A Lutheran presence in Jackson since 1862
St. John's Lutheran Church has stood at 2881 Division Road in Jackson, Wisconsin, since the year German immigrant farmers first organized worship on the corner of what is now Highway G and Western Avenue. Today the congregation numbers about 600 baptized members, draws roughly 230 people to a weekend service, and counts members who drive in from across Germantown, Slinger, Richfield, West Bend, and Cedarburg. Part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Greater Milwaukee Synod, St. John's blends traditional and contemporary Lutheran worship on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings and sends volunteers, quilts, and dollars into Washington County and halfway up the slopes of Mount Meru in Tanzania.
Worship on Saturday evening and Sunday morning
Worship at St. John's happens twice a week. A Saturday service at 5:00 pm is intentionally informal, and Pastor Paul Mittermaier often sets aside a written sermon to talk through the day's readings with whoever has gathered. The Sunday morning service at 9:00 am pulls from a fuller Lutheran palette: traditional liturgy, blended patterns, and contemporary praise songs. Holy Communion is celebrated every weekend. On the third Sunday of each month, a Communion service called "Oh, the Joy" is accompanied by piano, guitar, violin, or flute; the fourth Sunday brings a simpler-liturgy Celebration Service with praise songs; and when a fifth Sunday falls on the calendar, the congregation picks the hymns in a Hymn Sing.
Lent adds two Wednesday services at 11:00 am and 6:30 pm, and two additional liturgies appear in the church's year: a Service of Healing Prayers for anyone seeking physical, spiritual, or emotional healing, and a December Service of Remembrance for those facing the holidays after the loss of a loved one. The Sunday 9:00 am service is also broadcast live on Facebook and archived on the church's YouTube channel, where recent Sunday recordings stretch back through August and September of 2026 and written sermon notes for passages such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Mark 6 reach back to early 2024.
Sunday School, Confirmation, and the Christian education hour
Children join their parents in worship at 9:00 am and head to Sunday School after the Children's Time. The program runs from preschool through high school, and a Children's Christmas Program each December gives the youngest members a chance to present the story to the congregation. As a back-to-Sunday-School tradition, the year opens with a pancake breakfast and a treasure-hunt kickoff, and each fall the congregation helps parents fulfill the vows they took at baptism by gifting a Bible to every third grader.
Confirmation is geared for seventh and eighth graders, although older students and adults are confirmed through high school or adult classes. Classes meet on Wednesday evenings from 7:00 to 8:20 pm during the school year in a format that mixes large-group presentation with small-group discussion; students arrive from eight different middle schools, take part in service projects throughout the year, and travel to Crossways Camp near Clintonville for a week of Confirmation Camp in early July. Optional retreats add YouthQuake in the Wisconsin Dells and weekend retreats at Crossways Camps. First Communion instruction is offered to fifth graders each spring, with First Communion celebrated when each student is ready.
Vacation Bible School takes place in August for children ages 3 through sixth grade, kicking off with a Sunday evening supper program for all ages and meeting Monday through Thursday mornings. Adult learners find a similar depth of programming: a Monday morning Bible study for men at 9:00 am, "Bible for Dummies" on Thursday evenings at 6:30 (in person and on Zoom), and a seven-week Adult Inquirers' Class offered each spring and fall for those new to the Lutheran tradition or to the ELCA.
The Motorheads ministry
One of St. John's most unusual ministries has no Sunday morning meeting. The Motorheads automotive ministry brings together car enthusiasts, including Gary, Jim, Chad, Bill, and Pastor Paul, who repair donated vehicles and put them in the hands of people who need reliable transportation. The team prefers 1995-and-newer mid-size cars, economy cars, and minivans in need of minor to moderate repair. Monday-evening meetings draw teens from inside and outside the church for a literal laying on of hands alongside lessons on buying, selling, and caring for cars. The ministry's motto is "everyone auto know Jesus."
Donors can itemize the gift of a working vehicle as either the fair market value when the car goes directly to a recipient or the proceeds when the Motorheads sell it. The team has placed at least three vehicles through the work of the Kutzora family alone, and a recent testimonial from a recipient whose old Camry was totaled by a deer captured exactly the kind of moment the ministry is built for.
Twenty years with Ulong'a Parish in Tanzania
In 1996, Mission Festival at St. John's hosted Pastor Elias Kitoi Nasari of what is now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. Almost thirty years later, that single visit has grown into a deep and active partnership. Ulong'a Parish sits about halfway up the 15,000-foot slopes of Mount Meru, a dormant volcano near the city of Arusha, where small subsistence farmers grow coffee, corn, beans, and potatoes and where four hundred to five hundred people may gather for a single Sunday worship. St. John's has sent delegations to Ulong'a over the years, and members share a portion of their Lenten offerings, typically about $1,500, through the Greater Milwaukee Synod to help with school tuition, emergency food, and small building projects.
St. John's also supports ELCA missionaries Steve and Bethany Friberg, who serve in the Meru Diocese. Friends of the congregation, Drs. Rishiael and Sarah Nanyaro, write that when envelopes arrive at Ulong'a marked "find smiles inside," "we surely made a smile after finding a precious gift." Sunday worship in the Ulong'a parish produced the red altar cloths that St. John's uses on Pentecost.
