Vern Rossman was born in 1927 in Colorado and grew up in Oklahoma. He is a graduate of Phillips University (BA 1948); Yale Divinity School in New Haven (BD 1952 cum laude); Union Theological Seminary in New York (STM 1960); and the Naganuma School of Japanese Language and Culture in Tokyo (diploma). His majors have been Bible, sociology, Christian ethics, theology, and Japanese language and culture.

He served as a missionary to Japan for ten years; was a director in the social action department of the Disciples, following which he served seven years as executive director of INTERMEDIA, the overseas literacy and communications program of the National Council of Churches which took him to thirty countries.. He was arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi during the civil rights revolution of the sixties and as one of the seven protesters in the Griffiss Plowshares he served twenty months in federal prison for that action at Griffiss Air Force Base in 1983.. He has begun two prison ministries which continue in Indiana and New Jersey. He has written one book, two plays, and was editor for four years of the Social Action Newsletter.

Now retired, he lives in Garber, Oklahoma where he continues to write and engage in social action.

Vern Rossman: vjross22@hotmail.com