New Loyal-York Center pastor has served in Wisconsin and Montana

Ever since she first became a pastor 33 years ago, Rev. Kathy Jury has been on a path of self-discovery, to find who she is and how she could best draw her congregations into a closer relationship with God. Her journey has taken her across the country, allowed her to have many firsts and taught her some valuable things about life.

Rev. Jury is the new pastor at Loyal United Methodist Church and York United Methodist Church, having first come to the area on Dec. 16 to replace Rev. Patsy Roe, who retired late last year. Originally from the Tomahawk area, Rev. Jury has served in parishes in both Wisconsin and Montana after first hearing the call 33 years ago at a lay speaker’s course “I had a love for the church,” she said. “I loved Sunday school, youth group. I was a lay leader in Greenville, Wis., and as a young mother, I didn’t think women could be pastors. I went to a lay speakers course and while I was there I saw there was a Methodist church there that had a woman listed as their pastor. I had asked, ‘They have female pastors?’ and they said, ‘Well, yeah.’” After learning that female pastors did exist, Rev. Jury said she knew that is what God wanted her to become. As she studied and raised her family, however, the world reared up some of its challenges that set her and her family on a slightly different path than they had expected.

“In the late 70s there was trouble in the economy and my husband couldn’t find work,” she said. “So we put feelers out there and we found that there was a company in Montana that was interested in hiring him and another one in Colorado. We took the one in Montana and we went there in 1982.”

Because of this change in environment, Rev. Jury eventually became an ordained minister in Montana instead of in Wisconsin and was sent to her first parish there in 1986. Preaching every Sunday at little churches nestled in the area’s mountainous regions, she said it was a unique experience.

“We moved out to Montana and while I was in Montana I got my ordination,” she said. “I served in churches in Montana for 14 years. I first served at Lincoln, Mont. That was something else. The church I served at was 75 miles away from where I lived, I had to go over a mountain pass every Sunday to get there. When it snowed, it was slow going. After that, I was in Corvallis and I served there for nine years.”

In each church she served up until her most recent assignment at Loyal and the town of York, Rev. Jury said she was their first female pastor. As their first, she said she had to learn a great deal about herself and the kind of pastor she needed to be to help those she was entrusted to.

“In my churches, I have been the first female pastor,” she said. “Most people were accepting, I don’t think there’s anyone openly against it. I really didn’t have problems in churches; I always said that not everyone is going to like me. I had to accept that. When you first go into ministry you have a Jesus complex, where you think you have to be all things to all people. It doesn’t take long to figure out that you can’t.”

Accepting this human fragility was not something Rev. Jury said happened overnight. Rather, it was something that was honed over the years as she traveled from church to church and interacted with different people who had their own unique personalities and opinions.

“I had to decide what I was and what I needed to be in ministry,” she said. “It’s a growth process that took years. I found that I had to stop worrying about people who are just being mean. I don’t have to take responsibility for other people’s attitudes.”

After 14 years in Montana, Rev. Jury said it became time for her and her family to return to Wisconsin. Desiring to be closer to her parents and other relatives, she said she wanted to also continue to serve in ministry. So, once she returned to Wisconsin in April 2000, she contacted the bishops in the state to see if there was a parish that needed a pastor.

“When I came in 2000 they didn’t really have any churches open,” she said. “In the spring, the bishops make their changes so there are not many options beyond April. We came back after. But later the district superintendent called to say I was being assigned.” Her first assignment back in the Badger state took her to the New Lisbon and Necedah area, where she remained for six years. After that, Rev. Jury said that she was sent to Black River Falls, where she remained until she retired in June of 2019. But retirement wasn’t the end for Rev. Jury, who still had a desire to help others. So after she retired, she went back to the bishops and said that if there was any church in need that was within an hour’s drive from her home in Black River Falls, she would take it as God’s sign that that was where she needed to be. In December, that place where God wanted her to be came up on her radar. When she first came to Loyal, Rev. Jury said both the Loyal United Methodist and York United Methodist churches have been holding Sunday services via Facebook, a situation that had been created due to the COVID-19 outbreak. But with guidelines in place to protect the congregation, she said their first in-person services in almost a year were held on Jan. 31. “We had three or four Facebook services,” she said. “But they wanted to get back to worship, it’s important to them ... There are guidelines in place to allow this to happen.”

As she continues to serve in her role as pastor, Rev. Jury said she is aligned with the congregation’s goals to return to active work in the community.

“I want us to get back into doing active ministry,” she said. “These churches do a lot of mission work and with everything that has been going on, they have not been able to do that. We want to get back into that.”

Rev. Kathy Jury is the new pastor at the Loyal and York Center United Methodist churches.

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO