The air is getting colder and crisp. The farmers are getting the crops ready for harvest. The kids are getting excited about October 31, Halloween, where they can dress up and go door-to-door collecting candy. October 31 for us in the Lutheran Tradition is Reformation Day. On this day, we celebrate God’s work through Martin Luther, to preserve the message of the Gospel as the free gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ through faith alone.  

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself, my name Is Pastor Greg Douthwaite, I will be serving as Pastor of Jordan Lutheran Church, in Browntown.   

I am honored to have become your new pastor. I would like to introduce myself to Jordan.  

I am the second of four children. We were raised in Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky. My father was an engineer for Ford and my mother was a housewife and worked in a craft store. After I graduated from Cincinnati LaSalle High school in 1973, I attended the University of Cincinnati. I left college and married in 1981. I graduated from the University of Cincinnati with my degree in Mechanical Engineering.  

I worked for many years as an engineer, and I worked with the homeless in Cincinnati. In 1996, I moved to Wisconsin, the same year my dad passed. I have two children, and I divorced in 2003. I met my wife JoAnn in 2005, and we were married in 2006. My mom passed away in 2006. In 2010, I felt God tugging me to begin doing prison ministry.  

I realized that to get more involved with the ministry I needed to further my education, so I went back to Concordia University and received my degree in Theology. As I continued with my ministry, I realized the need to continue my education so that I could do pastoral visits. At the urging of a close friend, Rev. David Zandt, I went back to school at the Institute of Lutheran Theology.  

I graduated in late 2018 and started an internship at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Lebanon, Wis. under the direction of Rev. David Phillips. I was ordained in Gulf Shores in 2019 at Peace Lutheran Church.  

After ordination, doors opened with the prison, and I began to do pastoral ministry. Over the past few years I felt God calling me into parish ministry so I contacted Jordan in late June. Later in that month, I had a heart attack so I was unable to visit Jordan until July.  

I look forward to getting out and meeting those in the community and extend an invitation to visit our Church, Jordan Lutheran.