Parkside United Church of Christ

Pastor's Page

The Rev. Ray Jachowski Pastor

I was born and raised in rural Hunterdon County, New Jersey, some miles northeast of Philadelphia in a supportive family. I received my calling in 1989 after growing up in the Church. I graduated from Thomas Edison State College with a Bachelor’s degree in the Humanities and a Master of Divinity degree from Lancaster Theological Seminary.

I have served as a pastor of churches for the past twenty-five years in the Penn Central Conference, Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, and the Southern Conference. I have served as Pastor of St. John’s United Church of Christ in Phoenixville for the past six years.

I am married to Kathy, who serves as the Executive Assistant to the General Secretary of the American Baptist Churches, and we have two children: Gabriel Abraham, age 23, and Hannah Elizabeth, age 20.

I love history, sacred and classical music, rock and pop music, and also some jazz; biblical, liturgical, and theological research and writing (my academic journal article “The Death of Herod the Great and the Latin Josephus: Re-examining the Twenty-second Year of Tiberius” was published in 2015 in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism); collecting historic documents and books, Batman comics, and we love “glamping” (camping) as a family.