CHARLOTTE — Deacon Joseph Becker is celebrating five years of ordained ministry at St. Matthew Parish and his first year serving as assistant formation director for the diocese’s Permanent Diaconate program.
The call to serve runs deep in the Becker family. His son, Father Brian Becker, directs formation for first-year seminarians at St. Joseph College Seminary and serves as the diocese’s vocations promoter. Another son, Mark Becker, is enrolled at the college seminary. Their daughter, Deena, lives in Northern Virginia with her family, including three boys.
Deacon Becker and his wife of 46 years, Tammy, remain active at St. Matthew Parish, their spiritual home since the church’s founding in 1986.
“We jumped in right away. I was on the parish council from the very beginning. My wife was involved in faith formation,” he says.
Growing up Catholic
Deacon Becker grew up in Cincinnati, attending Catholic elementary school and graduating from a Jesuit-run Catholic high school.
“There is no story about awakening in my faith, because I have always been living in the faith. It has always been front and center in my life,” he says.
His first career was in the theme park industry. He worked at Kings Island outside Cincinnati, where he met his wife. What began as a seasonal job eventually became a career. After college, he took a permanent position and later invested in six theme parks, including Carowinds.
“That’s how we got to Charlotte,” he says. “But we ended up selling our business to Paramount Studios in the early ’90s.”
At age 35, he found himself looking for a new chapter. Though too young to retire, he was recruited to serve as CEO of the American Red Cross in the Charlotte region and later was asked to lead the organization’s national Disaster Relief Services.
When he retired in 2017, becoming a deacon was not part of his plans.
“I never quite got a text from the Lord saying, ‘I would like you to become a deacon,’ but what I did get came step by step,” he explains.
A desire to deepen his faith led him to enroll in lay ministry classes, which at the time were a prerequisite for diaconate formation.
“The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn,” he recalls.
At the end of the two-year program, he was invited to explore the possibility of becoming a deacon. He and Tammy spent time in prayer and discernment.
“It took a while to discern what God was leading me to do,” he says. “That was not my plan for retirement. I was just going to be one of those men that hangs around the parish and volunteers for all these different ministries, and travels a lot, and plays some golf. Man plans, God laughs, as they say!”
For Deacon Becker, learning to serve after years spent leading as a corporate executive was a humbling transition.
“My role as a deacon is to be attentive and present and do what God leads,” he says. “I’ve tried to set aside that part of my professional career that was planning, organizing, directing and staffing, and to be more responsive to what the Lord needs.”
Alongside his ministry at St. Matthew, Deacon Becker also helps form future deacons for the diocese. The Permanent Diaconate program currently includes a class of 14 men preparing for ordination in January and another class of 12 men who have recently begun formation.
“A lot of being deacons isn’t necessarily what you do – it is who you are,” he says. “We are ordained and configured as Christ the servant.”
A family full of vocations
Faith has always been fundamental to the Becker family, although Deacon Becker admits he was surprised when his oldest son began discerning the priesthood.
“That was an exciting message to hear that Brian was discerning the priesthood – such a special moment in our family,” he says.
Later, his younger son Mark – a Marine officer training to be an aviator – also discerned a call to the priesthood. He is now in the seminary, sponsored by both the military and the diocese.
These days, Deacon Becker jokes that the family roles have reversed spiritually: “Father Becker is now my spiritual father. We joke about it, but soon, God willing, I will have two spiritual fathers.”
— Lisa M. Geraci
