Father Joseph Pickard Retires After 16 Years at St. John's Church

It would be quite hard for most to briefly sum up all the work that Father Joseph Pickard has done for and the Hasbrouck Heights community.

Under his leadership, the congregation has grown and expanded, joining with St. Martin’s Church in Maywood. His leadership led to the built out of the church’s ministry which provides numerous services and resources to the people of Hasbrouck Heights and its surrounding community.

Father Pickard spent 16 years laying that foundation for these congregations and the community and now it is time for him to move on.

Pickard, who also resides in the borough, just officially began his retirement. He doesn’t really like the word retirement, he says. He sees it more like it’s a time to get started again and move on to the next thing.

Since he was ordained, first as a deacon in 1984 and then as a priest in 1985, ministry has led him from congregation after congregation where he has used what he says is a gift from God to lead congregations to their next steps.

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 Ridgefield Park. After 2 ½ years it was decided that St. Mary’s would end its ministry in Ridgefield Park.

With about half the St. Mary’s congregation joining St. John’s, the church went on to find its vision, Pickard said. By incorporating outreach ministries and the use of the talents of the people within the congregation, it began to develop 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, Pickard explained.

From there other needs within the community were recognized and programs such as English as a Second Language was developed which Pickard said grew popular so quickly they had to scramble to find teachers who were willing to help. Unable to pay for professional services, the church sought out to find those who were willing to donate their time and services to help the 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 really no epiphany, he says, 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 himself.

In his earlier years he thought the church was not for him.

His very 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 where he was raised. Pickard said class was conducted in 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. One day he just got up 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 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.

He went on to finish schooling to become an architect. While in Tucson, Arizona he became involved with St. Phillip’s 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 then there were in the church, Pickard said.

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 his architecture work and did not want to leave Tucson. He did get further involved in the church eventually 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 the 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. 

An encounter with a bishop from the diocese in Newark led him to New Jersey where he’d go on to work with numerous congregations which eventually brought him to St. John’s.

The future

Right now he has no official assignment to move on to but his work in ministry continues. He says he is looking to take this time to grow, to learn and expand his knowledge of technology. Every congregation in the diocese is moving into the computer world, creating websites, skills which he says he does not have and was not able to bring to Care on the Corner. He plans to work on this so he’s ready for whatever comes next. 

He will continue to help congregations that need someone and will continue with interim ministry training. The friendships he has made at St. John’s and St. Martin's will last forever but now is a time for the congregations to move on and for him to as well.

Father Pickard performed his final service at St. John’s on Sunday, Feb. 12 which was followed by a luncheon in his honor at the Lodi Knights of Columbus hall which was attended by hundreds of congregants from both St. John’s and St. Martin’s church. Mayor Rose Heck and Councilwoman Pamela Link presented him with a proclamation citing all his many contributions and declaring Feb. 12 Joseph Pickard Day in the borough.