John Frykman - Lutheran Minister

Lutheran Minister

After completing seminary (ranking fifth in his graduation class) Frykman served as Associate Pastor, First English Lutheran Church - Sacramento,CA; Pastor, St. John's Lutheran Church, Oakland, CA; Pastor, First United Lutheran Church, San Francisco, CA; and in 2009, VIM Pastor, Bukit Doa International Church, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

In On January 1, 1996, First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco, along with St. Francis Lutheran Church, was expelled from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), because they violated a provision of the ELCA constitution. In January, 1990, under Frykman's leadership, the two congregations called and ordained a gay man and a lesbian couple, graduates of Lutheran seminaries, who were not approved for ordination by the ELCA solely because they refused to pledge lifelong celibacy. In the face of this judgment against them, these congregations, along with their companion congregations, continued to stand by their decision. Frykman said during his trial for ordaining non-celibate homosexual ministers in 1990: "Ecclesiastical disobedience in the face of unjust practice in the church was in the best tradition of Martin Luther."