About

I thought it best that I give you an introduction about myself. I’m Jim Paulson and I am an ordained Lutheran Pastor who serves a merged congregation of Lutherans and Presbyterians in Dolgeville, NY. I have been blessed to know and care for people of two faith traditions who have come together to be a loving community of believers. My seminary training was at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and before that I worked as a geologist/hydrogeologist with the U.S. government, the State of Ohio, served as a consultant, and earlier in my career I worked in industry. Basically, my story is that I resisted God’s call to serve as a pastor until God got my attention in the fall of 1997. I was at my brother’s wedding and while standing up front as his best man, I started to realize that God still wanted me to be a pastor. It was the witness of many faith pastors who cared for my mother during a time of illness and who supported me and my family over the years that turned me around to my call to serve as a pastor. Not all pastors are alike in terms of the gifts we each bring to our calls. One of my gifts is to offer pastoral care and it was my interest in pastoral care that led me to complete an additional three units of clinical pastoral education during my internship year. It made my internship year pretty busy, but it was clearly some skills that the Lord sought for me to have as a pastor. Bottomline, I have the training and skills to be a pastor and a chaplain to my congregation.