Evolution of the Picklin' Parson
The best he can remember, the name “Picklin’ Parson” first came from a friend, Mark Holubec. Whether Mark meant it as a passing nickname or something more lasting, the name settled in like good seed in East Texas soil and somehow fit the man it followed. Before long, the Rev. Dr. Stan Copeland, “Stan”, to most folks and “Pastor Stan” to generations of children, was known in many circles simply as the Picklin’ Parson.
For more than a quarter century, he served as lead pastor of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, a richly diverse congregation of more than five thousand members. Most of his ministry unfolded in the sprawling cities of Houston and Dallas, yet his soul never strayed far from the red dirt roads and pine-shadowed rhythms of East Texas, where he was born, raised, and shaped.
Today, outside his hometown of Chandler, Texas, he spends several days a week on the family homeplace tending nearly 120 acres of pasture, garden, orchard, pigs, chickens, donkeys, longhorns and memory. Sixty acres on the homeplace remain part of the original family farm, now standing as a sixth-generation land for their three granddaughters. There have been rows of Noonday sweet onions, an East Texas staple, beside vegetables, a pecan grove, and pear trees planted more than a century ago by his great-great-grandfather, Erasmus Rasmus Cade. Folks around there still tell the story of how Cade bought adjoining land so his wife could own property contiguous to where she was born, the oldest of ten children to the Fitzgerald family. The farm comes with a tale rooted in love, land, and legacy that still echoes across those fields today.
But that is another story for another porch swing. Back now to the parson.
Colinasway and the COVID Challenge
Stan Copeland was called to preach at sixteen years old and has been preaching since 1977. Ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1983, he has spent more than four decades serving congregations, communities, and causes larger than himself. If his calling could be gathered into a single word, it would likely be this: others.
That devotion to others eventually carried him beyond the walls of the local church and into nonprofit work alongside clergy and lay leaders who shared a common conviction: churches ought not drift aimlessly through their communities, but prayerfully discern who God was calling them to become for the sake of the people they served.
In 2011, that conviction gave rise to a nonprofit called Colinasway. The name came from a Spanish derivative meaning “the way of the hills,” though to the Picklin’ Parson, hills were never merely geography. Hills were the hard climbs of life; challenges, burdens, obstacles, and sacred opportunities best faced together.
Through Colinasway, trained clergy and lay leaders worked alongside churches to help them discover vision, mission, values, and practical ministry plans for the future. But in 2020, when COVID-19 swept across the world, Colinasway largely went dormant. The pandemic changed nearly everything about church life, community care, and human connection. Sanctuaries emptied. Schools closed. Isolation settled in over cities and countryside alike. And in those hard days, another hill rose up before the parson.
Food Insecurity and the Birth of the Food Club
When schools shut down in the spring of 2020, the burden fell heavily upon working families already stretched thin. Many children depended upon school meal programs, and suddenly, parents found themselves trying to feed their children breakfast, lunch, and supper while still holding together jobs, homes, and hope.
The Picklin’ Parson, alongside leaders at Lovers Lane, helped launch a produce ministry aimed at addressing food insecurity based on his connection to produce suppliers he had worked with for years. On Saturdays, cars lined up through the church parking lot as volunteers distributed fresh produce to struggling families. What began modestly eventually grew into a ministry distributing more than a thousand bags of food weekly, supported in part through partnerships with the North Texas Food Bank. It was estimated that nearly five thousand people a week were being fed through the effort.
Yet the parson noticed something else. Urban areas often had more systems, resources, and partnerships available to confront hunger than many rural communities did. Out in East Texas, food distribution pantries were often open only once or twice a month and lacked the refrigeration necessary for handling fresh produce, dairy, and meats. So he gathered together directors from five area food pantries across eastern Henderson County and asked a simple question: “What if we tried something different?” That conversation eventually gave rise to the Picklin’ Parson Food Club.
The original vision was humble enough, perhaps 150 families participating in a “dignity model,” where members would contribute five dollars weekly and receive roughly thirty dollars worth of fresh produce in return. The philosophy behind the model mattered deeply to him. Folks were not receiving charity alone; they were participating with dignity, choice, and investment in their own well-being.
The dream required partners. It needed donations for purchasing produce, transportation systems, refrigeration, volunteers, and trusted relationships with local families. The Stillwater Farm Market Store already possessed the coolers, freezers, infrastructure, and welcoming spirit needed to help administer the program. Legal safeguards were established to ensure the Picklin’ Parson himself received no income from the Food Club, and Colinasway was revived with a renewed purpose and mechanism for tax deductible gifts could be made to further the mission.
Colinasway Becomes Picklin’ With Purpose
As the mission evolved, so too did the name. Colinasway shifted its focus toward food insecurity, food preservation, education, and community care. The old Picklin’ Parson slogan—“Picklin’ With Purpose”—began to feel less like a catchphrase and more like a mission statement. Eventually the nonprofit itself adopted the name.
Today, Picklin’ With Purpose centers its work around four guiding values: Education, Care, Outreach, and Service.
Education means teaching children and adults alike how to preserve food through water-bath canning, pressure canning, pickling, jams, jellies, and old-fashioned kitchen know-how that once tied generations together. During summer “Jammin’ & Jellin’” classes, children learn the craft themselves, entering their creations into regional fairs and the State Fair of Texas. Over the years, young participants have earned more than 150 ribbons for their work.
Care is found not only in feeding people, but in addressing the fractures that hunger alone cannot explain. Through cookbooks, videos, and storytelling, the Picklin’ Parson has spoken openly about political division, the widening distance between rural and urban America, racism, environmental stewardship, and the painful denominational divisions within the United Methodist Church over how we treat people who differ from the majority.
Outreach is perhaps most visible through the Food Club itself, which now serves more than 600 participating families. During the East Texas growing season, local farmers know there is always a place where fresh harvests can be purchased and redirected toward neighbors who need them most.
Service is seen in the countless deliveries made quietly and faithfully to food pantries and community ministries across the region—places like Lake Palestine United Methodist Church and its “Little Pantry on the Lake.” Fresh produce, apples, and oranges have also found their way into campuses throughout the Brownsboro Independent School District so children could head home for the weekend with healthy food in hand.
The Tastes of Texas
Around the same season the world slowed down during the 2020 shutdowns, another unexpected thing happened. With fewer distractions and more time at the store kitchen, jams, chutneys, fruit butters, relishes, and pickled vegetables began flowing steadily from kettles and jars.
The Picklin’ Parson label, designed by Mark Holubec, started catching people’s attention. Under an agreement with the store, products bearing the Picklin’ Parson name were produced and sold with every penny directed back toward the mission of Picklin’ With Purpose.
Then one day, a stranger wandered into the store, purchased over a hundred dollars’ worth of products, and casually mentioned he might like to carry some in his own store. A few days later, a phone call came from organizers connected to the Central Market Tastes of Texas event.
Before long, 750 cases of jam, fruit butter, and chutney had been ordered, and the Picklin’ Parson brand stepped into statewide exposure. Retail, wholesale, and online sales followed. Yet the sweetest part was never the product itself. It was the purpose behind it.
Every jar sold became another small act of service for somebody else.
At its heart, the Picklin’ Parson is not merely a brand. It is a way of living where preaching and preserving, farming and feeding, smokehouses and sanctuaries all belong to the same sacred work.
And the invitation remains wonderfully simple: partner in the climb. Purchase a product. Share a story. Support the mission. Help make a positive difference in the communities Picklin’ With Purpose is called to serve.
