Glenwood area United Methodist churches welcome new pastor

By Cara L. Dempski

GLENWOOD CITY — Members of the Glen Hills Parish of the United Methodist Church welcomed a new pastor on July 10, 2016.

Pastor Jan Beutin took over as the minister of the Glenwood City, Emerald and Downing Methodist churches after previous pastor MaryBeth Scow moved on to a position with the Trempeleau United Methodist Church.

Beutin is a native of the Milwaukee area and answered God’s call to pastoral ministry while serving as Music and Youth Minister and later Associate Pastor at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist church, where she worked for twelve years.

After being appointed to the Waterloo and Marshall areas in south-central Wisconsin for the past six years, she was appointed to the Glen Hills Parish United Methodist Churches this past summer.

Childhood

Pastor Beutin grew up in the Milwaukee area, but said she spent her summers on her grandparents’ farm, in Marshfield, WI. There, she could spend time riding horses, herding cows from the barn to the pasture, and generally enjoying the summer.

Beutin was 12 years old when her childhood pastor told her she would grow up to be a minister.

“I said, ‘no I won’t! I’m going to be a music teacher!’” Beutin said, laughing.

She started taking music lessons when she was just three years old, though her father had started teaching her things a year or two earlier than that. Beutin said music has always been a big part of her family.

Still, her minister’s statement that day in confirmation stuck with her. It was not until later in life, when she was in her second professional career, that Beutin felt a stronger pull toward ministry.

First careers

Beutin spent several years working in organizational development for a Milwaukee bank. She and her husband, Keith, and two children lived in a home in West Allis.

When Beutin left the bank, she began working as a music teacher at St. Joan Antida High School on Milwaukee’s east side. She taught there for eight years, teaching three vocal choirs, two hand bell choirs and a music history course.

Her passion for teaching became clear as she discussed how she used Milwaukee’s architecture to help students understand the things they were learning in music history. Beutin explained that buildings around Milwaukee offered a visual representation of the same styles the students studied in class.

Instructors, school administrators, priests and nuns asked for Beutin’s assistance to lead the music for Jubilees and other celebrations of the order and the Diocese. She said these requests were daunting because of the hundreds of years of Catholic tradition represented in the ceremony and celebration.

It got her thinking about how much she would enjoy working on the same sort of project in her own faith center. When a flyer advertising for a music and youth minister for the Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa came across her desk, Beutin did not hesitate to apply for the position.

Within a year, Beutin found herself staring at the inside of a dormitory room at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston, Illinois. Her childhood minister’s proclamation had come true, and she wondered what she had gotten herself into.

“I looked at this room, and I’m going ‘you’re kidding me, right?’” Beutin said of arriving at seminary. “I left a four-square Victorian home.”

Seminary and beyond

Beutin worked her way through seminary commuting to Evanston, IL, while working full time at Wauwatosa Avenue. She recalls that her first seminary course, Early Christian History, was a 10-day summer session intensive offering.

“I was staying up until about three and then had to be up at five to get ready for my next day,” Beutin said. “One thousand plus years in 10 days – what a ride.”

After her appointments in Wauwatosa and the Waterloo/Marshall area of southern Wisconsin, Beutin said she and her husband are glad to be in Glenwood City. While the couple has been to Hayward and Eau Claire, she admits neither of them traveled any further west in this part of Wisconsin.

Beutin stated when she accompanied her parents back to their hometown in Waseca, MN, they always turned west and crossed into Minnesota near La Crosse. She expressed being surprised and pleased at how beautiful the land is around Glenwood City.

The minister also seems to appreciate the camaraderie she has witnessed among community members since starting her work in Glenwood City. Beutin said it is nice to be in a community where everyone seems to work together cooperatively and have “each other’s backs.”

Beutin has even found a way to tie her educational philosophy to her work as part of each church she has worked with.

“I stress andragogy, not pedagogy,” she stated.

Beutin then explained andragogy encourages self-direction and independence while learning through experience. When she first arrived in Glenwood City, she met with small groups of each congregation and asked three questions. Their responses would help to shape the vision of the future for Glen Hills Parish. Beutin feels that giving the church a chance to self-direct will help maintain a healthy and vital congregation.

Questions such as “what do you love about our church?” and “what are you willing to do to help make what God is calling us to do be a reality?” helped Beutin understand what the unique offerings of each church in the Glen Hills Parish.

The skills Beutin learned as a teacher still come in handy as a minister. She finds that being open and welcoming is just as helpful in church as it was in the classroom.

“You need to involve them (congregants) in the process (of ministry and church work),” Beutin said. “You can’t ignore their viewpoint.”

She seemed to feel such a relationship is key to maintaining a healthy congregation, but stressed that just because you are seeking information about needs does not mean that those needs will be met exactly as desired.

“The danger of always asking the question,” Beutin stated, “is people believe you’re going to grant the answer. First and foremost we need to listen to God and ask for God’s guidance as we set a course for the future by developing and implementing a ministry plan for Glen Hills Parish.”

Beutin is humbled and happy to be serving the people of the Glen Hills Parish and looks forward to walking with them on their journey to realize God’s call on their lives and on the life of the churches of the Glen Hills Parish – Downing, Emerald, and Glenwood City.