Carolyn Johnson

Rev. Carolyn Johnson (née Wittenberg) was born in 1959 into a Christian family and raised in the church from the time she was very young. While she always believed in God as creator and Jesus as the Son of God, it was through the youth ministry of her church, when she was thirteen years old, that her faith really began to be her own. She came to know Jesus as her Lord and Savior and from that point on considered her life to belong to God. 

Serving in the children’s ministry at her church during high school was Carolyn’s first taste of ministry. She continued serving in youth ministry during her early college years, particularly during the summers. At the same time, God had given her an interest in other languages and cultures. Carolyn took a gap year after her high school graduation and was able to spend eight months living and studying in France. It was during her time in France that Carolyn first wondered if God might be calling her to be a missionary. 

Early in her college years, Carolyn became involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. She attended a nearby missions conference during her freshmen year and went to the national Urbana missions conference during her sophomore year. She became involved in the leadership of her local group and interned with them at a local community college. Carolyn also had the opportunity to go on a short-term mission trip before her senior year. These experiences continued to confirm her sense of calling toward cross-cultural ministry. At the same time, her experience on the mission trip made her realize that she needed more training, so she enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary. 

During her time at Fuller, Carolyn met Ray Dahlberg, then Executive Secretary of World Mission for the Covenant. She and her husband Doug talked with Ray about the Covenant’s work in Thailand and the possibility of joining the team there. Ray quickly became a huge cheerleader and supporter of Carolyn and her call. He encouraged her to switch from her MA program to an MDiv program—a switch she subsequently made and that would prove incredibly important in her journey. 

While Carolyn had discovered a love of biblical studies and theology already during her time at Fuller, her switch to the MDiv program allowed her to discover her gift of preaching. Her understanding of her call grew from missions and cross-cultural ministry to include the preaching and teaching ministry of the church. She and Doug continued in conversation with Ray Dahlberg as well as Jim and Joan Gustafson, senior missionaries in Thailand, about joining the team in Thailand when she had finished seminary. After a year at North Park Theological Seminary, Carolyn and Doug were commissioned as missionaries at the 1986 Annual Meeting. Carolyn was licensed for pastoral office that same year and ordained to Word and Sacrament in 1991. 

The Covenant began affirming the ordination of women in 1976, a full ten years before Carolyn was first licensed for pastoral office in 1986. Yet the place of women in ministry was not as settled in the Covenant as Carolyn initially thought. She was, in her own words, “a bit naïve.” While her call was affirmed again and again by many different people in many different settings, she also experienced some “friction” throughout her decades of ministry. 

Some people in the Covenant were confused by or uncomfortable with the fact that it was Carolyn and not her husband who had a call to ministry, was attending seminary, and was pursuing licensing and ordination. While the two of them were called together to Thailand, Doug was going as a layperson. Carolyn was the one on the team called to a pastoral role. 

When they were on home assignment, Doug was often the one asked to preach at their supporting churches while Carolyn was often invited to speak to small groups. Their initial missionary bio (not written by them) made no mention of Carolyn’s MDiv degree nor her license to pastoral office in the Covenant. For decades they received mail addressed to Reverend and Mrs. Douglas Johnson. Though Doug was asked to preach more often than Carolyn, she did have opportunities to preach in many church where she was the first woman to do so. She did not let the “friction” hold her back but instead followed God’s call on her life wholeheartedly. 

Carolyn and Doug went to Thailand as missionaries in 1986 and remained there for two decades. Shortly after arriving in Thailand, Doug and Carolyn were sent to Roi Et, in northeast Thailand, as the first missionaries to join the team there. Carolyn served in the Theology Department. She also became involved in leadership development among the growing number of Thai Christians. She taught Bible and theology at weekly leadership trainings for the leaders of village churches; she worked with Southern Baptist and Mennonite brother and sister missionaries to lead regular regional leadership training and discipleship events. To meet some of the need for accessible discipleship materials for the many new Thai Christians who had low reading levels, Carolyn and the team in Roi Et developed a series of small booklets on many different topics: “Who We Are in Christ;” “How to Read the Bible;” “Prayer;” “Worship;” “Marriage.” Ministry colleagues from other denominations saw the value in these booklets and started using them in their work as well. Even ten years after Carolyn and Doug left Thailand to return to the States, the Christian community in and around Roi Et continued using those booklets in their ministry and discipleship work. (And possibly still does today.)

Early in Carolyn’s years in Roi Et, the church offered a children’s Sunday School program. However, as those children grew up and became teenagers, Carolyn realized there was a gap in what the local church offered for their continued discipleship. Her own experience as a teenager in youth group had been incredibly formative, and she wanted the Thai teenagers to have that opportunity as well. So Carolyn started a youth group for the teens in Roi Et. The youth ministry started as a small girls Bible study but quickly grew to include boys. When Carolyn and Doug left for a year on home assignment, they were able to pass the ministry off to Thai colleagues, and it continued thriving. 

After twenty-one years in Thailand, Carolyn and Doug returned to the United States permanently in 2007. Carolyn was finishing her Doctor of Missiology degree, so while she was hoping and planning to find a call to a pastoral role in a church, she also had the possibility of teaching. She found, to her disappointment, that seeking a call to a Covenant church proved to be a fruitless endeavor. Many churches were not yet prepared or willing to entertain the idea of women as lead pastors. While continuing her search, Carolyn taught missions courses at North Park Theological Seminary and became a qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory. 

A few years into seeking a call to a lead pastor role, Carolyn was asked to serve as an interim at a local United Methodist Church. The UMC district superintendent asked if she would be open to serving in the UMC long term. Carolyn initially said no; the Covenant had always been her home. When she learned that she could keep her ECC credentials and stay connected to clergy colleagues in the denomination even while serving in the UMC, she decided to accept the offer. Carolyn served as the solo pastor of Yamhill United Methodist Church for the last eight years of her formal ministry before she retired in 2024. 

Even after her official retirement, Carolyn remains active in ministry in the Covenant. She maintains connections to her ECC colleagues at local pastor gatherings, clergy retreats, and other events. Carolyn is currently serving in an interim role in a Covenant church and recently published an article in the Covenant Quarterly.