Dr. Nelson Jennings

Organizations & Titles

• Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia (https://dcbasia.org/), NE Asia Coordinator
• Global Missiology – English, Editor
• Covenant Theological Seminary, Adjunct Professor of Missiology

Education

•   BA, Vanderbilt University
•   MDiv, Covenant Theological Seminary
•   PhD, Edinburgh University

About Dr. Nelson Jennings

Nelson Jennings was raised in a U.S.-American Christian home. After he completed the M.Div. at Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis, MO), in 1986 the Jennings family moved to Japan as church-planting missionaries. In 1995 Jennings completed a PhD in Non-Western Christianity through Edinburgh University. Jennings taught at Tokyo Christian University (1996-1999) and at Covenant Theological Seminary (1999-2011), then served at the Overseas Ministries Study Center (2011-2015) and with GMI (Global Mapping International, 2016-2017). For eight of those years he served as editor of Missiologyand of the International Bulletin of Mission Research(IBMR). Next, for over six years (2015-2021) Jennings served as Mission Pastor, Consultant, and International Liaison for Onnuri Church, Seoul. He has published numerous articles and several books, including Theology in Japan: Takakura Tokutaro (1885-1934) and God the Real Superpower: Rethinking Our Role in Missions.

Currently Jennings serves in a variety of ways, including as Adjunct Professor of Missiology for Covenant Theological Seminary; Editor of the free and open access journal Global Missiology – English; Facilitating and Editorial Team member for the Community of Mission Information Workers (CMIW); Steering Group member of the collaborative platform AMRIConnect.net; leadership team member for the Korean Global Mission Leaders Forum and its related publications (see the 2022 book The Realities of Money & Missions here); partner with the online Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia.

Jennings and his wife Kathy live in Connecticut, USA. They have three adult daughters and four grandchildren.