Get to know 2020 family camp speaker Dr. Matt Pickering, and what he will share

As final preparations go into our 2020 Camp Meeting weekend set for July 24-26, we asked Dr. Matt Pickering — District Superintendent for the PennYork Wesleyan District and speaker for both the evening services and morning adult Bible studies, to share more about himself and his family.

My wife Carmen and I both grew up in the Southern Tier of New York State. I was raised in a pastor’s home, spending my elementary years in Buffalo while my father served as student pastor of the Cheektowaga Wesleyan Church and my teenage years in the Central New York District while my father served as pastor of the Wallace Wesleyan Church.

Carmen was born in Michigan but soon after her family relocated to the Corning area. Carmen and I met during the summer of 1990 through our parents (we’ve always joked that our marriage was “arranged”). We dated and were married while we attended Houghton College.

We graduated from Houghton in 1993 and moved to Wilmore, Kentucky so that I could attend Asbury Theological Seminary. During our three years there, Carmen worked at a lab and supported us through school so that I could attend year round, full-time.

I experienced a call to ministry at the age of 20, not long after I recommitted my life to Christ. I was actually in a college classroom, a police administration class, when I first felt the Lord speak to me. After a period of soul-searching and prayer it became clear that the Lord was leading me away from a career in conservation/law enforcement to pastoral ministry.

Through the course of my ministerial studies, the Lord brought greater focus to His call on my life. I came to understand that the opportunity I was given to attend college and graduate school, and to do so virtually debt free, was not so that I could seek the “best” position possible but to be available to serve as a solo/senior pastor in the rural church context. Throughout my ministry, I have sought to be faithful to that call.

While “home” will always be the small, rural church, I have a passion for seeing churches of all sizes, and in all contexts, effectively raise up disciples that make disciples and to multiply themselves. I enjoy working with and in support of local church pastors as a district superintendent, and also find great joy in helping local churches experience revitalization and new life cycles.

I am currently preparing to lead Bible studies on Friday and Saturday morning that will focus on exilic passages and how the experience of exile for God’s people in biblical times can inform, challenge, and encourage the Church today.

Evening messages will focus on spiritual truths, viewed through the lens of our COVID-19 pandemic experience.