Disqualified: My Pittsford NY Story, and Why I'm Telling It

Disqualified: My Story, and Why I'm Telling It

By Jomo K. Johnson

I signed the offer letter. That's the part people find hardest to believe.

Not "I applied and got rejected." Not "I interviewed and didn't get a callback." I signed. First Presbyterian Church of Pittsford had offered me the job, and I accepted it. In my mind, after fifteen years of youth ministry, I had finally found the next chapter — a church, a community, a place to keep doing the work I've given my life to.

The next day, I got a follow-up question. About my past support for Black Lives Matter.

I answered honestly. I always have.

The day after that, the offer was gone.

Fifteen Years in Rooms That Weren't Built for Me

Here's something I don't think most people know about: what it's like to be a Black minister who has spent a decade and a half serving predominantly white congregations. It's a strange, layered experience. I've felt real joy — genuine relationships, kids I've watched grow up, moments of worship that transcended every difference in the room. I've also felt real sorrow. And somewhere underneath both of those, I've watched something quieter operate in the background of almost every one of those churches.

I've come to believe it's the greatest sin the white American church struggles with right now: the idol of reputation.

Not doctrine. Not theology. Reputation. What will people think. What will the elders say. What will this cost us with the donors, the neighbors, the board. In an era defined by Black Lives Matter on one side and the MAGA movement on the other, that idol doesn't stay quiet — it makes decisions. It rescinds offers. It asks a Black minister to affirm his beliefs and then punishes him the next morning for having them.

I'm not telling you this because I want sympathy. I'm telling you because I know I'm not the only one this has happened to. I'm just one of the few willing to say it out loud, with my name attached.

The Documentary: Disqualified

That experience became a film. Disqualified: The Story of Jomo K. Johnson tells this story in full — the offer, the question, the rescission, and everything it forced me to reckon with about faith, race, and belonging inside institutions that claim to represent grace.

This documentary is for anyone who has ever walked away from a church wounded. Anyone who has been made to feel like their skin, their politics, or their questions made them somehow too much for a body that's supposed to have room for everyone. If you've experienced church hurt — and if you've spent any real time in the American church, I'd guess you have — this film is for you.

But Disqualified isn't just a story about being shut out. It's a declaration that nobody is actually disqualified — not by a board, not by a rescinded letter, not by an elder's discomfort. As long as you have breath in your body, there is a place for you in the Kingdom of God. That's not a slogan. That's the whole point of the film.

Disqualified releases September 14, 2026.

Rochester, This Is Where We Rebuild

I didn't respond to that rescinded offer with a lawsuit or a press conference. I responded by relocating — to Rochester, NY — and building the very thing that cost me the job in the first place: a church.

The Lord's Supper launches September 27, 2026, right here in Rochester at Merchant Grill. It's a church built around a table instead of a stage — worship, Scripture, and Communion woven into a shared meal, open to believers and skeptics alike, with no idol of reputation standing at the door deciding who gets to stay. And yes, we can have a drink after to talk.

And here's what matters most to me: every dollar of proceeds from the Disqualified documentary goes directly toward planting this church. This isn't a film I made to tell my story and move on. It's a film that funds what comes next — a church in Rochester where nobody has to wonder if they're too Black, too outspoken, or too honest to belong.

Pittsford showed me what the idol of reputation looks like up close. Rochester is where I get to build something that answers it.

Come watch the film. Come find the table.

Disqualified — September 14, 2026
The Lord's Supper Church Plant Launch — September 27, 2026, Rochester, NY