Robert W. Johnson, founder, chairman, CEO of Dominion Video Satellite Inc. and the Sky Angel satellite television service, has died at age 66, on August 5, 2004 due to heart failure.
Dominion Sky Angel was established to provide a global communications platform as an instrument to fulfill the Great Commission by reaching out and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
Since its establishment, Dominion Foundation, d.b.a. Sky Angel Ministries, has become the most prominent tool that technologically serves the Christian communication industry.
“Dominion Foundation obtains digital television and radio channel slots from Dominion Video Satellite, Inc. and then provides the Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) airtime at no charge to hundreds of Christian television and radio ministries that are carried on the multi-channel Sky Angel system,” explained by Sky Angel Inc.
Growing up in the era of technological advancement, Johnson spent his life researching and merging advanced technology into Christian system to fully make it a substantial God’s tool in serving and maintaining Christian values in the hostile secular world.
“For decades, these systems have been dominated by secular companies carrying programming that is becoming increasingly hostile to Christian values. This is why it is essential that Christians own and control a multi-channel television “platform” that provides Christians and their families with a wholesome and Christ-centered choice for their TV viewing and even radio listening,” Johnson said.
He continued, “It is a platform that cannot be interrupted or influenced by those who may want to censor or even exclude evangelical programming and, thus, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”
Johnson envisioned a global communications platform which could be used as an instrument of unity to penetrate every nation with the Gospel and deeply promote a sense of Christ’s community among people around the world. His ultimate goal is to fulfill the Great Commission that God allowed him to see in the early years.
A press release from Sky Angel says: “Sky Angel was a calling from the Lord on Johnson's life and one from which he never wavered, steadfast in his obedience to that calling.”
The release continues: “In 1980, God placed on Johnson's heart the vision for Sky Angel, using a new, emerging technology known as high-power direct broadcast satellite, or DBS. The Lord impressed upon Johnson how DBS was the last opportunity Christians would have to control the use of a multi-channel telecommunications system capable of reaching virtually every home, church, as well as prisons, nursing homes, homeless shelters, colleges and more in America and eventually around the globe with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.”
It was God’s grace that Johnson’s company was one of only nine companies to receive a construction permit for launching and using a high-power DBS system in 1984, which allowed him to fulfill God’s great commission until the end of his life.
Johnson’s mission will continue under the leadership of his son Robert W. Johnson, Jr, also a chief Financial Officer of the company.
Below is the list of Sky Angel Ministries’ primary objectives as provided in its website: www.skyangel.com
• To facilitate and ensure the availability of Christian programming;
• To make such programming available throughout the United States and eventually globally to homes, churches, youth centers, prisons, homeless shelters, missions, hospitals, nursing homes and more; and
• To facilitate a broad coalition of individuals, churches and ministries in support of the Sky Angel mission of reaching the lost and discipling the nations through Sky Angel.
