Kari Lindholm-Johnson

Covenant minister Kari Lindholm-Johnson died April 20, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. She was 60.

Kari Beth Lindholm was born in the small town of Ortonville, Minnesota, on April 10, 1964, to Rita Marie (Gerhardt) and Loren Harold Lindholm. While Kari and her big sister, Jan, grew up, the family moved around a lot—to the Twin Cities, back to Ortonville, to a suburb of Denver, Colorado, to Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota, to Omaha, Nebraska, and finally to Coon Rapids, Minnesota, where Kari thrived as a student, clarinetist in the band, and athlete at Coon Rapids High School.

After a one-year stint at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Kari attended Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, graduating with a major in psychology in 1986. After discerning a call to ministry, she attended North Park Theological Seminary and earned her MDiv in 1991. While serving Haddam Neck (Connecticut) Covenant Church for her internship, she met Timothy L. Johnson, also a Covenant minister. They married on November 25, 1989, at Salem Covenant Church in New Brighton, Minnesota. They were joyfully blessed by the birth of their son, Gabriel Gerhardt Johnson, on April 19, 1997, and daughter, Chloe Lindholm Johnson, on March 2, 2001.

During their life together, Kari and Tim lived in Haddam Neck; Evergreen Park, Illinois; Brooklyn Center, Minnesota; and finally Chicago, where the family put down its deepest roots. Kari served as associate pastor of Trinity Covenant Church in Oak Lawn, Illinois; chaplain at Children’s Home of Cromwell, Connecticut; chaplain at Covenant Village of Golden Valley in Minneapolis, Minnesota; artist in residence and chaplain at Swedish Covenant Hospital; and interim pastor of Immanuel Covenant Church in Chicago. She was also a spiritual director. Kari especially found joy in her vocation as an artist and returned to North Park University to fulfill a long-held dream to earn a bachelor’s degree in art; she graduated in 2020.

Known for her warmth, hospitality, boisterous laugh, and the ability to create a meal at a moment’s notice, Kari deeply loved her family and friends. She found joy in their company, delighted in the good she always saw, and, when necessary, fiercely advocated on their behalf. Kari was creative, brilliant, tenacious, compassionate, brave, full of wonder, and endlessly curious—a polymath with the sensibility of a mystic, a woman of faith. She dove into life wholeheartedly and pursued projects with abandon, whether whipping up furniture and raised beds for the yard, foraging for food in the neighborhood, tackling a course in organic chemistry for the wonder of it, or creating her beautiful, visionary art.

She is survived by her husband, Timothy; children, Gabriel and Chloe; sister, Jeannette Lindholm (Christine Draper); sister-in-law, Linda Morris (Tom); brother-in-law, Darryl Johnson (Cinda Madonna); and many family and friends.

Kari was buried on April 25, 2024, at Roselawn Cemetery in Roseville, Minnesota. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 1, 11:00 a.m. (Central Daylight Time), at North Park Covenant Church, 5250 Christiana Ave., Chicago, IL. A livestream of the service can be accessed here.

Kari described her vocation as an artist in her poem “Paint”: