Clergy & Staff

Pastor Martha McCreight joined St. John’s as pastor in 2025. Originally from Iowa, she is an alumna of Luther College and entered the banking field as a credit analyst in commercial banking for four years until she heard the call to serve the church. Pastor Martha enrolled at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, interned at a congregation in the Denver suburbs, and accepted her first call in 2014 to serve in the Montana synod. After four years of ministry there, she moved in 2018 to take a call in the same synod as her husband in Pittsburgh, PA. where she served a diverse congregation in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

Her orientation to pastoral work is outwardly focused, community-engaged, and meets the community with inclusivity and creativity—branching out to identify the local area’s needs. 

On a personal note, Pastor Martha is part of a dual clergy couple. Together, they parent an adventurous young son and daughter and a sweet rescue hound. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, biking, CrossFit, meeting new people and being an open and approachable church representative inside and outside the church’s walls.

 Nancy is a native Connecticut resident having grown up in Norwalk; she’s lived in Stamford and Greenwich before returning to East Norwalk. The proud mom of two grown children; a daughter who resides in Atlanta, and a son, who recently returned from the UK and lives in Brooklyn. She holds a Bachelor of Science, Business Management from University of Phoenix.

After a career spanning over 30 years in the corporate world of business operations, administration, event planning and program management, she still finds herself looking for challenges and wanting to help others. Nance has experience managing several projects simultaneously; working within a global team environment. Through the philanthropy team at her previous employer, she volunteered tutoring local grade school children and currently volunteers at STAR, Inc. in Norwalk.

In recent months, she’s become hooked on playing online scrabble, solving NY Times crossword puzzles, dabbling more in cooking/baking and getting back into her love of photography.

Nancy’s passions include spending time outdoors walking by the water; whether it be at the Norwalk beach or Gulf Shores, AL. She loves gardening, mowing the lawn, walking 4-5 miles per day, and spending time with family and friends.

 Number cruncher, bookkeeper, bean counter and Dodo are all names to which Jody Van Houten responds. At a young age, and due to the inability to pronounce the name Jody, her niece coined a lifelong nickname, “Auntie Dodo.” Henceforth, and much to her family’s amusement, she will forever be known as Dodo!

Jody is a suburban dweller, happily married, lover of wine and mother of Irish twin boys. As a sibling to an older and younger sister, Jody stoically soldiers through middle child syndrome, a grievance that has afflicted her for a lifetime. Her math skills began at a young age when she soared through Parcheesi with lightning speed, crushing all opponents in her path, and flourished a bit more while attending Pace University. Her pursuits and pastimes include travel, bicycling, golf and Sudoku.

Jody has enjoyed over 22 years of simultaneous employment as bookkeeper at St. John’s Lutheran Church and contracting at various local businesses and entities. These fine places introduced her to new people, lifelong friends, hidden talents, volunteering and new concepts that helped shape the person she is today.