Momentous Moments, Mud, and Mergers
In October, 1935, Jack Pickford was adjusting to his first pastorate at Crossfield Baptist Church in Alberta. He was also busy preparing for his ordination—all this for a 23-year-old, single man who had not even been a believer four years earlier. Pickford was to become one of the most important personages in the history of the British Columbia Baptists and the future Fellowship. This quiet, unassuming man faithfully served the churches, their schools, and the Fellowship as a whole right up until his passing in 1995.
A detailed biography of Jack Pickford’s life is recorded in Ian C. Bowie’s book, Jack and Alberta Pickford: Builders of a Baptist Legacy, (The Baptist Foundation of B.C. 1999). What follows is just a glimpse—which ought to remind all of us that even serious, academic types have their moments!
In 1955, Pickford was dean of Northwest Baptist Bible College. He often travelled with teams from the college on their tours of local churches as representatives of the school.
“…the men’s quartet and ladies’ trio traveled with Jack Pickford to Mullingar, a tiny town in northern Saskatchewan. They were traveling in the college’s wood-paneled station wagon which was in a state of perilous disrepair after being side-swiped. Relentless rain had turned the dirt road into gumbo. Although the station wagon crawled along in a determined effort so they didn’t slide off the road, more heroic measures were called for: Each man took off his shoes, rolled up his pant legs, and walked beside the car, steering it so it would not leave the road. Wanting to ease the tension, Jack Purdie shared from his endless cache of humor; that is, until the exasperated dean looked across the hood of the car and growled, ‘Jack! Enough!’
The team arrived two hours late. Although the congregation should have been sung out after filling time singing through the hymn book, they wanted to hear the team’s entire program. Jack Pickford capped the evening off by preaching his message in his stocking feet, his wet pant legs rolled up and covered in mud.” (p 96-97)
But that same year there were more serious things afoot. The brand-new Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada was courting the Regular Baptist Churches in the west in the hopes of a merger between the two organisms. Pickford met W. H. MacBain, who was the speaker at the B.C. Convention that year. MacBain had been one of the key players in the merger between the Union Baptists and the Independent Baptists in the east. MacBain and Pickford became fast friends and between them proved to be once more, key players in what would become a cross-Canada fellowship.