On Monday, July 13, we welcome a new intern at St John’s…Roger Boettecher.  A message from Roger: 

As I begin internship at St. John’s. I look forward to meeting each one of you as I learn what it means to be to be a pastor.

I live in rural Dodgeville with my wife, Janice. We will have been married 25 years this December. We have a small farm where we manage prairie, savanna, and woodland. We have two boys; Nicholas 47, and Timothy 44. We also have two adopted granddaughters, Nikki and Tori. I retired nine years ago as a Middle School and High School science teacher in Fennimore, WI. Teaching chemistry and biology. I particularly love the outdoors and have led numerous field trips and courses at our farm and around the state.

I was born and lived my early years in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. My faith journey has been a long one. I first considered the ministry when I was in confirmation class. That was nearly… well…it was a long time ago. My church was Zion Lutheran in Chippewa Falls. I began teaching confirmation and Sunday School while attending First Lutheran Church in Eau Claire in 2002. I was also the Youth and Education Director and on Church Council. Since 2007, Janice and I have been active members of St. Peter Lutheran in Fennimore, WI. I have taught Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and Confirmation. Janice and I sing in the choir and help as readers, sacrament assistants, and worship leaders. I have served on various committees including education, outreach, council and call committee.

I have always felt a strong feeling of peace, love and joy through meeting God’s people in worship and other church events. After about 7 years of comfortable retirement, the Holy Spirit came calling, and I sensed a surprisingly strong call to ministry. After many prayers, discussions, and wrestling with pros and cons, I decided to enter a Master of Divinity program at Wartburg Theological Seminary. I decided that perhaps a ‘deep dive’ into Bible study might be just the thing—and so it has been! Seminary has been a true labor of love for me—though at times, it can be overwhelming!

One of my favorite Bible verses is about the fruit of the spirit as outlined in Galatians 5:22-23. “…the fruit of the Spirit is love, , patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These are words I seek to live by.

The welcome, warmth, and well-wishing have been wonderful. I pray that our time together will be blessed.

Peace, Love, and Joy, be yours now and always.
Roger Boettcher, Pastoral Intern

 

7/17/26: DUE TO LOW ENROLLMENT NUMBERS, VBS IS CANCELLED THIS YEAR.

 

We are so excited to welcome our students back to Vacation Bible School this summer on Monday, August 3 – Thursday, August 6 from 9am-2pm! 

Our Summer schedule begins Sunday, May 24, with one service at 9:00am.  We will still have fellowship time after worship at 10:00am.

This schedule continues through Labor Day weekend, September 6.  We return to worship at 8:00am and 10:30am on September 13.

Wow!!! 2025 has gone and 2026 begins. Let us start with thanking all of you for your support and financial donations and contributions to keep St. John’s up and running.

After many months of work by TNT and the call team Pastor Tom was hired and began his tenure with us on September 1, 2025. We are blessed to have a great call team with members Steve Barritt, Steve Kindschi, Kristin Ryan, Mary Weeks, Sean Jager and Nancy Passehl. Thanks to their dedication the hiring process went very well. A special thanks to John Ballweg and many others for their tireless effort to refurbish our parsonage to welcome our new pastor
and family. We welcomed Pastor Tom, his wife Karen and family to our congregation, community and to our parsonage.

We added new board members, Charlie Kruchten, Mary Weeks, Audrey Leutscher, Kendra Frey and Josie Fentress. We thank all of them for their willingness to serve on our board.

We have been through some staff changes and are now full-staffed with our new office coordinator, Angie Updike, who is doing a fantastic job. We have also hired a bookkeeper, Karissa Johnson, who is getting us acquainted with new software ICON. We thank John Brennan for his dedication to making this transition work smoothly.

Life continues with high level of hustle and bustle. The children’s music, the choirs, the youth programs, the laughter in the halls are all signs of a youthful, healthy and happy congregation.

In closing, I ask for your continued prayers for our staff and we thank them from the bottom on our hearts. Our staff members are Tom, Sally, Angie, Ruellene, John, Connie, Kim, Penny and Jackie. Without all of them we would not be who we are today. We thank all of our council members for their dedication and hard work. We thank Pastor Tom and Pastor Sally for their dedicated service to all of us.

Again, we would not be where we are today without all of you. We thank you for all your time, talents, donations and contributions. We are humbled to lead your church. Finally, when you have ideas and/or suggestions, we’d love to hear them!

Nancy Passehl and Marv Hupp

Please join us for worship!

We have worship at 8am and 10:30am every Sunday in the fall, winter and spring months. Fellowship, Adult and Children’s Education take place at 9:15am between services. Our summer worship schedule is one service at 9am on Sundays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.

All services are available in our sanctuary or on Zoom.  To join by Zoom, use this link St. John’s Worship.   You can also join us using the link on our webpage in the upper right hand corner, “Join Us Live for Worship.”