By Kalleen Rose Ozanic
West Milford — Recently rebranded as the Almond Branch Church and Resource Center, the former Journey Church has expanded its efforts from within to better serve the West Milford community as a whole.
Under the leadership of head pastor Nick Padovani, the Almond Branch is committed to serving others and promoting awakening.
A major proponent of the vision of the Almond Branch is to “give back and be a part of creating a healthier climate and environment in West Milford.”
The leadership team at the church felt that the church needed to “reach the culture of West Milford and the world, instead of being stuck in its four walls, like a religious club. We wanted to be a part of the community and a support to the community, not be a separate entity.”
The Almond Branch will be taking a more active role in helping West Milford through service and improving community relations, continuing current projects like Faith in Action, which is one of the church’s best methods to reach out into the West Milford community.
Faith in Action began as an annual activity in 2007 and it substituted a regular Sunday service with community service.
Now, Faith in Action is a biannual service project, where Almond Branch church-goers donate time around the town, doing things like raking lawns of the elderly or beautifying town hall.
With a greater drive to serve the community, Padovani says there is a renewed focus in the Awaken Recovery program, which points greater attention to the opioid crisis that West Milford has found, much like the rest of the country.
The head pastor says, “We felt a strong pull to deal with the opioid issue in town; that was an impetus for the Almond Branch. We know that this is such a huge issue and we can’t stand on the sidelines, so we started a recovery program.”
The recovery program also works with several other local religious affiliations and organizations to ensure success and maintain the constant drive for assistance in West Milford.
“The goal is to get people in a healthy place and to empower families as well," he said. "It’s definitely helping the person who is struggling with addiction, but it's also supporting the people affected by the addiction. The recovery program provides a community. The answer to addiction, we believe, is not just treatment, but connections. Connections with your community, your society. A healthy ecosystem that fosters health.”
The church's new name comes from a Hebrew reference, the pastor says.
"‘Almond’ comes from Hebrew, meaning ‘awakening,’" he says. "The almond tree was the first ‘awake tree,’ the first tree to blossom in the spring. Part of the vision is bringing awakening to people. And what does that mean? The first part is spiritual awakening, but waking up to the meaning and purpose of life. Waking up to the fact that you are a human being and part of a community and society, that you have a responsibility to the people around you.”
By forming a sense of community and working outward in society, the Almond Branch has been reinvented as a church with roots that spread throughout not only West Milford, but the world.
Last year, the church took a mission trip to Haiti, a building and support project at the New Life Children’s Home in Haiti.
This is all part of Padovani’s drive for outward expansion and assistance as head pastor.
Pastor started at West Milford schoolsBut this was not always his path.
Originally a film student at Hofstra University, Padovani says the idea of working in the ministry “totally snuck up on me. It wasn't something that I was looking for.”
But soon, he was a student studying Christian counseling at Pillar College, and further studying social work at Rutgers University.
“It was something I felt I had to follow,” he says.
Having graduated from Rutgers, Padovani began an internship in the West Milford School District, pursuing in social work in several schools in West Milford, including his alma mater, West Milford High School.
He originally wanted to go beyond a church in his pursuit of ministry by working abroad and engaging in missionary work.
Yet Padovani found the perfect opportunity when he was offered a part-time job at West Milford schools and there was a part-time opening at the then-Journey Church.
Padovani’s primary condition for working in a church was promoting outward expansion and focusing on greater community support, which has influenced the vision and establishment of the Almond Branch.
Since that point, Padovani was a youth pastor for three years and will be tallying his seventh year as head pastor this January.
“For me, being a pastor is very much involved with connecting with the community," he says. "So, connecting with other community leaders, building relationships, and obviously preaching. I preach almost every Sunday but I invite other speakers often. I don't like to dominate the pulpit, so often there are a lot of guest speakers.”
There is also much counseling and meetings that can deal with short-term crises, where Padovani draws from his experience in Christian counseling and social work.
If you goPastor Nick Padovani preaches at the Almond Branch Family Sundays at 9 a.m., and also at the Relaunch Service on Sept. 16 at 11 a.m.