Westminster Presbyterian Church ● 94 Tindall Road, Middletown, NJ 07748
Phone 732.671.2585 / Fax 732.671.2588 ● E-mail wpcmiddletown@verizon.net

Our Pastor

The Rev. Joseph E. Hein was born in Binghamton, New York.  He excelled in sports and received a full athletic scholarship to play baseball at Campbell University, a Division 1 school located in Buies Creek, North Carolina.  During his time at Campbell, a Southern Baptist-affiliated University, Mr. Hein experienced a profound reawakening of faith.  He became a serious student of the Bible, and following his graduation, backpacked to the ancient centers of the Christian faith including Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, Athens, and Corinth.

In 1981, Mr. Hein enrolled at the Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Center, Massachusetts, to study theology.  Mr. Hein transferred to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1985, and served an internship in Washington, D.C., as a full-time community organizer in the largely El Salvadorian Meridian Hill area.  Mr. Hein graduated from the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg in 1988 with a Master of Divinity degree.

His first call was to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Syracuse, New York, where he joined together with an ecumenical group of churches to build a dynamic inner-city ministry.  In 1992, Mr. Hein was called to St Paul Lutheran Church in Johnson City, New York.  During that time he founded Protecting Our Children, a child advocacy organization which teamed up with national child advocates Marc Klass and Maureen Kanka of Hamilton, New Jersey, to bring Megan’s Law to New York State on June 9, 1995.

Mr. Hein began his ministry with Westminster in July 2007.