Bethel United Methodist Church

Reverend John Parille is our Senior Pastor and oversees the Bethel United Methodist Church and the Long Ridge United Methodist Church. Pastor John comes to us with years of business, sales and marketing experience. This experience coupled with his depth of spirituality, passion for bringing Christ to the world and his love for people, offers a major contribution to our our ministry team here at BUMC.

Pastor John began his pastoral ministry by serving as an Associate Pastor at New Life UMC in New Fairfield CT in 2010. Since that time, Pastor John as served at the Gaylordsville UMC from 2013 until 2016. He has been the  Senior Pastor at the Bethel UMC as well as the Long Ridge UMC since 2016. Pastor John is also the Parish Leader for the Western Frontier Parish groups which consists of 6 local Methodist churches.

In addition to handling the normal pastoral duties of preaching, teaching and visitation— Pastor John helps our church by putting a face to our church out in the community. He develops strategies to help fulfill the segment of our mission to make Jesus known beyond our four walls.

This includes reaching local families who are unchurched, developing evangelism teams, working closely with our leaders and members  to provide instruction on evangelism, follow-up of visitors and developing marketing strategies to make our ministry known in the Greater Bethel area.

Pastor John is married to his wife Maria and they have four daughters as well as a grandson named Jack.

Jessica Bardelli was born and raised here in Bethel, and is a lifelong member of Bethel United Methodist Church. She was brought up in the BUMC community, attending Sunday School with Linda Van Tassel, one of her first musical influences. 

Jessica began playing the clarinet in 1991, and has since become accomplished in all woodwind instruments as well as piano. She went on to pursue a career in music, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Music Education, with a focus in saxophone.

Along with serving as the Music Director at BUMC, Jessica is the Office Manager at Jesse Lee Church in Ridgefield, and teaches private music lessons. She has spent many years as an active area musician, and especially enjoys times when she can collaborate with other local church musicians and music directors. 

In her spare time, Jessica enjoys baking and cooking, painting, gardening, birdwatching, reading, and volunteering with Appalachia Service Project, and is an active member of the Footsteps In The Sand Christian Community. She lives in Bethel with her partner: Dave, guinea pigs: Kevin and Oscar, and cats: Muenster, Gouda, and Brie.

Sarah holds her B.A. from Barnard College, where she studied Urban Studies and Music. After graduating Sarah spent two years serving in the Peace Corps in Mauritania, West Africa. She has been teaching piano, singing, and accompanying choirs since her return to the U.S. in 2009.

Sarah started singing in the BUMC choir in 2011, and became our pianist in 2017. Sarah's other interests include martial arts, calligraphy, and learning to play the organ. Her future goals are to continue playing, teaching, and learning music for as long as possible!

Jaime Garamella was called back to faith through music, first through a hymn one of his students asked to learn, and then through worship music he heard at a church in Manhattan.

Jaime teaches voice and guitar at NYC Guitar School, where he directs the Vocal Program. Jaime is also a singer-songwriter who performs locally, and plays bass in several bands as well.

Growing up in Danbury, Jaime sang in the children's choir at St. James Episcopal Church. He fell in love with guitar in high school, and later studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music. Jaime lived in New York City for over a decade; teaching, studying voice, and fronting his own band.

Jaime lives in Bethel with his wife and two young children. He enjoys coaching youth baseball and basketball, and watching live music whenever he can.