whitchurch (future Founders Board Member of MCO/ICA) hitchhiking! Each attempted to witness to the other, only to discover halfway into the conversation that they were both Christians. Joe was going downtown to put an ad in the paper to sell his keyboard! He said he was doing this because he couldn't find any Christians to perform with.

Eventually, after playing in their band called Maranatha, Kevin and Joe went to Northwestern Bible College. This was at the urging of Baptist pastor Rev. Kermitt Jelmelund, the pastor of Kevin's then fiancee and her family in Marion, Iowa. Kermitt would spend hours patiently going over scriptures and pointing to the original greek. Many questions were centered on the Sovereignty of God. Kevin would drive two hundred miles to see Kermitt, and of course, his girlfriend. His spiritual thirst was so great that once he just went to talk to Kermitt and didn't have time to see his fiancee!

Before Bible college, Kevin was given the opportunity to go on the last mission trip of the summer of 1974. This trip would feature the roof being put on the building they had worked so hard to raise earlier that summer. It was very tempting to see the fruition of labor this trip would allow. They would be flying the same 6 passenger twin engine with pastor Whitcomb as pilot.

However, Kevin's dad, Sig, didn't want him to go and was uncharacteristically urgent about having him come down to spend time with him in the Quad Cities. Sig owned and operated a Mr. Steak restaurant there. Kevin talked it over with Pastor Whitcomb, saying that he had heard him preach that honoring your father and mother ("that your days may be long on the earth") doesn't end with turning eighteen. Thus, Kevin reluctantly decided to do what his dad wanted him to and was going to the Quad Cities that week. Pastor Whitcomb thought that Kevin's decision to opt out of the trip was a spiritually good one. In parting, Kevin exclaimed, "Here, there, or in the air!" as he left the sanctuary where the two had discussed the turn of events. Pastor Whitcomb replied with the same phrase. That would be the last thing they would ever say to each other in this life as the plane crashed killing everyone on board. Kevin and Joe were able to go to Bible college together because of the prompting of Kevin's father and the godly counsel of Pastor Whitcomb!

1975-1980:

MCO/ICA's personal roots as an organization go back to 1975 with a group of idealistic Christian young men meeting in their dorm rooms in Northwestern College. They wanted to apply what they had learned at school and in their dorms about church and real fellowship on a day to day basis. They wanted to start an interdenominational church ministry that would reflect all of this. They decided this ministry would be called The Seven-Day House Church with the idea being that someone's home would be open for meeting people's needs seven days a week in a given physical radius.

The membership would consist of neighborhood cell groups composed of believers across denominational lines for the purpose of ministering to each other and the lost or needy they were in proximity to. This wouldn't necessitate leaving the fellowship or church a person belonged to. It did require a commitment to knowing and serving with Christians in their neighborhood. This was long before the "cell groups" concept was made popular. The interdenominational aspect was threatening to some people.

After attending Northwestern Bible College (where they had studied under H. Wayne House, currently an ICA/MCO Board member) together and being part of the ministry meetings, Joe Whitchurch and Kevin Johnson moved to the Quad Cities in order to pursue the House Church concept. There they were joined by several others who were interested in ministry. The House Church never really took off but it had served the purpose of bringing young Christian men, interested in serving the Lord, together. For the next five years they were all involved in street witnessing, teaching and music ministry. Much of which was done under the banner of Cornerstone Ministerial Association (CMA). These friendships in ministry would eventually lead to the establishment of Mount Carmel Outreach and The Institute for Christian Apologetics ie: MCO/ICA.

1980-83

The ministry of CMA was loose knit and part-time with everyone very busy in other pursuits. Kevin Johnson engaged in traveling to promote a Christian musical album which he and Joseph Ravitts wrote and recorded in 1977 with Grammy award winner Randy Goodrum and which was produced by Monty and Randy Matthews. In 1980 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the insistence of Christian Concert Tours in order to pursue songwriting more effectively. Joe Whitchurch became involved in Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and eventually spent three years in Africa as a missionary to Zambia while the others continued to be engaged in part-time ministry with full-time secular careers.

In 1980 a meeting was held at Jumers Castle Lodge in Bettendorf, Iowa whose sole purpose was to decide where the Cornerstone Ministerial Association would focus as far as ministry was concerned. The two areas of concern to everyone was the Abortion/Right to Life issues and Apologetics, especially as it pertained to cult evangelism. It was decided at that meeting that since the Francis Schaeffer film on Abortion was making the rounds in the churches with some success, the neglected area of ministry was outreach to the cults and the occult. We decide that we would take the next two to three years for preparation to launch an apologetics ministry to the cults and the occult.

This decision was somewhat natural for them to make as God had been moving in each of their lives toward an understanding of those lost in the cults. For instance, Kevin Johnson's father had only recently been saved out of the New Age Movement, his grandfather out of the Jesus Only Pentecostal cult and his sister out of witchcraft. Kevin had also taken apologetics classes in Christian college and Philosophy of World Religions in secular college and all of them shared a love of such apologists and authors as C.S. Lewis, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, and Dr. Walter R. Martin. One had taken an interest in refuting non-Trinitarian cults with emphasis on the Jehovah's Witnesses after he had a very challenging experience with them. Another had spent part of five years infiltrating a militant para-military Christian Identity Movement cult during his summer vacations. Joe Whitchurch, being involved in campus ministry was very interested in apologetics and would eventually pursue an MA degree from Trinity Divinity school with that as his major.

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