Pastor Jeff Johnson

Photo by Vince Donovan
Pastor Jeff R. Johnson was ordained along with Ruth Frost and Phyllis on January 20, 1990 at St. Paulus Lutheran Church in San Francisco. He was considered ineligible for placement in a congregation because of a newly created ELCA policy requiring a pledge of celibacy from gay and lesbian pastors. First United Lutheran Church (San Francisco) challenged this policy (along with St. Francis) and was expelled from the ELCA in 1995 for calling him as pastor. In 1999, Pr. Johnson was called to be the campus pastor at University Lutheran Chapel which was censured for extending this call. Pr. Johnson continues to serve here and this year, at the 2010 Synod Assembly Bishop Holmerud lifted this censure. Jeff is a 1984 graduate of California Lutheran University where he received degrees in German and History. In 1988, he received a Master of Divinity degree from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley. He helped to found Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries and the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, which later merged and became Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. He served two terms as Dean of the ELCA's San Francisco Conference of Lutheran Churches; has been a member of the Steering Committee for Religious Witness with Homeless People; was recently elected to the SPS Synod Council; is on the Steering Committe for the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; facilitates the East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition; and is an Internship Supervisor and Teaching Parish Supervisor for Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. He lives in Oakland's Piedmont District with his partner J. Guadalupe (Pepe) Sanchez Aldaco in their a 1928 stucco bungalow. He enjoys a good mystery novel, gardening in his back yard, fishing, home-repair, relaxing in coffee-shops, salsa dancing Sunday afternoons, and walking around the lake.