For more than 30 years, Jan has been involved in building bridges between faith
and action. A native of Virginia, early in his ministry he saw the disconnect between faith and racial and economic justice,
faith and peace making, faith and respect for diversity in all its many forms. As both a college and seminary teacher, as
well as a congregational pastor and activist, he has taught and preached a commitment to Christian discipleship that stands
against judgmentalism, exclusivism, and moral superiority.
Since 1998 Jan has been serving as co-pastor of Spirit of Joy Christian Church,
Lakeville, Minnesota, with his wife, Joy. This is a new church start that is seeking to be innovative and creative in its
approach to high commitment membership in the tradition of the Church of The Savior in Washington, D.C.
Jan also serves as a member of The Jesus Connection (TJC), an organization of clergy
and laity founded in 2002 that has developed a process for personal and structural transformation of mainline churches.
Prior to coming to his current position, Jan was a tenured member of the faculty
at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky where he served for eight and a half years as Professor of The Practice of Ministry.
His primary teaching responsibilities were in spiritual formation of clergy and congregational leadership. Before joining
the seminary faculty he was pastor of Independence Boulevard Christian Church, Kansas City, Missouri for four years with major
emphasis on urban issues such as housing and homelessness.
From 1976 – 1985 Jan also served as Chaplain at Lynchburg College in Virginia.
While there he developed a small group ministry called Yokefellow, a movement founded by Quaker writer, Dr. Elton Trueblood,
whose purpose was to teach students the classical disciplines of spiritual development through daily practice and weekend
silent retreats. During this time more than two hundred students participated in these silent retreats which were held once
each semester for nine consecutive years. Another dimension of Yokefellow was engagement with the inner city of Lynchburg.
In this connection Jan developed an extensive social ministry program called The Wood Ministry in conjunction with the Lynchburg
Covenant Fellowship. In the winter of 1978 there were more than one hundred college students involved in cutting, splitting,
and delivering wood to Lynchburg’s poorest of the poor. National news commentator, Paul Harvey, did a story on the students’
involvement during one of his daily radio broadcasts. In addition to his chaplaincy work, Jan taught courses in speech communication
and served as a regular member of the teaching faculty for the Senior Symposium. During this time he also served as a member
of the Senior Symposium summer seminar team that published the first ten volumes of readings for the course.
A native of Lynchburg, Jan’s education includes studies at the University
of Richmond (B.A., 1967), Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis where
he received his Doctor of Ministry degree in 1972. He has done further graduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary. He
was ordained by the Christian Church in Virginia in 1971.
In the summer of 1981 he served as a member of the Editorial Team for The Senior
Symposium Readings at Lynchburg College in Virginia made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This work resulted in the publication of Classical Selections on Great Issues, a Ten Volume set of readings published by Lynchburg
College.
In the summer of 1987 Jan was a Coolidge Research Fellow, a month long program
for scholars from the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faith traditions for the purpose of encouraging individual research
and publication in their respective fields in an intentionally interfaith context.
In August of 2003 Jan served as Chaplain of the Week at the Chautauqua Institute,
a center for religion, the arts, and the promotion of dialogue on important political/cultural issues of our time.
