Rev. Joe Pickard
Pastor
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, as an only-child, Joe created “family” from the neighborhood groups of children and was constantly involved in orchestrating activities and projects. Pastor. Joe has three adult children and 6 grand-kids. His daughter Barbara, and her family, live in Richmond, Virginia; daughter Michelle and her husband, Joe, and in Parsippany, NJ; and daughter Andrea is a single parent with 4 children, living in eastern Pennsylvania.
College was series of start-and-stops: Community College close to home during a tumultuous family time. After graduation, he entered the College of Architecture at the University of Arizona (Tucson), but was drafted during senior year. He returned to finish the Architectural Degree after 3 years in the Army, having served in Vietnam and being assigned as an instructor in the Army Intelligence School, Ft. Huachuca, AZ.
Since his ordinations (Deacon in 1984; Priest in 1985, in the Episcopal Church), ministry has led him from congregation to congregation where he has used what he says is a gift from God to lead congregations to their ‘next steps’. He began his “Episcopal” life in 1978 at St. Philip’s in the Hills, Tucson, AZ, in Lay Ministry – teaching Church School, serving on the Vestry, heading the Stewardship Program, designing Children’s Worship Services, and coordinating the expansion of the congregation’s physical plant. He went on to attend The Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA. He first served as a Deacon, and then Associate Priest, at St. Dunstan’s, McLean, VA. Soon after hosting Bishop Jack Spong as a Diocesan Keynote Speaker for the Education Conference, Fr. Joe found himself in the Diocese of Newark. Since 1986 he has served in multiple churches in that area.
It would be difficult to briefly sum up all the work that The Rev. Joe Pickard has done for the congregations he has served during the past 30+ years. Most recently at St. John the Divine, HasbrouckHeights, under his leadership, the congregation has grown and expanded, joining with St. Martin’s Church in Maywood. His leadership led to the creation of ‘Care on the Corner’, a non-profit organization built out of the church’s ministry which provides numerous services and resources to the people of Hasbrouck Heights and its surrounding community. Pastor Pickard spent 16 years laying that foundation for these congregations and the community.
Ministry at St. John's
Pickard’s work began at St. John’s in 1996 when he was brought in to work with the congregation and its then sister-church, St. Mary’s in RidgefieldPark. After 2 ½ years, it was decided that St. Mary’s would end its ministry in RidgefieldPark. With about half the St. Mary’s congregation joining St. John’s, the church went on to find its vision. By incorporating outreach ministries and the use of the talents of the people within the congregation, it began to develop a wide variety of offerings to the community. That basic premise is what led to the birth of ‘Kids on the Corner’, an activity program for neighborhood children. People in the congregation came together to create a week of activities for children in the community after a multi-congregational vacation Bible school had dwindled down to just one week and families were scrambling for new things to do with the children.
From there, other needs within the community were recognized and programs such as English as a Second Language (ESL) were developed which grew popular so quickly they had to scramble to find teachers who were willing to help. Unwilling to pay for professional teaching services, the church sought out to find individuals who would donate their time and services to help the overall community. From there, ‘Care on the Corner’ was born.
Finding God
Many things throughout the course of his life eventually led Pickard to the priesthood. There was no ‘epiphany’, just a gradual understanding of God in his life and an understanding of the gifts that make him particular and unique - that come from God.
In his earlier years he thought the church was not for him. His first experience with church was not a great one. When he was just 8-years old, every Sunday his parents would drop him off at a Methodist Church out in southern California. Pickard said class was conducted in one, dark room, lit only by one incandescent light bulb that hung from a string off the ceiling. He and the other kids would sit with their hands folded at the desk while a woman with her hair tightly tied in a bun would teach. The walls were dank; no one smiled. One day he just got up, went upstairs to the main sanctuary, and announced he was leaving, and never went back. That was the last experience he had with church until he entered the Army years later.
“It was the Army that introduced me to God in a very positive way,” he said. While serving in Vietnam, it all began with a decision to attend Sunday service and classes as a way of getting out of daytime duties. But he soon began to develop his own relationship with God through the experience. Pickard was a MACV Advisor stationed at a Vietnamese battalion base in the center of where it all began, Ben Het, and ultimately where it all ended, he says. They were stationed there for 11 months and were shelled daily. “By the grace of God I made it out,” he says adding that he literally was on the last plane out of the area.
Following his Army deployment, he went on to finish schooling to become an architect. While in Tucson, Arizona, he became involved with St. Phillip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, a very large congregation that he observed as being somewhat rigid and stiff. He, and his wife at the time, began to teach middle-school aged children in the church school. They introduced movement to the program through music and dance, moving away from the preconceived notion that children should be seen and not heard, he explained. Their work in this group led to a collaboration with parents in the development of a worship team. Within a couple of years there were more people in the Parish Hall for the Children’s Worship, then there were in the church. Many suggested he become a priest, telling him that he was good at development, design and helping find that church is a great place to be; but his response was, “not for me.” Pickard loved the architectural work and did not want to leave Tucson. Eventually, he did get further involved in the church, leading it to an expansion, and witnessing the parish double in size over a span of six years. Once again, he was told he belonged in ministry.
When he arrived at his own decision to enter seminary there were many logistical things that had to be worked out as it meant uprooting his wife and children to Virginia. Pickard said he knew that if God willed it, all would be worked out in time for him to enter the seminary, and it did.