Mission partners across Washington County
St. John's members give time and talents to a wide network of local ministries. Volunteers and donations flow to the Albrecht Free Clinic in West Bend and Hartford, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Washington County, Habitat for Humanity of Washington County, Interfaith Caregivers of Washington County, the Crop Walk of Washington County, the Full Shelf Food Pantry in West Bend, Our Kid's Closet in Germantown, and Family Promise of Washington County. The congregation is paired with Lutheran Social Services as part of the Greater Milwaukee Synod Refugee Resettlement Task Force, and once partnered with Our Savior's Lutheran in West Bend to sponsor a Meskhetian Turk family immigrating from Russia, hosting them in the St. John's parsonage as the family found jobs, English classes, and medical care.
A second urban partnership runs through All Peoples Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. St. John's members regularly serve supper and tutor neighborhood children at All Peoples' Wednesday Night Alive program, donate gloves, scarves, and hats through the Warmth Tree, worship with All Peoples on Partner Sundays, and host All Peoples' Gospel Choir at St. John's during Lent. An annual $10,000 gift from St. John's Sharing God's Blessings capital campaign supports All Peoples' ongoing building campaign.
Naomi and Ruth Circles, and the quilters
Two women's circles keep much of the congregation's hands-on mission moving. Naomi Circle meets on the third Monday of each month at 1:00 pm, and Ruth Circle meets on the second Monday of each month at 6:30 pm. Together the circles pack Lutheran World Relief Health Kits, make quilts for LWR (which every fall head to neighbors in the US and around the world), sell fair-trade chocolate bars to support cocoa farmers in Ghana, run the Giving Tree that buys Christmas gifts through Lutheran Social Services and All Peoples, and provide the food and hospitality behind funeral and wedding luncheons at the church.
The quilting room works to a deadline every October, when finished quilts are boxed (the congregation is asked to drop 30-by-30-inch shipping boxes near the Quilting Room door) and shipped to Lutheran World Relief. Crocheters can make prayer shawls at home. Each summer, Ruth Circle collects dark-colored bath towels and individually wrapped bars of soap for Lutheran World Relief Personal Care Kits; after shipping sixty-nine kits in one year, the goal doubled to 140 or more.
Music: choirs, bells, and the music director
St. John's musical life runs on three choirs. The Adult Choir, for singers ages 14 and up, meets on Wednesdays at 7:00 pm in the sanctuary from early September through May, singing a mix of old favorites and new music. The Bell Choir, a three-octave group led by Marcia Earl, rehearses the first and third Thursdays and the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 pm, with a Beginner's Bell Choir at 6:15 pm on Wednesdays. Bonnie Puestow and Marcia Earl share organ duties. Music Director Tim Pfeifer gathers the choir and bell choir at the start of a new program year to welcome new ringers and singers.
Special Music throughout the year draws in trumpeters, flutists, accordion players, violinists, and vocalists, and "Oh, the Joy" Communion services on the third Sunday of each month deliberately invite piano, guitar, violin, and flute into the liturgy.
The building on Division Road
The church building at the corner of Division Road and Western Avenue grew in three pieces: a 1952 gathering space, a 1988 parish hall, and a new sanctuary and entrance dedicated on All Saints' Sunday in 2003. An elevator next to the back entrance serves the sanctuary and downstairs classrooms and fellowship hall, and accessible restrooms are on the main floor. Visitors using wheelchairs or mobility devices are welcomed through the back (west) entrance off the main parking area.
The grounds include a cemetery tended by the Cemetery Team, which is currently working on proposals for expanding and improving the space. A Prayer Team gathers on the first Thursday of each month at 9:00 am in the Upper Room to share prayer requests by email updates and lifted-up names. The Property Team organizes spring and fall clean-up days, the Security Team rehearses fire and tornado procedures, and a re-forming Youth Ministry Team of high schoolers and adults is taking shape alongside the Good Samaritan Team, which responds to requests for food cards, gas cards, phone cards, and rides to medical appointments.
Beliefs and welcome
St. John's summarizes what it confesses in the phrase "We are blessed. Let us be a blessing." Members affirm that God, Power and Love, is active in their lives, the world, and the church; that Jesus Christ is Lord of all; that the Holy Spirit gives significant gifts to every person and creates faith in us; that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the norm for faith and life; that Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are the ways God's grace and promises are made real for us; and that the church is called to be a servant church, welcoming all.
Members come from lifelong Lutheran backgrounds and from Roman Catholic, United Methodist, WELS, and LCMS upbringings, as well as from no church background at all. The congregation is part of the Northern Lakeshore Mission Cluster, a grouping of nineteen ELCA congregations in the area, and belongs to a denomination with full communion relationships with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church. Baptism, confirmation, weddings, and a one-session "Orientation for New Members" followed by a "New Member Sunday," offered at least twice a year, are all open to those who want to talk with Pastor Paul.