He Paved the Way
Herbert V. Klem
Professor of Global and Contextual Ministries Emeritus
Herbert V. Klem served Bethel Seminary as professor of global and contextual ministries from 1980 to 2002, laying the groundwork for the new Master of Arts in Global and
"I thank the Lord for the incredible ways He has blessed me at Bethel. Especially rewarding was my partnership with my ‘twin’ Ralph Hammond, and our work on racial reconciliation as an inherent part of the task of discipleship worldwide. Many seek to evangelize, but it is impossible to do discipleship if there has not first been a process of reconciliation.”-Herb Klem Contextual Studies. Today he continues to teach at Bethel as a faculty associate. “Go tothe people, love them, learn from them, and compare what you could learn from books to what the people themselves can teach you,” he tells his missions students. “You arelikely to be the one who gains the most.”
Klem earned a B.A. from Gordon College, Massachusetts; an M.S. in education from Hofstra University, New York; an M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts; and a Doctor of Missiology from Fuller Seminary School of World Missions, California. Prior to his years at Bethel, he was a professor at Sudan Interior Mission’s Igbaja Seminary in Nigeria, project director for Daystar Communications in Nairobi, Kenya, and a visiting lecturer in cross-cultural relations at Wheaton College Graduate School. Author of Oral Communication of the Scripture: Insights from African Oral Art, Klem is recognized internationally for his expertise in the oral communication of God’s Word. Having served on the boards of directors for several mission agencies over the years, he currently is executive director of Global Horizons, Inc., a ministry of racial and ethnic reconciliation for the cause of world evangelism. He also serves as consultant and workshop leader in the areas of world missions, church communications, African oral art, and evangelism in Africa and America.
Klem and his wife Barbara have three children and three grandchildren.
