Duane Pederson

Duane Pederson (born September 1938) is a former self-proclaimed "Jesus freak", and leader of the "Jesus movement".In his capacity as founding editor of the Hollywood Free Paper, he has been credited with coining the terms "Jesus people" and "Jesus movement". Pederson clarified in an audio interview that those words were attributed to him by a news agency when he said "We're people who love Jesus." However, Pederson did popularize the words "Jesus People" and "Jesus Movement" in the pages of the Hollywood Free Paper.

Most recently Pederson wrote, Larger Than Ourselves: The Early Beginnings of the Jesus People, (Hollywood CA: Hollywood Free Paper, 2014). In the book, Pederson recounts some of the earliest stories of how the Jesus People movement began and includes pictures of key figures and places throughout the early years of the movement.

Pederson later converted to the Antiochian Orthodox Church where, taking Holy Orders as an Archimandrite, he served for more than a decade as the founder and head of the Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry. Now semiretired, Pederson still ministers to prisoners and those on the street, through homeless shelters, as well as serving various parishes in Southern California and Minnesota of the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

Pederson also edited a 35th anniversary edition of the Hollywood Free Paper.

"In 1991, Metropolitan Philip, primate of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, asked Pederson, an experienced prison minister, to establish a prison ministry for the Archdiocese.In 2005, Philip offered the Archdiocese’s prison ministry to SCOBA.Shortly thereafter, OCPM was chartered by SCOBA as its official prison ministry.

"OCPM continues to build on Father Duane’s vision of ministering to prisoners and their families by mobilizing the Church to work in this important vineyard of the Kingdom of Heaven," Orthodox Church in America Website.