Johan Maurer

Johan Maurer grew up in a rigidly atheist family, where the mere mention of religion was forbidden. He became a Christian at age 21, while he was attending Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada (a safe distance from his anti-church family!). Getting to know and trust Jesus has made all the difference in his life since then, but his family's total resistance to the religion industry probably influenced his decision to make his home with Quakers, who have opposed religious tradecraft and authoritarianism from the very beginning. His particular concern for Friends is the relationship between evangelism and the Quaker testimonies.

Johan began his Quaker journey with Ottawa Friends Meeting. His next stop was New England, where he and Judy Maurer met in 1977. They got married in 1980. During Judy's years at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, they attended Charlottesville Friends (Baltimore Yearly Meeting). After Judy finished her MBA program at UVA, they moved to Indiana, where Johan began working for Friends World Committee for Consultation in 1983. In 1988, he was recorded as a minister by Indiana Yearly Meeting. In 1993, Johan began serving Friends United Meeting as general secretary. During his FWCC and FUM years, he visited hundreds of local meetings and churches in the USA and elsewhere, observing Friends with many forms of creativity, faithfulness ... and dysfunction.

Johan and Judy moved from the Midwest to Oregon in 2000 when Johan was invited to join the pastoral team at Reedwood Friends Church. Since then he has been a visiting scholar at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in the UK, a marketing writer specializing in nonprofits and educational institutions, and a "Friend Serving Abroad" under Northwest Yearly Meeting in Russia (2007-2017).

Since retiring from Northwest Yearly Meeting, he has transferred his membership to Eugene Friends Church. His recording as a minister is now with Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. He continues to write weekly for his blog, Can You Believe? (blog.canyoubelieve.me), which he began in 2004. He now attends Camas Friends Church, and continues to serve Moscow Friends Meeting in Russia as assistant clerk.