Advisory Board

Jeff Bass
Jeff Bass is executive director of Emmanuel Gospel Center and has served in leadership at EGC for over 23 years. Under the Board of Directors, Jeff directs the activities of the Center and is responsible for all aspects of the Center’s operation, including strategic planning, program development, fundraising and administration. Jeff joined the Center’s Board in 1987, consulted part-time for a year in 1990, became assistant director in 1991, and has served as executive director since 1999. A 1981 graduate of Princeton University (BSE, Civil Engineering), he served as a consultant with Arthur D. Little, Inc., managing numerous projects and studies for businesses, non-profits, and government. In 1987, he became the administrator of Ruggles Baptist Church and learned first-hand how an urban congregation works. Today he is an active member of River of Life Church in Jamaica Plain. In 2014, Jeff was granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Gordon College.

Rodney Petersen
Rodney Lawrence Petersen is an American scholar in the area of history, ethics, and religious conflict. He moved to the Boston area from Switzerland in 1990 and began working as the Executive Director of the Boston Theological Institute. He teaches in both the member schools and overseas. Together with BTI colleagues these courses have taken students to various regions of the world in order to understand and film ways in which faith communities are implicated in regional violence and how they can be avenues of reconciliation.

After growing up in the Chicago area, he received his B.A. from Harvard College, a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and a Master of Theology degree also from Harvard Divinity School. His doctorate in history was awarded by Princeton Theological Seminary. He continued his education in Europe at Institut Oecuménique (Genève, Switzerland, and Institut d’Histoire de la Réformation, Université de Genève).

Now he is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., serving on several of their committees and for seven years as the pastor of the Allston Congregational Church (U.C.C.). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the Massachusetts Commission on Christian Unity, the Lord’s Day Alliance of the USA, the Refugee Immigration Ministry, the Board of Church and Prison, Sec/tres. American Society of Missiology (Eastern Fellowship), and numerous other academic and ecclesiastical organizations.

Mark Yoon
Mark Yoon was raised in a nominally Buddhist family in South Korea.  In his second year at Seoul National University, he was introduced to Christ through the ministry of the U.S. Southern Presbyterian mission in Korea.

In the mid-70’s, he and his wife Grace began a cross-cultural ministry on several university campuses in the Chicago area. They opened their home to college students and ministered to them through Bible study and prayer.  He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education from Loyola University Chicago.

After 30 years of ministry in Chicago, he moved to Boston in 2007 and joined the community of evangelical campus ministries at Boston University and evangelical ministries at large in the Greater Boston Area.  He currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Emmanuel Gospel Center.