OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY    

Introducing Rev. Dr. Joan Kathryn Harrington, B.A., M.P.S., M.Ed., D. Sac. Lit., Ph.D. 

Dr. Joan Harrington was born in Harvey, Illinois on December 21, 1934.  Her father, Roy William, was a student at Moody Bible Institute.  Her mother, Thelma Ethel, was a young high school valedictorian graduate from the Southside of Chicago.   Since Dr. Harrington’s father was a Baptist minister they moved to various pastorates and her childhood was spent in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas.  She was graduated from high school in 1952 in Abilene, Kansas. 

Dr. Harrington began her post high school education by attending Tennessee Temple College in Chattanooga, Tennessee.    She was 16 years old when she left home for college.  Finances were limited and because she had to work her way through school she dropped out of college after two years and attended one year of Business College in Salina, Kansas.  She then attended and was graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in 1960 with a double major -- Bible and Christian Education.  While a student at Moody she wrote continuity scripts for WMBI, was correspondent for the Correspondence School and was advertising secretary for the Moody Monthly magazine.  Dr. Harrington attributes the greatest influences in her life to Dr. and Mrs. Harold Garner who were the directors of the Christian Education Department at Moody.  After graduating from Moody, Dr. Harrington was a Rural Bible Teacher for the New England Fellowship of Evangelicals for two years.  She traveled a circuit in Vermont and Maine and taught released time Bible courses in the public schools.  Park Street Church in Boston supported her as a home missionary. 

 Dr. Harrington then moved to Boston and began her life-long journey as an Urban Missionary.  She became Co-Director of the Children’s Haven, a mission work among disadvantaged children in urban areas.  It was during this time that God placed a deep love in her heart for the  African American.  God directed her focus to the African American in Urban ghetto areas of the United States.  This became her focus for her many years of missionary service. 

Dr. Harrington received her BA from Gordon-Barrington College in Massachusetts in 1967.  It was while she was establishing and directing the still existing Camp Chilaven in Massachusetts that she earned this degree.  This camp was birthed because of her love for the inner city children in Boston  When she was invited to become a missionary in Newark, New Jersey by the African Inland Mission she moved to this city right after the riots that followed Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.  She established a missionary work among the children in the streets and became Director of Christian Education at the multiracial, inner city Calvary Gospel Church.

Dr. Harrington then moved on to direct a Day Camp for an inner city church in Paterson, NJ.  While there she continued her education because she felt the need for qualified workers among the people in urban America.  Her burden was particularly centered on Christian Education and Christian Counseling done with excellence from qualified individuals.  While in Paterson, Dr. Harrington was Minister of Parish Witness at an inner city American Baptist Church and taught classes in a community college to predominately Latino and African American students.  The Alliance Theological Seminary invited her to teach courses in Urban Christian Education.  During her time in New Jersey Dr. Harrington was also privileged to teach students from Taiwan who were located at the Fellowship Deaconry in Liberty Corner, New Jersey.  

When Palm Shores Retirement Center in St. Petersburg, Florida (American Baptist)  asked Dr. Harrington to come to Florida and help establish an Adult Congregate Living Facility she responded affirmatively.  Dr. Harrington says that this was a time in her life when she was considering retirement, but God had “other plans”.  Dr. Harrington worked in this endeavor for two years, but her heart was still in the urban mission field and soon she left to join the staff in Community Mental Health in St. Petersburg where she became a full-time counselor.  During this time she was invited to teach at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary in counseling and Christian education so she began a ministry there while maintaining a private practice in Clearwater that ministered to clients who were on probation.  Crossover Community Church in Tampa invited her to move her practice to their inner city, multicultural church and she felt this was God’s leading so she moved to Tampa and continued her urban missionary work.  When the pastors of Crossover were asked to move to Atlanta and work for Safe House Outreach Ministry they insisted on taking Dr. Harrington with them.  Dr. Harrington continued to  minister in urban areas for Safe House Outreach Ministries.  In addition to this ministry the Atlantic Southern Bible College (for whom she was teaching several courses and assisting in development) was about to close.  The Board of Regents turned the school over to Dr. Harrington, sold all the properties to pay their bills, and left her with books, materials, and a 501c3.  Dr. Harrington has centered the school’s ministry on a Classroom Without Walls basis and currently teaches only on the internet.   In 2006 she visited her home state of Kansas and spoke in the First Baptist Church of Codell, Kansas.  When they issued a call to her to come pastor, God spoke, and she followed.  After serving two more years as a full-time pastor, Dr. Joan retired to a small home in Russell and became interim minister for the Central Region of American Baptists. 

