The Rev. Jeff R. Johnson has been privileged to serve as the pastor at University Lutheran Chapel and the Lutheran Campus pastor at the University of California, Berkeley since is fall in November 1999.

Prior to this call, he served as pastor of First United Lutheran Church in San Francisco’s Richmond District.  He was ordained on January 20, 1990.

Jeff is a 1984 graduate of California Lutheran University with BA degrees in History and German. In 1988, he received a MDiv (Master of Divinity) from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley. Upon graduation, he worked as Director of AIDS Education for Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, where he coordinated thefirst national ELCA Bishops Convocation on HIV and authored a curriculum series used by northern California Lutheran congregations responding to the HIV epidemic.

In 1990 he founded Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministry (now Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries) along with his colleagues, Pastors Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, to provide an outreach to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pr. Johnson serves on the steering committee of the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and is facilitator of the East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition.  He is on the Board of Directors for the SHARE Foundation for a new El Salvador. He serves on the Sierra Pacific Synod Council.  He is a member of the Sathergate Religious Council and the Spirituality Working Group at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is a supervisor in the teaching parish and internship programs at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Previously, he has served as co-chair with Jeannine Jansson of Goodsoil at the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly in Orlando (2005), served on the Board and as president of the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, worked as an intern/mentor for Pacific School of Religion, was a chair of the Homelessness Task Force for the Telegraph Area

Association, and was on the board for San Francisco’s Religious Witness with Homeless People.  He was elected twice to be Dean of the San Francisco Conference of Lutheran Churches.

He lives in Oakland’s Piedmont District in a 1928 stucco bungalow with his partner J Guadalupe Sanchez Aldaco.  He enjoys a good mystery novel, learning Spanish, gardening in his back yard, fishing, home-repair, relaxing in coffee-shops, salsa dancing, walking by the Bay, and spending time with friends and family.

Rev. Jeff Johnson was received onto the ELCA clergy roster in 2010.