Bill Harman
Bill Harman of the Center for Global Awareness, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Encinitas, CA was born in South Bend, Indiana, July 22, 1939. He graduated from Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, in 1961. He is also a graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago and received his Master’s in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. He completed post-graduate work in Islamics and African Culture at the Hartford Seminary Foundation, Hartford, CT in 1967.
His ordained ministry began on the streets of San Francisco serving as part of the Night Ministry in San Francisco from 1965 to 1967. This was an urban ecumenical ministry that provided daily street-side pastoral care from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Pastor Bill served as a professor of Bible, sociology and urbanization studies at the Makumira Theological Seminary in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa from 1967 to 1971.
He also served the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) as a project developer for the Caribbean region, based in Trinidad, West Indies and serving part time an ecumenical congregation developed by Moravians, Methodists and Presbyterians in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His project development work included projects in Suriname, Guyana, Haiti, Venezuela and Grenada as well as Trinidad from 1975 to 1979.
His next call was to serve internationally with the Department of Mission and Development, Lutheran World Federation in Geneva, Switzerland from 1979 to 1982. This work involved projects in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.
From 1982-2005 he served as pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Encinitas, CA.
During this time he also worked for the Vesper Society part time as transatlantic peace conference organizer from 1982-87 and again from 1998-2002.
Pastor Harman serves as a board member of the International Committee of the German Evangelical Kirchentag (Church Day), of Planned Parenthood of San Diego/Riverside Counties, of the Lutheran Office for Public Policy, Sacramento, CA and is on the Jubilee USA National Coordinating Committee.