She holds two Masters’ degrees; a Master of Professional Studies degree  from Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, New York where she majored in an integration of psychology, theology and sociology and a Masters in Education degree  in Counseling/Education from William Paterson State College of New Jersey.  Dr. Harrington has had extensive training in mental health counseling. She served her internship under an African-American diplomat in the American Psychiatric Association.  She holds her Doctorate of Philosophy in the Social Sciences with emphasis on integrating Christian Education with Christian Counseling.  She received her PhD from the California Graduate School of Theology.  She also holds an honorary doctorate in Sacred Literature from the Jacksonville Theological Seminary in Florida. 

Dr. Harrington is an ordained minister (American Baptist Churches USA).  She was ordained by Paterson First in the New Jersey association.  She is also a Clinical Pastoral Psychotherapist, licensed by the State of Florida as a Mental Health Counselor and the state of Georgia as a Licensed Professional Counselor.  She is certified by the National Board of Certified Counselors.  Dr. Harrington also holds certification from the State of New Jersey in Pupil Personnel Services, from the Evangelical Training Association, and the Christian Motivational Training Institute. 

In her early years, Dr. Harrington was elected Outstanding Young Woman of America.  She was elected for the 1992-1993 edition of Who’s Who Among Human Service Professionals, and is in the 1995-1996 edition of Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, also in the 19th edition of Who’s Who of American Women, and included in the fiftieth edition of Who’s Who in America.  Dr. Harrington was nominated for the Millennial Edition of Who’s Who in the World for the year 2,000. She holds the Phi Lambda Theta Key for excellence in graduate education. 

Dr. Harrington will be the first to assert that her major focus in life is her walk with the Lord.  She committed her life to full-time missionary service in her youth and has followed this commitment for more than 60 years.  She became a born-again Christian when she was 11 years old (an Indian student from Bacon college led her to this decision) and made a definite commitment for full-time service to the Lord when she was 21 while attending Founder’s Week at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Harrington’s testimony has always included a kind and compassionate heart for those she counsels and teaches.  In brief, she has served the Lord as missionary with Children’s Haven in Massachusetts where she founded and directed Camp Chilaven-- a camp for inner-city children and teens, and was “Aunt Joni” for hundreds of children who listened weekly to the Haven Radio Club aired over a Boston station and served under the Africa Inland Mission in Newark, New Jersey and Paterson, New Jersey.

 Along with her private counseling practice, Dr. Harrington has counseled in church settings, taught Psychology and Bible while serving as Director of Guidance in a New Jersey Christian High School, worked as a College Counselor and Adjunct Professor on an inner-city junior college campus for cross-cultural students, and was a Visiting Professor for the Alliance Seminary in Nyack, N.Y. where she taught Urban Christian Education.   She has served in community mental health, as Clinical Director of Life Management Counseling Program, and as Minister of Counseling for the American Baptist Church in Saint Petersburg, Florida.  She has maintained an office for private clients in Clearwater and Tampa, Florida.  Dr. Harrington has also served urban churches as Director of Christian Education, Minister of Church Education, Minister of Parish Witness, and Minister of Counseling.

 Just prior to moving to Georgia in July of 1998, Dr. Harrington served as Professor and Academic Dean for the Tampa Campus of Jacksonville Theological Seminary, teaching graduate level courses in Counseling and Christian Education. She was also Professor and Chair of the Counseling and Education Department at the Saint Petersburg Theological Seminary.   She served on Pastoral Staff at Crossover Community Church in Tampa as Counseling/ Education Pastor.  She was Chair of the Educational Ministries Division at Atlantic Southern Bible College and professor in counseling, Bible, and education. She has served as Counselor and Educational Pastor at Safe House Outreach’s Family Resource Center in Atlanta. 

Although Dr. Joan had served the Lord  in urban areas for over 50 years, her heart seems to have returned to Kansas where her family has lived for many years.   Her father,  Rev. Roy Harrington served many churches in Kansas.  She had been back to Kansas often when Roy was alive.  She came to the First Baptist Church of Codell from Atlanta, Georgia,  moved to her small home of retirement in Russell, and has served as interim minister for Central Baptist Church in Great Bend, Kansas and First Baptist in Colby, Kansas.  Dr. Harrington is currently Associate Minister of Counseling and Education at Central Baptist in Great Bend and is working on her legacy drean of enlarging the Mid-Continent Bible Institute as a lasting school for training Christian leaders.