Pastor Jeff 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 his call in November, 1999.

Prior to this call, he served as pastor of First United Lutheran Church in San Francisco's Richmond District since his ordination 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 the first 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.

Pastor Johnson was ordained extra ordinem ^[1] on January 20, 1990 at a service at historic St. Paulus Lutheran Church in San Francisco that was attended by over 1000 persons, with participation by over 70 clergy members. Although approved for call by the LCA (Lutheran Church in America), he was considered ineligible for placement in an ELCA congregation because of a newly developed denominational policy that required a pledge of life-long celibacy from gay and lesbian pastors. First United Lutheran Church challenged this policy and was put on trial and expelled from the ELCA in 1995 for calling Jeff to be their pastor. First United thrives to this day as an independent Lutheran parish within San Francisco. University Lutheran Chapel called Pr. Johnson in spite of the continuing ban on non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy in 1999, and received a “letter of censure” a year later from Bishop Robert Mattheis for having done so.

Pr. Johnson serves on the steering committee of the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice working on immigration and worker discrimination issues.  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, as an intern mentor for Pacific School of Religion, as a chair of the Homelessness Task Force for the Telegraph Area Association, and 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 Pepe 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.