YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Glen Tieman

By Tim Wesley

Glen Tieman has spent most of his life serving in ministry. 

He’s also a pastor.

Which means he’s scattered a lot of seeds over the years, from his roots in Illinois to places such as Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Germany.  For the past 10 years, Glen and his wife, Del, have sprouted in New Wilmington, PA, just a block away from their oldest daughter and her husband, and their two daughters.  The mission field is fertile there, too.

“We traveled so much for my job, and then I retired about 10 years ago,” Glen said.  “Settling in New Wilmington was a no-brainer, so we could be close to our grandkids.”

Although it’s about a 45-minute drive to Dutilh – Glen and Del attend Sunday morning contemporary services and men’s/women’s Bible studies, and also participate in Pastor Jim Gascoine’s Thursday morning Bible study – living in proximity to their granddaughters offers several retirement perks. 

Glen has enjoyed picking up the girls at school and their conversations on the ride home.  He cooks dinner for them several times a week, and the families often eat together.  Del watches the kids from the time they get home from school until mom and dad return from their work days at Westminster College.

“It’s kind of a ministry for us,” Glen said.

For him, it’s the culmination of a lifetime in service, though that wasn’t pre-ordained.  Beginning in high school in his southern Illinois hometown of Christopher – Anyone else notice Christ in the name? – he was part of the church youth group, did some preaching at youth events and gave at least some thought to a future in ministry.  Then came college at Southern Illinois University, where he decided to major in psychology and “kind of fell away from the Lord,” he said.

After graduating in 1971, Glen fell into a job with the U.S. Army as a civilian working in human resources in Indianapolis.  In January 1973, the Army sent him to Washington, D.C., for a training course and he came back a changed man, but it had nothing to do with his job.

“I met this cute girl who was also taking the course, and after being there for two weeks I asked her to marry me,” he said.

A month later, Del Goforth said yes.  For a few months after that, while living in separate cities, they wrote letters to each other every day.

“That was kind of how we got to know each other,” Glen said.  “I think we still have some of those letters.  Every time we’ve moved, I found them again and have kept them.”

They married in August that year, and it’s now been 48 years and counting – perhaps proving the benefits of having the “write” stuff.

From 1973 until the end of that decade, they settled into a comfortable life, with Glen’s career progressing nicely and daughters Erin (1977) and Ada (1979) arriving on the scene.  Zachary soon followed (1982), but by then their comfortable life and Glen’s career had taken a spiritual detour.

“Things had been going great,” he said.  “I had a great job, a great wife and we had just had our second child.  But I still felt this big hole in my heart.  I just felt the call of God to enter the ministry and slowly realized that was what I wanted to do.”

So in 1980, Glen left his Army job and enrolled in seminary.  He graduated in 1982 and served as a full-time United Methodist pastor for the next six years in Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina and Illinois again.  Glen had answered the call.

“I enjoyed preaching and teaching,” he said.  “That’s what I did best and what I most enjoyed.”

What he didn’t enjoy were the church politics, especially in his last church assignment, which lasted from 1986-88.

“There were several cliques in the congregation and they didn’t like each other,” he said.  “When anyone wanted to do something, then the rest of them were mad about it, and they weren’t shy about telling me.  There was no winning, and it just broke me.”

Having enjoyed his previous time working as a civilian in human resources for the Army, Glen had no trouble picking up the pieces where he left off, starting at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.  He developed a specialty in “classification,” which meant helping managers design their organizations, and determine ranks, promotions and salaries.  He was involved in the most personal of personnel decisions, and he earned a stellar reputation before retiring in 2011.

“I took pride in being really good at it,” he said.  “A lot of my success came from my ability to have relationships with people and still get along with them, even when I had to turn down a request.  I tried to give people quick answers, whether it was yes or no, so at least they weren’t waiting forever.  And oftentimes they would want something, and I would be able to work with them and figure out a different organizational structure that helped them get what they were looking for.”

Like any job, it also came with challenges.

“Telling people no was never easy,” he said.  “I had a situation where someone made every effort to become my good friend, and then I had to tell him ‘no’ about something and he acted like I had just betrayed our friendship.  Another guy told me his wife would leave him if he didn’t get what he was requesting from me.  Those situations are hard.”

No matter the situation, Glen often called on his Christian faith and principles in the workplace.

“It really started with treating people the way I thought Jesus would treat them,” he said.  “I had an opportunity to be a witness because pretty much everyone I worked with knew I was a serious Christian.  I wasn’t shy about mentioning that I went to church.  A lot of the secret to why I was successful was because I cared about people; they weren’t just faces and numbers.  I tried to do right by them and enjoyed being able to help them and work with them to get the job done.”

While focusing on his career in human resources, Glen also returned to his spiritual calling, serving as a part-time pastor from 1989-2002.  And once again, he loved preaching and teaching.

“I have a spiritual gift for preaching and teaching,” he said.  “My level of knowledge of the Bible is strong, not from any course I’ve taken, but from having a regular time of reading the Bible every day and a regular time of prayer every day.  You do that for 40 or 50 years and it makes a difference.”

Through that regimen, Glen figures he reads the entire Bible every 15 months and estimates he’s read the Gospels as many as 80 times.

After so many years and so many readings, does he ever gain any new insights?

“Well, not always but sometimes the Lord will show me something new,” he said.  “The last time I was reading Colossians 1, I read verse 12 and it just said something to me that I hadn’t thought of before.  It talks about God qualifying us.  So He not only gives us a job to do, but He makes us qualified to do it.  To me, that means you don’t have to come to the table with everything you need, and that’s really cool.”

Especially if, like Glen Tieman, you choose to spend most of your life serving in ministry.

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If you or someone you know in the Dutilh family has an interesting story or profession, send us your ideas! We would love to help tell the story. Email: communications@dutilhumc.org.